Because of the lack of mainstream awareness of twice-exceptionality (2e), many 2e children face challenges once they reach school age. These challenges manifest across various spheres of a child’s life, including their academic achievement, the nurturing of their giftedness, supports for their disability, and how all of these play out in their social and emotional lives. Data from the Child Mind Institute indicates that many parents feel, overwhelmingly, that their child is not adequately supported as a student with both giftedness and a disability; families must choose between either supporting their disability or pursuing gifted education, and from that choice additional tensions arise.
To help us understand school supports and IEP resources for 2e children and how parents can work with their child and the school to help their 2e child thrive, we spoke with Sarah Pelangka, PhD, education advocate and creator of Know IEPS; Lisa M. Carey, non-attorney education advocate and parent of a 2e child; Jade Rivera, EdD, director of special projects and communications at Elmbridge University; Karen Arnstein, EdD, professor at Elmbridge University and co-creator of the Spiral model of development; Cherie Dorreen, non-attorney education advocate with a background in corporate strategy; Mary Ruth Coleman PhD, senior scientist emeritus at the FPG Child Development Institute, UNC-Chapel Hill, and former president of the Council for Exceptional Children; Barry Gelston, EdD, professor at Elmbridge University, founder of Mr. Gelston’s One Room Schoolhouse, and 2e adult; and Michael H. Carey, a 2e self-advocate and college student.
Students who are twice-exceptional face unique challenges in school, given that they have exceptional talents along with disabilities that qualify them for special education supports under IDEA. See our article Twice-Exceptional (2e) Children 101 to learn more about their unique learning profile.
The school environment can compound the challenges 2e students face. Finding the right balance of challenging curriculum with academic supports can lead to new emotional and mental health struggles. Often 2e kids put pressure on themselves: “I think many 2e kids struggle with frustration and social-emotional issues,” says Lisa M. Carey. “Perfectionism is a big one, and I think that a lot of them struggle with this duality of identification. On one hand, I have these struggles, and I’m told I have this diagnosis — dysgraphia, dyslexia, autism, whatever. But on the other hand, I keep getting told how smart I am. I think that the kids themselves buy into the myths that they get around them. Most public schools don’t know how to work with 2e kids.”
Dr. Gelston adds that most states’ educational standards don't make room for the asynchrony and variation in how 2e students develop. “There’s an assumption that all kids develop evenly in every grade, and then everything should be the same and gifted,” says Dr. Gelston. “Twice-exceptional kids particularly show what’s wrong with that model.”
But thankfully, there are ways to support your 2e student in school. The following graphic lists some ways you can help support your child as they progress through the school system.
In a public school setting, many 2e children may demonstrate the aptitude for some level of gifted classes, called GATE. The United States passed the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act (Javits) in 1988 to federally fund the development of school programs aimed at gifted students through research and grants — however, the Javits Act does not actually provide any funding directly to schools. Learn more about giftedness in our article Twice-Exceptional (2e) Children 101.
California’s GATE program was first implemented in 1961 to provide rigor and nurturing to children with demonstrated or potential achievement in a variety of subjects. According to the California Association for the Gifted (CAG), GATE programs are funded by the state’s educational funds to cover the creation and maintenance of academic services for gifted students, including:
The association’s 2022 Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) Services Guide (the most recent version available) also outlines expectations for how students are assessed and supported within a school’s GATE program, including inclusivity, diversity in assessments across multiple areas of giftedness, and resources for gifted children who need support, including 2e students. Per the guide, GATE identification comes from data taken from:
This data is then analyzed by a team of people at the school, often the school psychologist, a designated GATE coordinator, a counselor, and a specialist who can assess the student’s particular area of giftedness; both parents and the student may also attend these meetings. However, each state has their own methodology, and even within states, each school district may deviate in their assessments. Per the services guide, students who demonstrate potential without a formal giftedness assessment may also access GATE programs and services. But sources emphasize that not every district can provide the same quality of GATE assessment and programming; allocated funds for GATE program funding from the state ended in 2014 with the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).
“It really varies, district to district, town to town, state to state, region to region,” says Dr. Rivera, “what the allowances are, what the affordances are, what the sentiment is around giftedness.” This also shapes how schools support gifted students across a variety of programs, including traditional GATE or high-capacity programs for students who perform above grade-level. “GATE programs, giftedness programs, high-capacity programs, they [evaluate students for giftedness] in different ways. Perhaps they have a general ability index, which is an overall IQ.” But, Dr. Rivera says, “it's not the whole story.”
