Twice-exceptional student
Abstract
The vision of education for a multicultural society is striving for equity of opportunity to learn through heterogeneous grouping, highly interactive instruction that is deemed appealing to a broader range of learning styles. The existing education conceptions are insufficient in promoting multicultural equity. This paper focuses on cultural diversity in the classroom with specific attention to twice-exceptional students. The purpose of this article is to explore the twice-exceptional population. Recognizing the twice-exceptional student, how to educate 2e students, understanding the complexity of diverse cultured classrooms, and the struggles teachers face will be discussed. Besides, the paper looks into the cultural perspectives and ethics regarding this population of students, ethical implications, and some of the proposed solutions to the issue.
Introduction
The concept of special needs includes differences below or above the average physical or behavioral performance. According to Ataman (2012), describes that children with special needs comprise of the gifted ones as well. As defined by the Ministry of National Education, special education is offered to individuals who, for various reasons, are significantly different from their peers in terms of personal traits and educational competencies. In a classroom, such students are referred to as twice-exceptional students. Twice-exceptional, also known as 2e, are students whose development is asynchronous in terms of emotion and cognition. Such students always display outstanding performance in intellect and ability terms, but their learning abilities threaten their academic success. Estimating the number of twice-exceptional students is hard, but according to the US. Department of Education shows approximately 360,000 twice-exceptional students in American schools (cited in Baum, Owen & Schader, 2017). Though research can explain criteria for this population, these children can still be challenging to identify. This means that there is a need to inform teachers about such students through specific training sessions and using certain documents. Even once recognized, many are still, unfortunately, in classrooms with teachers who have gaps in their professional understanding of this type of individual. Educational systems and teachers struggle significantly to meet the needs of these students. Therefore, 2e students are not suitably cognitively challenged nor dealt adequately with emotionally. 2e students need to be taught how to empower them to become healthy, contributing members to our global society.
Literature Review
Recognizing the Twice-exceptional Student
The phrase twice-exceptional, or 2e, has been created by James J. Gallagher in 2004, about the heterogeneous mixture of learning-disabled children (Buica-Belciu, C, & Popovici, D. 2014). The term explains those who are dually learning disabled and gifted. These persons display extreme dexterity in some areas, coupled with significant adversity in others (Ralabate, P., 2006). They feel pushed to their limits from simple sensory processes which constrain performance in areas like spelling, simple calculations, simple writing, as well as other fundamental processes which cause them to be unable to do well in activities like advanced problem solving, abstract rational, or creative ventures (Kalbfleisch, M. L., 2014). Simultaneously, they typically perform in the gifted range on intelligent quotient (IQ) tests.
Case Study
Exploring the internal reality of the 2e child will help us better understand their behaviors and challenges.
Neil was a highly creative, unproductive, and troubled high school student with learning disabilities who had threatened suicide… “School is like a basketball game, totally irrelevant to life!” muttered Neil in frustration [during therapy] … he was failing all of his classes as a high school sophomore. His observation was completely accurate. For him, neither the school nor basketball was meaningful for neither connected with any of his needs or interests. Convinced that Neil could do better if only he applied himself, his teachers described him as lazy. “When I talk to Neil, he has so much to offer, but he just doesn’t produce,” one said. Neil’s classmates, applauding his moments of cleverness, viewed him as the class clown. But Neil saw himself as a misfit, he was baffled and frustrated by the inconsistencies between what he knew and what he was capable of achieving and people’s perceptions of him. What resulted were growing feelings of inadequacy.
Neil began to have academic difficulty in fourth grade. Each year, as he drifted upward, he accomplished less and less. Eventually, he was in such a depressed emotional state that weekly psychological counseling became necessary. His psychologist suggested an educational evaluation for Neil; the results indicated learning disabilities in writing, organization, and sequential tasks, such as those required in linear math.
