The Gifted and Twice Exceptional in Education

Gifted students are often perceived as students who perform in everything they undertake and for whom achievement comes without difficulty. Providing them with special educational services is therefore viewed as unnecessary, and even considered as hogging resources that students with difficulties require. Unbeknownst to many, gifted students often underperform and can exhibit learning difficulties. This ‘globally gifted’ myth, based on an outdated definition of giftedness as high achievement shared by educators, places gifted students at risk for poor achievement, and prevents them from having access to the resources they deserve . Even when presented with professional assessments, teachers and school administrators still deny them access to programs and resources. It could therefore be argued that ‘anti-intellectualism is alive and well in our society’ . Gifted and twice exceptional students face intense discrimination within education today which can only be rectified if educators accept and understand how giftedness is currently defined by professionals.

Historically, giftedness was first defined as high IQ scores on standardized tests. It was believed that those who scored highest demonstrated higher intelligence. Ensuing models of giftedness therefore theorized giftedness only as extremely high IQ scores . Today, research in gifted development, cognition and behaviour demonstrates that giftedness is much more complex than intellectual quotient. While excellence and its statistical rarity is still significant for giftedness, IQ scores themselves are now understood as evidence for the existence of giftedness, and not as an automatic identifying factor .           

Gifted individuals have an accelerated development, meaning that they go through the developmental milestones more rapidly than other children . Developmental characteristics include early verbal abilities, differences in abstract reasoning, motor abilities as well as emotional sensitivity and intensity .

Additionally, gifted individuals demonstrate unique cognitive strengths. They are better at assimilating, manipulating and utilizing abstract concepts and facts . Research in brain development reveals that the gifted brain functions differently, processes information faster and allows gifted individuals to integrate cognitive, emotional and sensory information more efficiently than the average individual . This translates into heightened awareness and sensitivity, as well as a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences . The combination of these advanced cognitive abilities and greater intensity creates an ‘asynchronous development’, in which advanced cognitive capacities together with heightened sensitivity can trigger emotional reactions that seem immature. Asynchronous development can make them vulnerable if gifted children are not given the appropriate tools to understand their emotions .

Advances in research have allowed psychologists to understand giftedness as high potential. Francoys Gagné’s model of giftedness expresses this by clearly differentiating between giftedness and talent . Giftedness is conceptualized as a natural ability in at least one domain of intelligence, placing them in the top 10% of their age group. Talent, however, is defined as superior mastery placing the individual in the top 10% achievement-wise. This model is a cornerstone in giftedness research, as it separates inherent ability from performance and introduces the possiblity of being gifted and underachieving.

Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences also significantly influenced how giftedness is defined. It widened areas in which children can excel to include mathematical, verbal, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, as well as musical and emotional intelligences .

Gifted individuals also exhibit unique behaviors, such as high levels of task commitment or motivation and high levels of creativity. Separately, these behaviors are not indicators of giftedness. However, the interaction of commitment and creativity with their above-average abilities create this unique gifted behaviour . Gifted individuals will exhibit these traits in areas in which they have greater ability, and not in all contexts. Therefore, giftedness involves particular contexts, in which situational factors influence the expression of giftedness.  

Today, giftedness is therefore understood as multidimensional, and requiring identification by qualified professionals through extensive quantitative and qualitative assessments. It involves a capacity for high performance, outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains of intelligence, accelerated development, unique cognitive abilities leading to creative and divergent thinking, as well as behavioural traits . Giftedness is not limited to IQ scores; it is a different way of being, doing, thinking and learning.

Twice exceptional students are those identified as both gifted and disabled, meaning that they simultaneously demonstrate superior intellectual ability in certain areas and specific learning problems . The interaction of their high ability and their disability does not imply that they possess characteristics from both groups. Twice exceptional individuals, also abbreviated to ‘twice’ (2e), possess characteristics that are unique to them. The interaction of their high ability and their disability creates significantly different experiences, cognitive and socio-emotional characteristics as well as educational needs that are distinct from both gifted individuals and disabled individuals .         