Yes! The CAG’s 2022 Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) Services Guide makes explicit mention of 2e students and outlines services that aim to support them:
“Students receive services designed to meet their intellectual, academic, social, emotional, and behavioral needs to overcome their underachievement and to enable them to achieve at levels commensurate with their individual abilities and potential. This does not preclude participation in other service options.”
These services are also meant to address the ways that differences in culture, language, gender, and socioeconomic status may obscure the full scope of a child’s needs and potential. As the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) notes, ”some schools have a ‘set in stone’ test they use to assess eligibility for gifted services (and the gifted portion of the 2e equation). These tests can be limited in scope and may not tap broad and potential areas of giftedness.” As we noted in our article Twice-Exceptional (2e) Children 101 about language, this means recognizing the limitations of certain assessments and working with the student’s assessment team to find the best ways to measure and demonstrate the child’s abilities and challenges. But both Dorreen and Dr. Arnstein note that just because a school may support 2e kids in GATE on paper, personnel may not understand how to implement those supports in practice, or how to address an asynchronous learning profile. (As we discussed in our Twice-Exceptional (2e) Children 101 article), an asynchronous learning profile means that a child’s educational development across school subjects, as well as other areas like their emotional, social, and fine-motor development, do not evolve evenly.
In this clip, Dr. Arnstein describes how parents can help align teachers with their 2e child’s individual profile and contribute to better understanding on both ends:
Students who have asynchronous learning profiles may excel in one academic area but be at (or even below) grade level in another. This can impact how a student is classified when it comes to things like GATE programs. For example, a student who demonstrates high aptitude for math and science, Dr. Arnstein says, but only meets grade level for their language arts and social studies, may not qualify for their current school’s GATE program. “But,” she says, “these kids don’t tend to develop in that way.”
Dorreen also points out that GATE should not and does not necessarily provide only academic enrichment. “It’s making sure that those kids are getting the right sort of counseling and supports that they need for that social and emotional part that they may be struggling with, and that’s just done on a case-by-case basis.” A GATE counselor, for example, can help the student mitigate some of the emotional, social, and mental health challenges we will address later in this article.
What parents can do is begin conversations with their child’s school about a more holistic approach to their child’s learning, one Dr. Rivera describes as “a multi-person perspective. You speak to teachers, you speak to parents, you speak to extracurricular adults about [the student’s] times of personal best: how various skills and abilities are showing up under certain circumstances,” she says. “Then you come together and collaborate on whether this child would benefit from having additional depth and complexity to their school experience.”
As we say at Undivided, there is nothing inherent about a disability or neurodivergence that creates social and behavioral struggles for a child, and this extends to 2e children. But once a 2e child reaches school age, the dynamics of their asynchronous development change as they begin to interact with peers and educators who do not have the same understanding of how their giftedness and disability interact. As a refresher from our article Twice-Exceptional (2e) Children 101, asynchronous development is a form of neurodiversity where the child’s spheres of development (social, emotional, academic) don’t always align with the benchmarks of their biological age. They might, for example, have an incredibly mature and expansive vocabulary and reading skill for their grade level while still being unable to tie their shoes or connect with their same-aged peers.
“Parents also see these different sides of their child,” says Dr. Coleman, and “they’re going to garner a lot of relatively child-specific information and become sort of an expert on that child until that child goes to school. Then the child goes to school, and the teacher sees a different kid because the context is so wildly different in a classroom than it is in a home or family.”
What looked like creativity or an artistic aptitude at home may not translate to the classroom, for example, or the struggles and meltdowns that might happen when a student is trying to complete homework might not arise, and the student may appear engaged and cooperative. “When that miscommunication happens across the school and the family,” Dr. Coleman continues, “it makes it even harder for the adults to be on the same page and to listen to that child and listen to that student about what it is they need, so it exacerbates the barriers to understanding what’s going on and for the child.”
This miscommunication can manifest into challenging behaviors, sources say, which further complicate how to serve the student’s challenges and strengths. Students may develop anxiety around perfectionism, which makes it harder to navigate their social world. Their coping skills may not develop to match what their studies require. But how to address these behaviors is complicated.
