HomepageISTEEdSurge
Skip to content
ascd logo

Log in to Witsby: ASCD’s Next-Generation Professional Learning and Credentialing Platform
Join ASCD
August 1, 2014
Vol. 56
No. 8

Making Exceptions: The Challenge of Educating 2e Students

Navigating both giftedness and a disability, twice-exceptional students seek their place in an education system that often views the two as separate constructs.

premium resources logo

Premium Resource

Klaudia Amenabar is exceptional—and an exception. In a gifted program since 3rd grade, she finished high school with a 4.3 GPA and just completed her sophomore year at an Ivy League university, where she is majoring in communications.
But Amenabar always knew something was "a little off" while enrolled at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Va. Math concepts were difficult. She had trouble memorizing basic facts. She was slower than her classmates at homework, which meant she slept less.
Amenabar, who was diagnosed with a processing disorder during her freshman year in college, is a twice-exceptional (2e) student—she is intellectually gifted but has a disability that affects how she learns and processes information.
"I always knew I had problems, but I was able to succeed because I was smart enough in a particular subject or just worked hard enough," Amenabar says. "I knew other kids in my classes who were obviously twice-exceptional, and they struggled in high school. I didn't think I was like them, but then it hit me in college, and I couldn't cope."
For schools, 2e students present unique challenges, as teachers try to tap into their talents while managing classrooms of up to 35 children. But as brain research advances—and as schools confront rising diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and other disorders—more attention is being paid to the 2e child.
"It's tough for educators," says Mary Ruth Coleman, senior scientist at the University of North Carolina's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. "We want to look for commonalities that make it easier to address students' needs. It's easier to think of 4th graders as a cluster, and much harder to take a nuanced look at each child. And it's even more difficult to look at kids who have more extreme strengths and needs."

Identifying 2e Students

You see them in almost every classroom. The extremely bright child who can't stop fidgeting and talks at inappropriate times. The youth who would have straight As, but gets Cs and Ds because he can't complete his homework on time, if at all. The student who can't express thoughts in writing but can paint a beautiful picture that shows an understanding of concepts beyond her years.
Nearly 360,000 2e students attend U.S. schools, according to the University of Iowa's Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, but school resources haven't caught up with students' needs.
Linda Collins, a gifted education teacher at Blue Valley West High School in Kansas, notes that "the concept of giftedness and the concept of disabilities were perceived as being mutually exclusive constructs for many years … and the idea of twice-exceptionality muddies the waters."
According to the 2012–13 State of the States in Gifted Education report, developed by the National Association for Gifted Children and the Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted, 24 states still do not know whether students identified as gifted also have disabilities. Although some states are building awareness, only three—Colorado, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania—have specific legislation and policy that provides guidelines on meeting the needs of 2e learners.
"You can't expect all 2e kids to learn the same way, just as you can't expect all honors kids to learn the same way," says Daina Lieberman, a teacher at South Lakes High School in Reston, Va. and an ASCD emerging leader. "People want to lump them all together, but we need to investigate specific children and find ways to differentiate instruction."
Coleman, working with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, has created a tool for identifying 2e children in the early grades. The Belin-Blank Center is also designing the National Institute for Twice-Exceptionality, a clearinghouse and training center for the 2e community.
"Twice-exceptional students are among the most misjudged, misunderstood, and neglected segment of the student population and community," says Megan Foley Nicpon of the Belin-Blank Center. "Our goal is to change how twice-exceptional children are served."

Coping with Label Frustration

For Diane Kennedy and Rebecca Banks, progress cannot come soon enough. Parents of 2e children, Kennedy and Banks authored Bright Not Broken: Gifted Kids, ADHD, and Autism. The mothers began advocating after their children received an "alphabet soup of labels" that focused on their disabilities and not their gifts, Banks says.
"A common misperception is that because of their giftedness, the academically capable will make it whether they are given services or not," Banks says. "Unfortunately, high academic ability does not equate to social ability, and there are so many demands put on these kids that it becomes a challenge to balance it all."
Kennedy says many teachers don't understand why 2e students grapple with certain social and academic issues.
"They are just not taught how to recognize, especially in dealing with a brighter population, that there is more going on with these kids than just academics," she says. Training should focus on "the social issues that these kids face, and how transitions from class to class and from grade to grade affect them. It's not about behaviors; it's about understanding."
Collins agrees. "Most teachers are not prepared for highly intelligent students who cannot remember to turn in homework, are too perfectionistic to complete work, have anxiety or depression about their work, or have specific learning or physical disabilities that restrict them from demonstrating their potential." Twice-exceptional students, Collins explains, need an academically challenging curriculum that is paired with "accommodations where and when needed."
Banks believes that 2e student breakdowns are "driven by unrealistic standards" from teachers who do not consider accommodations necessary for gifted children.
"I can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard, 'Well, he's smart enough. He should know better,'" Banks says. "Behaviors don't translate into IQ. The student may not have any idea how to operate in that environment, or they're disabled and impaired in their ability to do so. It's sad."

Investing the Time

How can schools meet the unique needs of 2e students? "It's difficult, but it can be done," Collins says. "What you have to do is look at kids as individuals, and treat them as such. You have to be willing to differentiate your instruction. That's hard to do, but it's necessary."
Two of Lieberman's students show how perplexing this can be: one is a success story in which differentiated instruction helped the student achieve, and the other continues to confound her.
That second student, who was in Lieberman's honors class, is moving to an easier English class because of his disability.
"He's so bright," Lieberman says. "He's a really big reader, but the poor kid's meds start wearing off before he gets to my class, and he can't focus or sit still. He's smarter than most of the kids, but I can't even keep his attention for five minutes and I can't engage him. So he's not doing the work, and I'm struggling with how to help him."
In the other case, she managed to reach a child who was struggling with sexual and gender identity issues, and was not doing his schoolwork. "We were doing Holocaust research," she says, "and I said he could focus on the persecution of gays in the Holocaust. He focused on it, did the work, and did a really good presentation because it was pertinent to him."
"That's what we've got to do: spend time with these kids to find the things that are relevant to them, and find ways to help them master the skills so they can be successful," Lieberman says. "If you have Cs all the way through high school [because you aren't doing the work], colleges are not going to consider you, no matter how smart you are."
No question, Amenabar is smart. But her struggles illustrate the problems that many 2e children face. Their complex combination of giftedness and disability "drains 2e students' resources … because so much energy goes into compensating," says Banks.
"I didn't realize that's what I was doing," Amenabar says. "But when I got into an unfamiliar place and didn't have the supports that I had at home, I just hit a wall."
Amenabar eventually received counseling and medication to help with her processing disorder. She also filed paperwork to receive accommodations in some classes.
"The hardest part when you have these problems is that you don't know what you need and neither does anyone else," she says. "It's like you're on the same playing field as everyone else but you're playing with different pieces. You have to become your own biggest advocate, and say, 'I need help with this, and this, and this.' I'm still trying to figure it out, but I'm getting there." 

2e Teaching Resources

Glenn Cook is a freelance writer and photographer from Lorton, Va.

Learn More

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action.