Twice Exceptional: 101
The term gifted is typically used to describe someone with skills and abilities beyond expectations for their age. Though giftedness can describe someone’s intellectual abilities, the term also includes people who have unusual strengths in creativity, expressiveness, musicality, academic skills, and other facets of life. One phenomenon that has been found for some gifted people is asynchronous development, which is used to describe a gap between one area (such as cognitive skills) and others (such as social skills). When this gap is large, kids and adults are considered twice exceptional (2e). In short, people who are described as 2e are gifted and also have a difference that affects their learning (such as a learning disorder, ADHD, depression, or a developmental difference).
We consider people who are 2e to have their own neurodivergent features! Because giftedness and learning disabilities can both be present in many different ways, there is no one “box” that describes all 2e people. Though there are many signs of 2e learners, but often we have parents come into our clinic for assessment because they notice:
Bright children who struggle with basic tasks and assignments at school and home.
Feelings of frustration that writing skills or reading skills can’t keep up with thinking skills.
Difficulty relating to other kids or finding friends with the same interests.
Good performance on academic tests with poor performance in school.
Knowing about areas of strength and challenge can help parents and educators narrow the gap for a more well-rounded educational experience. 2e adults may benefit from learning more about opportunities for exploring different modes of working (visual, verbal, or reasoning-based, for example), and also learning about accommodations.
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