Twice exceptional students are often not identified as either gifted or learning disabled because one masks the other. It prevents them from having access to gifted programs and to have accommodations for their learning disability . Three forms of masking are possible: (1) their high ability masks the disability and they are only identified as gifted, (2) their disability masks their high ability so only the disability is diagnosed and (3) both remain unidentified . Being misidentified reduces educators’ ability to address both giftedness and disability in learning environments, which creates more cognitive and socio-emotional challenges for them.

Twice exceptional students typically demonstrate high verbal comprehensive and expressive abilities, good oral and conceptual understanding, excellent vocabularies, exceptional analytic and comprehension skills, show extraordinary interest or talent in a particular area and use sophisticated problem-solving skills . They are highly imaginative, extremely creative and exhibit strong divergent thinking, visual-spatial and numerical processing abilities . Despite these advanced capacities, they typically experience challenges with processing speed, working memory, reading, writing and spelling which translates into a significant discrepancy between measured intelligence and academic achievement . This discrepancy is particularly observable in how twice students display above-average ability for complex conceptual manipulations such as algebraic concepts, yet can struggle with basic addition and subtraction.

Important social and emotional difficulties arise from struggling to understand how they are unable to express or write the answers they know, as they are acutely aware of their difficulties in learning despite their capacity . This consequence of their interacting high ability and disability makes them particularly vulnerable to develop poorer self-perceptions, low confidence and negative attitudes toward school . While twice exceptional students are very resilient, perseverant, demonstrate high levels of motivation and possess positive personality traits, they are very sensitive to criticism and tend to generalize their academic failure to themselves . This leads them to be easily frustrated and to prefer avoiding difficult tasks over risking mistakes or failure. Therefore, not being identified and not having access to appropriate education programs involve significant pervasive psychological consequences such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and self-perception, as well as social isolation and withdrawal .

As 2e students exhibit characteristics that differ from both gifted and disabled students, their educational needs are very distinct. Putting them in gifted programs designed for students without a disability does not provide them with a learning environment conducive to their success. Twice exceptional students require simultaneous intervention for both gifts and disabilities in the form of strength-based approaches, combined with accommodations for their weaknesses . This method removes the focus on their disability, learn appropriate strategies and allows them to develop their talent . As a result, they exhibit fewer disruptive behaviors and emotional challenges.

However, giftedness and twice exceptionality are concepts for which educators have little awareness . Their general understanding is that giftedness automatically guarantees achievement and performance. However, as giftedness is a higher potential whose expression is affected by context and opportunities, achievement is not assured. In order to express their potential, gifted children require education that responds to their need for faster learning and uses their cognitive strengths. However, as many gifted children underperform despite their high potential, school boards do not consider them as gifted. This problematizes and prevents access to gifted programs for underperforming gifted students . This represents an even greater issue for twice exceptional students, whose very own identity is deemed implausible and paradoxical by educators . Teachers and school boards tend to be skeptic of their identification, leading them to apply recommendations inconsistently . Teachers’ reluctance, and sometimes refusal to accept new definitions of giftedness and twice exceptionality create more barriers to success, alienate students from school experiences and makes education more difficult and traumatic . Research on 2e experiences in education reveal that teacher and school attitudes toward their gifts and/or disabilities directly affect school adjustment, talent development, academic achievement and social progress as much as the child’s own capacity and ability.

While research has provided overwhelming evidence for gifted and twice exceptional students’ unique educational needs, teachers and school boards are still very resistant to provide them with special resources and programs to develop their talents. As a result, gifted students are denied an education that allows them to fulfill their potential. Ensuing psychological and socio-emotional consequences affect their ability to perform and to develop their talent . It is imperative that educators abandon the myth that gifted students are ‘globally gifted’, strive to understand their needs and capacities, and provide appropriate learning environments . If teachers persist to use a limited and outdate definition of giftedness, many will be denied the very services designed to address their needs. Being gifted does not justify inaction by the education’s system. Equity in education is also an issue for the gifted, and calls for urgent, immediate action.