877 914 4366
Double-Edged Frustration: 2e, Twice-Exceptional Kids
Twice-exceptional, meaning gifted students with a learning disability like dyslexia, is a challenge for parents in two major ways:
- Diagnosing. They use their smarts to hide their disability. And yet, an unrecognized and untreated disability can lead to frustration, doubt, and self-esteem issues for gifted children who, deep down, know they are capable of more. 2e children are more at risk for depression.
- Interventions: They push back when instructors talk down to them over basics they see as beneath them or when instruction moves too slowly through concepts they’ve already mastered.
Gemm Learning provides reading programs aligned with the needs and sensitivities of gifted children with dyslexia. They are non-judgmental, high-intensity exercises that are self-paced, meaning they move quickly through mastered skills and hone in on areas that need work.
This suits the two-edged and sometimes delicate psyche of a 2e child. This article focuses on each aspect: Recognizing a disability and then treating it.
What is a Twice-Exceptional Child?
The challenge for parents is that a gifted child can hide learning problems longer than their peers. Their ability to work around learning disabilities, e.g., faking reading, memorizing, and using pictures, can delay adult recognition and intervention until 3rd or 4th grade.
Dr. Susan Baum, a longtime researcher of 2e kids, describes the unique challenges this represents.
These twice-exceptional (2e) kids understand far more than their mainstream peers, yet they may have trouble spelling simple words, tying their shoes, or remembering to bring home their textbooks.
For many 2e students, feeling valued and respected, and having a sense of belonging are critical to success, yet they often feel out of place and stressed out
Identifying 2e: Is My Gifted Child Dyslexic?
The key marker of a learning disability is disparity—a clear difference in achievement between academic areas. For instance, excelling in math but being at grade level in reading.
Is my gifted child dyslexic? It seems like a simple question, but it’s not.
Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty with reading (Shaywitz), i.e., a reading level out of line with other capabilities. For a gifted child with dyslexia, reading at grade level could easily qualify as dyslexia. However, since traditional testing often focuses on averages, 2e children are often misunderstood or overlooked.
Common behavioral signs of 2e kids include:
- Advanced vocabulary or deep curiosity paired with poor reading or handwriting
- Intense focus on areas of interest, but distractibility in routine tasks
- High verbal ability with weak spelling or sequencing skills
- Perfectionism, frustration, or emotional sensitivity
When Gifted Children Qualify for 504 Help at School
The mix of heightened frustration, glimpses of brilliance, and struggles in fundamentals is intense. Amy Slater, an expert in the 2e field and author of Educating Twice-Exceptional Students in Compliance with IDEA and Section 504, identifies behaviors in gifted students that may warrant special education services. They include:
- Difficulty with a particular subject or curriculum area
- Being absent from school often
- Not handing in assignments or missing chunks of them
- Fidgeting, having trouble keeping still, or making repetitive movements
- Issues with transitions
- Trouble with social interactions
- Tantrums or outbursts
- Regular disciplinary issues and
- Self-harming.
Many of these signs in a 2e child are emotional responses to frustration from being trapped in a cognitive-skills setup that doesn’t allow the child to perform at their potential.
If you suspect your gifted child is hiding a disability, use these checklists to look for signs of difficulty:
- Signs of ADHD,
- symptoms of auditory processing disorder,
- dyslexia symptoms, or reading warning signs.
Is my gifted child hiding dyslexia? If they are, you can be sure they are as upset about it as you are. Take our free learning screening for learning behaviors and risk factors to better understand your child.
Andrew was a grade above grade level in reading, 60-65th percentile. But his mother, Hilda, was adamant that reading was holding him back and that he was capable of more. She wanted to get him into a competitive school.
He spent 4 months at Gemm Learning. A few months later, his mother called. He placed in the 99th percentile in ISEE reading comprehension! And he was now an avid reader.
She was right; Andrew was a 2e kid. We had resolved his delays and unleashed a powerful intellect; he was now performing at his potential.
Finding Help: Reading Programs for 2e Children
“The problem for 2e kids is that they learn that if they cannot do a task right away, they won’t be able to do it at all … highly gifted children are so good at compensating for their special needs, their problems often go undetected until they finally ‘hit the wall.’
