SAMANTHA ABEEL / OFFICIAL HOME PAGE

Samantha's Biography :: Presentations / Workshops :: Elizabeth's Biography :: Reviews :: Contact

Samantha Abeel, public speaker and author of two books, is a young woman with a learning disability whose life journey inspires audiences and gives hope to those facing and working to overcome obstacles. As a presenter, she speaks candidly about the difficulties of growing up with a learning difference from elementary school through graduate school and how it impacts her life in the present. Her powerful presentations focus on strategies to cope with school, social and emotional issues, and the potential to create a successful and rewarding life when you focus on strengths.

In both her presentations, and her beautiful and haunting memoir, My Thirteenth Winter, Samantha describes in evocative detail how

Samantha Abeel

her life has been affected by her learning difference before and after she was diagnosed. In seventh grade, she began to suffer anxiety attacks as she struggled with the pressures of junior high, from balancing schoolwork to remembering locker combinations, to social situations with her peers and explaining her learning difficulties with math to teachers who couldn’t understand why a “good” student like Samantha wasn’t excelling. Though signs of a learning difference were there all her life, she was not diagnosed with dyscalculia, a learning disability that effects her capacity to learn skills based on sequential processing such as math, spelling, and grammar, until she was thirteen years old. Her story is honest, hopeful, and is ultimately an inspiring account of courage and strength.

samantha's biography | presentations / workshops | elizabeth's biography | reviews | contact