With that knowledge, Neil’s academic program was adjusted. However, unlike those students with disabilities who begin to feel better about themselves when they experience success through modified assignments or additional time, Neil’s depression worsened. Despite his improved grades, Neil discounted and dismissed his progress, attributing it to outside factors… He did not view his new academic accomplishments as personal success. Neil had independently amassed a wealth of knowledge about music, religion, psychology, and photography. He also pursued extracurricular interests with enthusiasm and commitment, running his own small business as a photographer. His photos won awards little wonder he was confused about the school’s claim of impaired ability to learn when was learning so much through other channels. Neil best expressed his creative and insightful self through photography… Surprisingly, when Neil was encouraged to submit photographic essays instead of written papers, he stopped taking pictures altogether… In essence, Neil was asking for attention to his strengths in their own right, not as a means to work through his weaknesses. Neil demonstrated clearly that the solution to overcoming the challenges of learning disabilities is not as simple as discovering and using the interests of these students… (Baum, S., Schader, R. & Owen, S., 2017).
How to Educate Twice-exceptional Students
It’s important to note the goal of education before attempting to teach a 2e child. Training provides students the opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills. It gives children the chance to learn about and express their inner resources and become successful beings of our global society. To meet the needs of a 2e child, the educator must first understand the child’s challenges and then create an appropriate plan which tends to the students’ educational and emotional needs.
Educators struggle to balance building on student’s strengths while concurrently providing academics that challenge the student that isn’t overwhelming. Teachers must keep Ignacio Estrada’s quote in mind: “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”. When it comes to creating a curriculum for 2e students, there are several strategies for success.
Teachers must note that many of their 2e students are probably suffering from imposter syndrome (Townend, G. & Brown, R., 2016), which is construed as when one persistently doesn’t give oneself credit for one’s successes and efforts. A big part of this comes from teachers who think they’re helping the child by trying to perfect challenging academic areas for the student. At times, teachers call 2e students “lazy” (Baum, S., Schader, R. & Owen, S., 2017), and a teacher will say that the student isn’t trying hard enough (Winebrenner, S. 2002). All these instances cause the already suffering 2e child to feel even more profound in his despair. Instead, the teacher must nurture and empower the interests and strengths of the student. By the students being supported, their sense of self is being filled; consequently, this self-esteem gives the child energy to achieve greater heights (Mendaglio, S., 2013).
Other significant parts of the teacher’s scope of responsibility include creating a positive and nurturing atmosphere, which tends to the student’s social and emotional needs, (Bracamonte, M. 2010), heightening the student’s abilities to cope with their varied capabilities, identification of the students learning skills and providing explicit instructions, and supporting the development of compensative tactics (Reis & McCoach, 2000, and Smutny, 2001). Twice-exceptional children feel an inner need for perfection. This engenders a psychological struggle for those who have trouble achieving, though they are academically talented (Olenchak, F., 1994). Also, because of the brain’s nature in the twice-exceptional student, they experience life more intensely than typical children of the same age. They overreact to loud noise, different foods, synthetics, art, or music (Postma, M. 2017). For these dual reasons, 2e students will benefit from individual counseling, as well as group counseling, says Olenchak (1994). Group counseling can give students a sense of relief when they see others with very similar struggles. For the same reason, grouping 2e students in the same classroom provides support for 2e students.
Struggles of teachers
For a typical classroom to run efficiently, it requires skill on the teacher’s part. How much more so when it comes to teaching challenged students. Unfortunately, many teachers are deficient in the essential skills to effectively manage their classrooms. A culturally diverse class just adds to the complication (Shulman L.S. & Shulman J.H., 2007). A study conducted by De Boer, Pijl, and Minnaert (2010) found that 63% of sampled educators lack confidence while instructing a classroom filled with students from diverse cultures. 2e students are incredibly complex. Just having a professional title isn’t enough for this complicated population. Somewhat further research and specialized training are vital.
Diversity and Ethics
In America, academic achievement takes place in a sociocultural “melting pot” environment. School is a social setting, filled with diverse students from different cultures, making it a diversified cultured classroom. (Townsend, G. & Brown, R., 2016). It’s the teacher’s responsibility to be aware of the various cultures in the school (Du Plessis, A. 2019); and become familiar with the diverse nuances. Different cultures perceive behavior differently. For example, when it comes to body language, different idioms, and vocabulary and different ways of self-expression. Without researching diverge cultures, a teacher can misinterpret her student’s behavior. Right eye gazing to a Native American will be regarded as an intrusion on privacy, nonverbal behavior from an Asian is typical and shouldn’t be perceived as a communication issue. Also, some African Americans have a different dialect: their speech includes “rapping”, “sounding,” and “jiving”. What may be perceived as a child’s misbehavior may just be a child using his cultural nuances. If the teacher doesn’t correctly understand a student, there will be gaps in communication, which impedes the student’s educational opportunities.