Once your gifted child has a dyslexia or ADHD diagnosis, there two sorts of help required:
- Managing your 2e child’s environment, at home and school, in a way that protects that brilliant curiosity and love of learning.
- Find the right reading intervention to address the dyslexia
You may have to do this on your own. The reading or other difficulties of twice-exceptional children, while frustrating for the child, do not meet the thresholds used at school for providing extra services. Special services at school have their downsides too. 2e children may feel unchallenged in a special education program and become frustrated and restless.
1. Managing Your 2e Child’s Environment
First, acknowledge your child’s difficulties. It can also help children understand that learning difficulties do not reflect their intellect and that identifying a concern opens the door to finding the tools they need to succeed.
To protect your child, Seth Perl’s Exceptional Ultimate Guide offers some more thought prompts for parents:
- Build upon their strengths and passions through life experiences
- Avoid giving them dull, busy work like word lists
- Monitor and coordinate with the school
- Expose them to a wide range of experiences so they can tap into new passions
Social-emotional development is important. In addition to difficulty interacting with peers, 2e kids can have high anxiety. Gifted students are often perfectionists, which can make accepting and working through learning challenges even more difficult.
Getting involved in community activities, such as clubs, sports, or volunteer organizations, can help create common ground with peers while alleviating the pressure of academic responsibilities. Having someone to talk to about concerns is also important.
Ways To Avoid a Downward Spiral
Twice-exceptional students tend to be more aware at a younger age. Frustration can build quickly. This can lead to anxiety issues, depression, low self-esteem, and poor emotional regulation, says the Child Mind Institute.
Once a child is on that track – unhappy, anxious, and with lowered self-esteem – it is challenging to get buy-in for any reading or learning intervention. Remember, 2e children are particularly hard on themselves as they know they should be performing better than their peers.
For the twice-exceptional student, interventions can have a profoundly positive impact. Removing the shackles of learning delay can be life-changing. This is even more likely if parents or teachers misread underperformance in certain areas and accuse the child of not trying.
2. Reading Programs For Your 2e Child
Gemm Learning provides online dyslexia interventions using evidence-based Fast ForWord software. We have had amazing success with gifted children with dyslexia or reading challenges, mainly because of the way the software is structured.
- It’s a comprehensive program that builds to mastery in a number of cognitive skills. It is adaptive, always pushing forward, but falling back with consecutive errors. This means students fly through skill exercises they already know and, within a few days, land on exercises they don’t have and that address the source of their issues.
- Fast ForWord uses natural learning. The exercises need to be figured out. This appeals to the 2e learner who may have creeping doubts about their smarts.
- While Fast ForWord uses quick-fire repetition to create the intensity needed to rewire learning, it has a computer-game feel, with animations, reward sounds, and scores to keep the 2e child engaged.
Your twice-exceptional child may push back on tutors and drills aimed at treating the dyslexia. Unfortunately, the cognitive skill gaps holding your 2e child back will probably not resolve on their own; they will need a reading intervention.
Many of our most astounding results have been from twice-exceptional kids, as our learning and reading programs can unlock potential and unleash a high IQ that can achieve marvelous things.
To find out if your child is a candidate for our reading programs, schedule a call with a learning specialist here or request a demo to see the Fast ForWord program in action.
Appendix
Categories of Twice-Exceptional Children
ldonline.org outlines three subgroups of 2e kids that are most often overlooked.
- Students identified as gifted but having difficulty can be mischaracterized as underachievers who lack motivation.
- Individuals with identified learning disabilities whose exceptional abilities go unnoticed.
- Strengths and challenges conceal each other. These students perform on a level academically but are capable of doing far more.
A child’s nature, environment, and the pressures they feel all play a part in how twice-exceptional ADHD or twice-exceptional dyslexia shows itself.
Some children will get frustrated at their shortcomings and act out, while others prefer to block it out, not make trouble, please the adults as well as they can, and hope things might improve. In a way, this latter group is the hardest as 2e can go unidentified for many years.
The twice-exceptional ADHD combination is particularly difficult for adults to recognize. The gap between potential and achievement will likely widen as these children grow older if unmet needs aren’t addressed.
