Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Interesting article

Not exactly news for people on this forum, but it was new to me that there is a higher incidence of E in gifted population:

http://theconversation.com/intellectually-gifted-students-often-have-learning-disabilities-37276

With the article mentioning 14% of gifted being identified with learning disabilities, as compared with 4% of the general population being identified with learning disabilities... it is possible that the higher incidence among the gifted population may be partly a function of taking a close look at the performance (and performance discrepancies) of these children... whereas the performance (and performance discrepancies) of mainstream children may not be examined.

Agreed. Kids need to stick far our of the bottom of the box to get testing provided by the school board (at least here). Otherwise it is up to parents to do it which means that only the kids who's parents A) can afford it, B) know a bit about how the system works (or who research it), C) know what LD's are, D) think that there is enough of a mismatch between the marks and potential will actually bother to do it and E) think that the school will do something with results. I have friends that assumed the school would be on top of everything and their kids were much older when they finally tested privately and found out (this was me hinting for a couple years...). Other kids aren't even that lucky and never get tested.

In grade 1 DS was getting low marks and not completing most of his work at school but then coming home and begging us to read Death By Black Hole (Neil deGrasse Tyson) to him at bed. This was such an obvious difference it was impossible to ignore. If he had been begging for us to read him something more average we might not have questioned his school performance and assumed he was low-average. If we as parents hadn't both breezed through school without breaking a sweat we might not have questioned low performance. If we were new immigrants and not familiar with the system we might not have questioned. I'm sure there are a lot more if's in there as well but that is a start.

For us, it was the extreme "out of sync" behavior- we started with an IQ test, then a neuropsych and language testing a few years later.

DS was solving shorter math problems years above his age, but was melting down over much easier problems that contained more words/ steps. We discovered ADHD and language impairments.

When an eight year old can remember 48 digits of Pi and all of the elements on the periodic table-- yet have to be told literally ten times to "please get dressed" and "please focus on what we need to do right now" it could be a twice exceptional situation.

Unfortunately, I'm on my iPad so can't paste, but there is an article on SENG about twice exceptional children. It's written by a neuroscientist- I thought it had great information and described the consequences to the child.

We're dealing with a situation now where I feel DS is being held back on harder concepts due to his carelessness. It's having the unfortunate effect of de-motivating him toward his favorite subject (math). We're going to diplomatically introduce the concept of scaffolding during our teacher conference.

I'll always remember DS's kindergarten report card. One line said that he is working on his multiplication and division and the next line said that he still needs to work on cutting with a scissors and getting glue out of the bottle without making a mess. In his case it is dyspraxia/developmental coordination disorder. He is now 8 and can tell you about World War I but forgets to kick his feet doing the backstroke. You have to tell him literally every 2 seconds "keep kicking, keep kicking". DD9 can read at a very advanced level but can't write a story. She can understand complicated word problems, algebra, etc. but forgets 8X7 (or it takes 20 seconds to recall). So I have two 2e kids and have dealt with amazing ignorance from people in the school system (as well as people who have been helpful). That's a good article to share with people who need a little help grasping the basics of 2e.

Totally unscientific but various GT teachers my kids have had estimate that closer to 30% of kids in their dedicated GT classrooms have some sort of LD though many of them are not identified formally. Maybe the 2e kids don't fit as well in the regular classrooms so their parents are more likely to look for alternatives??

Two thoughts:

1. Keep in mind that the definition of LD has historically required average to above average overall intelligence, which means that the average IQ of children with LD will by definition be higher than that of the general population.

2. There is data to suggest that the further one is from the mean, the more intrapersonal variation there is. (Hence, splinter skills and savantism in the intellectually-disabled population.) This kind of variation in the right-hand tail might look like LD.

Given the difficulty of identifying 2Es, I'd mistrust the data. The author herself appears to be working in a context where there are problems with identifying students appropriately.

A GT teacher of thirty years' tenure at our elementary noted that she had never been to an IEP meeting (until ours).

The Process Coordinator at DS' school told me they have "almost never" had a child with an IEP in the program.

Since selection for the program is based almost entirely upon GAI from WISC-IV, it's difficult to believe there's not been another child who needed one, whether or not the data from this article is accurate. No matter what statistics are used, wouldn't there be more than JUST MY SON with 120-ish students (grades 6-8)enrolled each year?

And one more thought: much of the research on GT/LD actually uses GAI or FSIQ of 115 as the cutoff for "gifted" or advanced...