Kircher-Morris says of interventions related to the behaviors they typically see, “The way I frame this when I’m working with educators and with parents is that consequences, discipline, or punitive responses to things, while they may gain some short term compliance, they have not solved any problems. When you’re talking about neurodivergence, there are these other underlying factors that if you’re not aware of those factors and that they exist, you’re going to interpret these things on a very surface-level understanding, which then actually prevents you from being able to effectively help that child build the skills that they need.”
Even if their giftedness is identified early, many 2e children struggle at some point with boredom in the classroom. While no child enjoys feeling bored at school, 2e children may face more repercussions for how that boredom manifests. As we mentioned earlier, disability and giftedness layer in unique ways, and general ed teachers may mistake the true source of the behavior. “Students who are gifted may tend to have that profile of being behavioral, noncompliant, and defiant,” says Dr. Pelangka, “by nature of their giftedness. They already know the information, or they’re bored by the information because [it] is too simplistic for them. But because they also have a disability, it’s interpreted as the disability.”
In this clip, Kircher-Morris explains how 2e kids can struggle with behavior due to a lack of understanding in emotional and social interactions:
Boredom can also lead to challenging behaviors, such as class disruption or lack of participation and work completion, that teachers may choose to punish before understanding the cause. Kircher-Morris adds, “Characteristics of twice-exceptionality or neurodivergence In general end up being interpreted through a behavioral lens, which then means that if they’re in school, they might be getting a lot of punitive discipline based on things that are related to their neurodevelopmental trajectory. Kids who are gifted, who are unidentified, aren’t going to have the challenge that is necessary to help push them forward,” she says. This can also impact the accommodations that these students receive, because their executive dysfunction, for example, may be interpreted as disruption rather than as a flag for more support.
“If your child is 2e and they’re bored in class, you’re probably going to get a lot of reports that they’re a behavior problem, and that is not acceptable,” says Dr. Pelangka. “So you need to make sure that you get someone in your corner,” whether that be a school personnel member, an IEP team member, or an educational advocate. “There are learners that are advanced, and there are learners that are behind. . . . We need to continually recognize that not all learners are the same, and we need to get more resources into the school system to be able to support the teachers that are teaching our children, because it is a systemic issue. It’s not the teacher’s fault.”
Dr. Arnstein’s son recognized that he felt different from his peers at only six years old, a common feeling among 2e children that can stem from a variety of different factors. While twice-exceptionality by no means ensures that a child will struggle socially, the co-occurence of giftedness and a disability may create unique challenges for 2e children, and in some cases their individuality may invite unwanted attention from their peers who don’t understand them. For example, their advanced vocabulary may be interpreted by peers as “nerdy” or “weird,” or their special interests, as Dr. Pelangka explains, might not align with those of their peers.
“These are kids who are very bright, and they have all these abilities, but it is difficult socially, because maybe it’s a first grader or a second grader and they’re interested in things that more middle schoolers are interested in because they’re so advanced. It can cause barriers socially in that way, and that’s something to look out for. And again, I’ll hear speech pathologists say, ‘Well, we need to work on their interests, because they have atypical interests.’ They’re interested in what they’re interested in. We can expose kids to things all day, but we can’t — we shouldn’t — force them to have different interests,” she says.
These differences may not be immediately apparent when a child starts school. “Social difficulties may not fully manifest until the expectations of the environment outpace somebody’s abilities,” says Kircher-Morris. “What does that mean? Well, when you’re in kindergarten, you’re kind of just friends with whoever’s around, right? As kids get older, though, as those social expectations increase greatly, you have to be more adept at navigating those ins and outs. So late elementary school, middle school, high school, all of a sudden you start to see those social communication difficulties coming to the surface a little bit more because you’re not able to compensate for those.”
If a child lets their parents know that they are facing harassment from peers, or if a parent suspects their child is struggling socially, Lisa M. Carey recommends that they hold an IEP meeting as soon as possible. “There are steps that all parents should take, especially those of us who have kids with IEPs. Even with 504 plans, there are specific steps that a parent needs to take when there is bullying or suspected bullying.” These, as we discuss more in-depth in our article Bullying and Kids with Disabilities, can include a protection plan added to the IEP, additional counseling services, and a designated safe space or safe adult to go to when the student feels overwhelmed. This can be a school counselor, someone on their IEP team, or a teacher who also hosts a club or activity that the child enjoys.