Identifying twice-exceptional students is significant, and is a matter that has been addressed by various researchers. There are certain factors of identifying twice-exceptional students, including the performance of the student in different standardized and informal assessments, behavioral indicators, nominations of parents and teachers, intelligence tests, and creativity tests. Identifying these students may be difficult because their gifts are rarely noticed as all the attention is focused on their disabilities. This difficulty in identifying these students introduces the various issues facing them.
There is a long history of special education being excluded, which resulted in a long battle for its inclusion. According to Kirk et al. (2015), following the case of Brown v Board of Education, it was a fundamental right for a child to be educated together with their peers. For gifted education, it is considered as a bonus, something that has resulted in legislators considering its funding worth to be cut. This is evident in the Texas 2019 budget, where, when the budget got tight, funding for special education was deemed an “extra” that could be cut (Austin, 2019). The same was realized in President Trump’s suggested federal budget. This has pushed gifted education to struggle to be relevant and be sympathized with (NAGC, 2019). The stereotype that the needs of twice-exceptional students are a way of ensuring that these gifted students stay ahead is one of the biggest challenges facing gifted education.
Twice-exceptional students are usually caught up in between worlds. This means that most of them have high self-confidence regarding their abilities and possess a healthy personal motivation to succeed. Yet, they are prone to fail in certain areas due to their disabilities. Such students tend to experience failure more than they expect, which will lead to their future failure. As they fail to accomplish or complete tasks, they experience various emotional problems like frustration, anger, fear of failure, low self-esteem, and anxiety.
This group of students faces other issues that may be regarded as ethical concerns, all emanating from misconceptions and cultural perspectives. Sak (2011) mentions that twice-exceptional students usually have an overall intellectual capacity that makes them gifted in almost everything. Due to this misconception, teachers tend to believe that they can learn anything because they are skilled, forgetting that they exhibit serious learning challenges that significantly impact their academic success. This is referred to as the omniscient personal belief. With this belief, teachers tend to neglect the needs of twice-exceptional students, whose gifts may end up never being discovered, as their learning disability masks all that. Another misconception that results in inequities and challenges for this group of students is that giftedness means having a high IQ. This misconception leads to several challenges, including the underrepresentation of certain groups in gifted programs, as described by Borland (2009). Other problems include inflexible cutoff scores for admission to gifted programs and services. The result of this misconception is that teachers tend to allocate more time and resources to students that exhibit intellectual giftedness in certain areas where measurement of IQ is applicable. A good instance of this is how a student that possesses mathematical-logic intelligence is easily identified and supported by a teacher, compared to a student with interpersonal knowledge (Tirri & Nokelainen, 2011).
Another misconception that easily yields inequities for twice-exceptional students is the entity belief. As put by Sak (2011), intelligence is innate and usually inherited in its entirety. The entity belief shares so much with the fixed mindset described by Dweck (2006). Teachers tend to have fixed growth and mindsets when it comes to twice-exceptional students. These beliefs have a high potential of influencing the teaching and learning of behaviors in schools for these students. The syndromic knowledge is another misconception and perspective that introduces certain inequities for this group of students. Most twice-exceptional students possess psychological symptoms like depression, paranoia, or even antisocial tendencies. The fosters of this belief tend to link madness to genius, suggesting that there exists a thin line between insanity and genius. This belief may influence people to believe that twice-exceptional students have psychological issues. As a result, teachers and even parents believe that the best option for such students is not identifying or supporting them entirely, but instead protecting them from stigma and other prejudices associated with psychological problems. Moon (2009) explains that this may result in teachers, school staff, and policymakers avoiding taking responsibility for meeting the needs of these students. For twice-exceptional students, their needs go beyond academics as they include a specific set of social needs. This means that such students need appropriate challenges and a supportive educational environment for them to develop and stay motivated. With this perspective, teachers also tend to use these students as their assistants, viewing them as useful resources in the classroom.
