Twice Exceptional Supporting and Educating Bright and Creative Students with Learning Difficulties

In an educational system founded on rigid standards and categories, students who demonstrate a very specific manifestation of intelligence flourish, while those who deviate tend to fall between the cracks. Too often, talents and interests that do not align with classroom conventions are left unrecognized and unexplored in children with extraordinary potential but little opportunity. For twice-exceptional (2e) children, who have extraordinary strengths coupled with learning difficulties, the problem is compounded by the paradoxical nature of their intellect and an unbending system, ill-equipped to cater to their unique learning needs.

Twice Exceptional: Supporting and Educating Bright and Creative Students with Learning Difficulties provides cutting-edge, evidence-based approaches to creating an environment where twice-exceptional students can thrive. Viewing the 2e student as neither exclusively disabled nor exclusively gifted, but, rather, as a dynamic interaction of both, leading experts offer holistic insight into identification, social-emotional development, advocacy, and support for 2e students. With chapters focusing on special populations (including autism, dyslexia, and ADHD) as well as the intersection of race and 2e, this book highlights practical recommendations for school and social contexts. In expounding the unique challenges faced by the 2e population, Twice Exceptional makes a case for greater flexibility in our approach to education and a wider notion of what it means to be academically successful.

Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, is an author, researcher, speaker, and public science communicator who is interested in using psychological science to help all kinds of minds live a creative, fulfilling, and meaningful life. He is a professor of positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of 7 other books, including Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined and Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind (with Carolyn Gregoire). His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review, and he writes a blog at Scientific American called Beautiful Minds. Kaufman is also host of The Psychology Podcast.

About the Editor
Contributors

Introduction
Scott Barry Kaufman

Part I: Identification

1. Finding and Serving Twice-Exceptional Students: Using Triaged Comprehensive Assessment and Protections of the Law
Bobbie Gilman and Dan Peters

2. Using a Positive Lens: Engaging Twice-Exceptional Learners
Susan Baum and Robin Schader

3. Finding Hidden Potential: Toward Best Practices in Identifying Gifted Students with Disabilities
Edward R. Amend

4. Misconceptions About Giftedness and the Diagnosis of ADHD and Other Mental Health Disorders
Deirdre V. Lovecky

5. Knowns and Unknowns about Students with Disabilities Who Also Happen to Be Intellectually Gifted
Steven I. Pfeiffer and Megan Foley Nicpon

Part II: Supporting Twice-Exceptional Students

6. How We Can Recognize and Teach Twice or Multi Exceptional Students
Susan Winebrenner

7. 2E and Social-Emotional Development: One Label, Many Facets
Judy Galbraith

8. Advocating for Twice-Exceptional Students
Rich Weinfeld

9. It Takes a Team: Growing up 2e
Mary Ruth Coleman, Lois Baldwin, and Daphne Pereles

10. Educating the Twice-Exceptional Child: Creating Strong School-to-Home Collaborative Partnerships
Kevin Besnoy

Part III: Special Populations

11. Attention Divergent Hyperactive Giftedness: Taking the Deficiency and Disorder out of the Gifted/ADHD Label
Charles Fugate

12. Appreciating and Promoting Social Creativity in Youth with Asperger's Syndrome
Matthew D. Lerner and Rebecca M. Girard

13. The Spectrum of Twice Exceptional and Autistic Learners and Suggestions for Their Learning Styles
Richard O. Williams and Jeffrey Freed

14. Visuo-Spatial Skills in Atypical Readers: Myths, Research and Potential
Maryam Trebeau Crogman, Jeffrey Gilger, and Fumiko Hoeft

15. Gifted Dyslexics: MIND-Strengths, Visual Thinking, and Creativity
Susan Daniels and Michelle Freeman

16. Being 3E, a new look at culturally diverse gifted learners with exceptional conditions: an examination of the issues and solutions for educators and families
Joy Lawson Davis and Shawn Anthony Robinson

17. Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Supporting the Educational Success of Twice-Exceptional African American Students
Renae D. Mayes, Erik M. Hines, and James L. Moore III

Part IV: Models

18. Bridges Academy: A Strengths-Based Model for 2E
Carl Sabatino and Chris Wiebe

19. Integration and Dynamic Adaptation in the Formation of a Novel 2e School Model
Kimberly Busi and Kristin Berman

Index