For Michael H. Carey, it was the teacher who hosted a blackjack club in his classroom during lunch. “I’d get overwhelmed on the yard and I’d just go to this club, and then I’d be able to be myself and chill,” he says. “Having somewhere on campus that you can go to get away, to be with people like you, to de-mask, is what was invaluable for me.”
In some cases, 2e students may also intentionally underachieve in the classroom in an effort to better connect with their peers. As Dr. Arnstein has explored in her research, 2e kids may often try to adapt to their environment before they embrace and express their strengths. “Some kids are very sensitive, and it’s so visceral, and they know what’s going on. They don’t want to talk about it; they don’t want to tell parents,” she says. “They already know they stand out, so now they’re going to underachieve and not work up to their potential because they want to fit in.”
This lack of confidence may also lead them, as Dr. Coleman explains, to “game the system” by telling their teachers, parents, and peers different things about their areas of interest and/or struggle. “When that miscommunication happens across the school and the family, it makes it even harder for the adults to be on the same page and to listen to that child about what it is they need, so it exacerbates the barriers to understanding what’s going on and for the child. They can sometimes figure out that there’s a miscommunication between mom and dad [or] mom and dad and my teacher. So now I can begin to learn how to use that miscommunication to my advantage. So I take my homework in, and it’s half-complete, and I say to the teacher, ‘My mom said I just didn’t have to do any more because I was working really hard but I couldn't finish it.’ I take it home, and I say to my mom, ‘My teacher just gets so upset with me.’”
This can also start to impact how a student’s peers perceive them. Kircher-Morris adds, “Kids who are perceived as troublemakers or who are constantly getting in trouble, especially at younger ages, are not the kids that other students want to socialize with or be around. And so then how those students are treated in those classroom settings influences things.” The best way to redirect the child, both sources agree, is to bring them into the fold of the IEP or accommodations team and make sure they are participating in advocating for themselves, which we will discuss more in-depth shortly.
If sources for this article could sum up the process for finding the ideal balance of supports, accommodations, and challenges for 2e kids at school, it would be “tricky.” Because disability and giftedness in a 2e child are rarely identified at the same time, the child may have been receiving partial supports or services for a time. If giftedness is identified before the disability, this can create an additional barrier to getting services and accommodations for that child.
“Realistically,” says Kircher-Morris, “it is rare for a twice-exceptional student who is gifted [and] with a specific learning disability to receive services through an IEP. Most often, they will get pushed toward a section 504 plan that offers accommodations, as opposed to special education services, because it’s hard to justify legally, the way the law is written for an IEP, that there’s educational impact. So if you’re saying that a student is at grade level, whether you can then justify the educational impact in the same way is much harder, and schools often have a harder time doing that.”
In this clip, Dorreen explains how to approach accommodations and services for 2e kids based on assessments:
Yes! A high IQ or good grades does not preclude a child from receiving an IEP or 504 accommodations. However, Kircher-Morris, Dorreen, Dr. Gelston, and Dr. Arnstein all note that many schools may not easily agree to an IEP even if the child has a demonstrated and qualifying disability, or they suggest that the IEP may not include supports that address the child’s areas of giftedness. This can be due to a lack of understanding of 2e students and their needs, but as Dr. Gelston says, “A lot of the label fighting is really fighting with funding,” and schools may not be willing to allocate the resources to students whose complex needs they don’t readily understand.
“School systems don’t acknowledge that giftedness is a thing, and other ones fight learning disabilities because they don’t want to pay for [them]. And I’ve worked in schools where they’re like, ‘We can’t afford it.’” But fighting for the label, Dr. Gelston says, is how those students get “the keys to the castle.” He continues, “Labels are important in that way. It’s good to know [that] if somebody is at threshold and they do get a label, then it’s because something significant is happening there. And if you’re [at] multiple threshold levels, you’re all of a sudden getting into a smaller and smaller percentage of people.”
Dorreen adds that a child’s formal diagnosis may not always align with what helps them receive services. “Twice-exceptional students may qualify for special education when their disability adversely impacts their educational performance, even when that student demonstrates above average or superior cognitive ability,” says Dorreen. “Some children may just qualify, for example, under other health impairment (OHI) based on anxiety or depression or some of their executive functioning deficits. We may also see students with autism having real difficulty with inferring and social pragmatics, or they may have inflexible thinking.” But as Dorreen says, “we want to keep away from just looking at the grades. If you’re concerned about 2e, we want to be looking at the strengths that your child has, and we’re wanting to be able to look at how we close that gap between the difficulties that are impeding their ability to access that curriculum.”