Cross (2005) and Winner (1996) mention that school administrators and teachers hold a belief that all children are all gifted. The ethical challenge posed by this belief is that when teachers perceive all children as talented, then it’s evident that the need for additional support is not seen as necessary. Hence, the inequity that may result from this belief is that the needs of twice-exceptional students tend to be ignored, which prevents them from reaching their full potential. Another perspective provides that all children should be taught the same way because it is only fair this way. However, students in a classroom are not homogenous.
Twice-exceptional students are significant sub-population that teachers, staff, and policymakers have neglected for so long. For this reason, this population suffers certain inequities in the classroom for various reasons discussed above. There are several times that twice-exceptional students sit through classes where they already understand most of the information. For this reason, as mentioned by Clark (2001), such students need novelty and information. On the other hand, such students may need their learning materials to be reviewed to get a better understanding.
Ethical Implications
The issue around twice-exceptional students leads to a rise of several ethical issues that need to be addressed. The involved parties, including teachers, school staff, and policymakers, need to pay close attention to these ethical concerns to improve the provision of necessary needs for these students. Teachers don’t always expect these students to excel academically (Welisch et al., 2010). This is despite the shifting of attention to focus more on helping students with learning disabilities, as teachers still show little inclination to referring a student exhibiting a learning disability for placement in an appropriate program for twice-exceptional students. For these students, teachers make a difference in their education as they are capable of differentiating the content, process, and products to align with the students’ readiness, interests, and learning profiles.
Professional ethics in teaching requires that all students are accorded equal attention and equitable educational opportunities and experiences. This means that there is a need for the giftedness of twice-exceptional students to be seen as domain-specific as well as developmental. Besides, there is a need for a precise definition and understanding of this concept before making any educational decisions regarding these students. The success of a student is highly determined by the attitude of the teacher in the classroom. One ethical implication facing this group of students is the perception that all gifted children need little or no teacher interaction and support. This perception results in an ethical challenge for both teachers and parents. Using these students as tutors and teachers’ help with other students is another crucial moral concern. These students need equal support and opportunities like other students. Failure to perceive giftedness of these students as a domain-specific, and these students as a group with various profiles and educational needs, results to an ethical challenge, where teachers tend to neglect the needs of such students. Underrepresenting twice-exceptional students in gifted programs is another crucial matter of ethics that need to be addressed because it undermines this population of students. Also, talented programs are designed to help twice-exceptional students. This means that these programs should be structured such that they accommodate these students with ease. However, this is not the case for most applications as they put in place inflexible cutoff scores for admission and even the services offered in the plans. This poses a severe threat to these students as most of them end up being left out when they don’t meet these admission and service access requirements, hence a critical ethical issue that needs to be addressed.
Another ethical challenge that arises in the classroom is when teachers tend to allocate more resources to students that show more intellectual ability in certain areas, those deemed to be of high IQ, and neglecting the same students with gifts but of lower IQ association. This is an ethical issue because it negates the ethical provision of education, which states that all students must be accorded equal attention and learning opportunities. Twice-exceptional students should be educated with the perspective of being gifted, as this would encourage learning goals that would challenge them to do more and better. These students also need to be perceived as heterogenous that have a wide range of personal attributes. Their needs have to be met in classroom teaching, and teachers should use evidence-based practices as they attempt to address the educational needs of twice-exceptional students.
Despite all these ethical challenges, all hope is not for twice-exceptional students, as there are various possible pathways for attaining equitable solutions. One of these pathways is to train teachers and equip them well enough to provide appropriate support to these students. Through this training, the teachers will learn the significance of equally treating these students and provide them with specified support in the classroom. Creating awareness among the involved individuals regarding the importance of identifying twice-exceptional students, including policymakers, parents, and school staff, is another possible pathway for an equitable solution for challenges facing this population of students. Allocating sufficient resources for teachers of these students will go a long way as a potential pathway for equitable solutions.