Lisa M. Carey adds that parents of 2e children should still pursue an IEP or 504 accommodations for nonacademic areas. “A lot of kids that are 2e struggle with social skills. They say an IEP is for academics, but academics is everything that happens from the moment your child gets to school until the moment your child leaves school. That includes lunch, recess, art class. . . . A lot of times I hear families say, ‘Oh, I was told he doesn’t need to be evaluated because he gets good grades.’ That’s just not true, and it doesn’t take away from the fact that they’re brilliant in whatever area they’re brilliant in.”
There is no easy answer to determining the best supports for a 2e child. Depending on their profile, their school, and their district, some students may easily get an IEP, while others may more easily get 504 accommodations. After parents have requested assessments, the results should also be examined with as much documented information as the parents can provide the school and assessment proctors.
“We’re asking a school district to evaluate all areas of suspected disability, so that’s about you as a parent, giving as much information as possible to your school,” says Dorreen, but parents should also provide insight about the child’s mental health and emotional state. “It’s really important that when you’re communicating with your school district, you’re putting it in writing, and then it’s up to the school psychologist to then look at what assessments will be done to evaluate those areas.”
Because a child’s profile may not, at first glance, indicate eligibility for an IEP, Dr. Coleman recommends that parents start working with the accommodations available as soon as possible, as the student’s needs will likely become more apparent and intense as they age. “They’re right on the cusp of identification, or the giftedness is propping up the area of disability, so they don’t quite meet the disability [criteria], but we can all agree, because we see that this child has strengths and challenges that create a struggle with them being as successful as they could be in the classroom. Now we’re talking 504 plan. And the 504 plan does lay out very clearly what we should be doing in terms of additional support for that child to be successful,” she says. These can be paired with data collected from the child’s GATE assessments and Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) data as well.
Common accommodations for 2e students may include the following:
In this clip, Dr. Arnstein explains some strategies and options for parents who are seeking IEPs or 504 accommodations for their child:
When deciding on what services and accommodations to ask for, Dr. Pelangka adds, ”Parents being informed is the biggest asset, and knowing that they can collaborate with their schools and push for [more].” Beyond just addressing the child’s learning obstacles, families can also work with the IEP or accommodations team to build “a plan that helps them be meaningfully challenged and taps into their strengths. Having a strength-based IEP and then making sure that things are modified when they need to be but accommodated when they need to be and always presuming competence . . . A student might be needing a progressive curriculum in one area and a modified curriculum in another area.” (More on this later!)
Dr. Rivera adds that any sort of intervention, whether it be part of the child’s IEP goals or 504 supports, should keep the child’s giftedness in mind. “We really want to make space for those strengths, talents, interests, preferences, abilities whenever possible. Oftentimes on the IEP, I’ll say something like, ‘Engages in collaborative discussion with peers four out of five times as observed by a teacher.’ That’s a very conventional IEP goal. Okay, well, what are they talking about? I would find it very difficult to attend to a conversation that is completely uninteresting to me,” she says. “And to these young people, that’s what that feels like. So, are you putting them in situations to have collaborative conversations about the things that they care about and the things that light them up and interest them?”
This can also mean making accommodations to the learning environment itself. She adds that educators should incorporate “understanding the ways in which the environment either helps or hinders a young person’s ability to access learning and to access social connection and emotional regulation. Making accommodation the environment, rather than a specialized intervention for one or two children.”
Dr. Pelangka recommends, if the resources are available, to work with the child’s case manager and/or inclusion specialist to designate support, as well as someone from GATE to handle the advanced areas. “If we’re tapping into those people, the same has to be done for the giftedness component. Who are we tapping into? Write that into the IEP. Who’s going to support you with this? That all needs to be written in very clearly.” Dr. Gelston adds that all children benefit from doing the things they love, and prioritizing those areas they enjoy can help motivate them to persevere in their more challenging areas.