Proposed Solution
With twice-exceptional students, it becomes challenging for both teachers and parents as they try to determine what is the most appropriate way to help them. Several solutions to this are mentioned by various scholars, most of which have proven to be effective. For twice-exceptional students that tend to perform poorly require specific needs that will help improve their learning abilities. One of the most commonly proposed solutions is the specialization of the methods of identification, such that they consider the possibility of interaction of these students. There is also a need for advancing educational opportunities for these students in a manner that develops the student’s interests and gifts and meeting their learning needs at the same time. Providing constant support to these students will ensure that their academic success and social-emotional wellness are upheld.
According to Baldwin, Baum, Pereles & Hughes (2015), teachers need to undergo specialized academic training and professional development for them to work with these students succeed. A 2e teacher must have a great understanding of the strategies of both unique and gifted education. One common approach used as a potential solution is tiering, where the teacher examines the content and determines the levels of the material to be taught to the students. This involves establishing content that needs to be critically known, what content to suggest, and what needs to be extended. Novak (2019) also proposes that teachers can utilize the strategies provided by the Universal Design for Learning, which is very handy in giving access and removing learning barriers. Hughes (2019) adds that the specialized training of access and adaptation processes can also benefit 2e teachers in their advancement. The UDL allows teachers to examine how they involve their students through engagement, expression, and representation. They can also provide the students with options from which they may choose in a bid to show their knowledge. By utilizing multiple and novel strategies, 2e teachers capture the students’ attention, show them the link between previously learned information and new information, and allow the students to share what they know. Graphic organizers, visual aids, and multimedia can also play a significant role in the teachers of 2e students.
Another proposed solution that can be informed by the education of 2e students regards the particulars of critical and creative thinking as well as conceptual design. With the appropriate training, teachers of 2e students are capable of understanding how they can combine task demands and products to make the students think critically and creatively. When these extended thinking demands are connected, 2e students are presented with an opportunity to access understanding and enriched ways of thinking in areas that would otherwise be challenging for them. The nested differentiation strategy is beneficial if implemented in a situation where a teacher is presented with the option of teaching a class of 2e students. These students need repetition and novelty, and these two needs can be combined so that they are receiving information “nested” within enriched content, which makes it easier for them to understand. Working with and teaching twice-exceptional students is a challenging task that poses severe challenges to our understanding and patience. Teachers need to understand the “other side” for them to find the “green” element that will allow them to combine these two aspects uniquely.
Conclusion
Twice-exceptional students often exhibit intense attention to areas of interest and complex, but rigid rational processes (Baum, S., Schader, R. & Owen, S. 2017). Blustain (2019), writes that they are particularly challenging for educational systems and teachers to serve successfully for dualistic reasons. Their intellect disguises their disability repeatedly, and many times they’re sent to special education classes that are fit for their disability but ignore intellectual competence. Due to their complex nature, educators need to be trained appropriately. They need to think methodically so that these individuals can maximize their educational years and thrive to become successful assets to society. This paper has extensively discussed the various aspects of these students and their environment in the classroom. The cultural perspectives regarding 2e students revealed that several views exist in our society that tends to undermine twice-exceptional students, posing severe ethical challenges for those involved with these students, such as teachers, school staff, and school policymakers. The inequities facing these students hinder the meeting of their needs as they are a neglected subpopulation of students.
These students’ exceptional ability may dominate and, in the process, hide their disability, or vice versa. This paper presents various proposed solutions to the problem described, providing several options for teachers and parents with 2e students. These proposed solutions offer better chances for both the students and parents. Also, teachers are considered ethical professionals, which means that there is a need for the reflection of the same beliefs, values, and attitudes towards different students in different learning settings.
Several diversity issues exist within a classroom, and unseen diversity problems may pose a severe threat to the students. This is what is happening to 2e students within a school. This paper has explored various aspects of diversity in the school with specific attention to twice-exceptional students, shedding light on this neglected group of students who are just as significant as other students. This is an under-researched topic that requires far more attention from researchers, teachers, and other essential education stakeholders. These students need high-quality support for them to succeed in their academics and life.