In this clip, Dr. Gelston explains the value and necessity of incorporating strengths into a 2e child’s learning plan:
“When a child and an adult or anybody engages in a strength-based activity and they’re pursuing their interests and their passions, all of a sudden you might be doing things that you hated doing before that were not a part of your strength set and your skill set, but [now] it isn’t so painful,” he says. “You integrate that in so your strengths help you to follow through. So all these things work together to help you create what we call educational regulation and to learn. We need to be in that moment. There is a moment that happens when we’re learning where the window opens.”
The child should also have a say in the kinds of accommodations and services they need. Michael H. Carey began attending his IEP meetings in middle school; his presence and ability to hear directly from his parent and IEP team not only gave him the language and space to express his wants and needs but also helped his IEP team better communicate options to him.
“I think it’s important to ask your kids in a bunch of different ways, ‘What would make you feel better at school? What would make you work better at school?’ I would have had different responses for each of those, and I think that each of those responses would have touched on a different accommodation I would have needed. Because of the way that my brain works, what would make me think better is different than what would make me feel better [and is different] than what makes me work better in order to be more comfortable,” he says.
A successful IEP should incorporate both the services a child needs and the tools and goals that address their strengths. Dr. Pelangka calls this a progressive curriculum, and it may require making changes in both support and acceleration. “If it’s modified, that usually means it’s a lower-level curriculum, so making sure it’s clear we’re modifying to be a higher-level curriculum, more challenging and specific in what areas and what that should look like.”
But again, understanding who the responsibility falls on for these modifications can be confusing. “If you’re working with a child [and] feel like their least restrictive environment is gen ed but they need a modified curriculum, getting buy-in for that is really hard because of resources, because who’s going to modify the curriculum? Who’s going to help the gen ed teacher modify to be more challenging? It’s important to get that written into the IEP too. How often are they meeting to do that? Who’s preparing the material? It can’t all fall on just the gen ed teacher.”
Beyond curriculum, Dr. Gelston believes that teachers should strive to create an “adaptive connection” with the 2e students in their class. “Having an open heart, using a perspective where they understand all this variability can be happening,” he says, creates room for the 2e student to express the challenges they may be having. “Even though they may not be able to deal with it at the moment, they’re aware that it may exist, and the teacher will look at that and say, ‘Where are they in their learning? It may not be exactly how I would envision it, but that’s okay.’”
In this clip, Dr. Gelston emphasizes how teachers can create an adaptive connection with students that creates a neurodiversity-affirming classroom environment:
Dr. Coleman adds that parents and educators should draw on the student’s assessment results for creating that progressive curriculum. To start, for example, all team members should have an understanding of the student’s assessment data and pattern of performance, recognizing the peaks and valleys of their strengths and challenges.
A school may prefer to start with MTSS interventions, but that can happen parallel to conversations about the child’s IEP or 504 plan. “You don’t have to take a couple months with an MTSS team. You can move toward an IEP or 504 team immediately, if you feel that’s what’s required for the student’s success,” says Dr. Coleman. In fact, observing how a student responds to MTSS can make the IEP and 504 process easier because, depending on the supports the 2e child was receiving, “identification data often gives us hints about what the plan should be, but the MTSS data gives us more concrete examples and ideas about what should actually happen in that IEP or should actually happen in that 504. For accommodations or modifications. That data can actually begin to show a pattern of intensity of need for support that can be useful in making a decision about moving toward an IEP or moving toward a 504.”
Aiming for the highest level of support, however, is ideal. “If the child meets the criteria for a formal disability, IEP is the answer you want — it’s the strongest legal document for intervening and providing services,” says Dr. Coleman.
In these clips, Dr. Coleman explains how parents can help their child’s IEP team customize their child’s curriculum and the best avenue for supports:
Many 2e children may mask the true extent of their mental health needs, just as they may mask their disability or giftedness. Mental health issues still carry stigma for all students, and they can be particularly hard for neurodivergent students, whose behaviors or emotional displays may be misinterpreted as part of their disability. “For twice-exceptional young people in particular, when [mental health supports] aren’t in place, the tendency to implode or explode is much more likely,” says Dr. Rivera. Addressing the child’s concerns should be about “finding people that they can talk to and that can impart skills for life and self-management that also see what’s great and what’s good about them, rather than as problems to be solved or to be fixed.”
Some mental health struggles for 2e kids can come from a sense of perfectionism that their giftedness has created in them and the obstacles their disability presents to keep them from achieving that perfection. “It is somewhat traumatic for a kid to get that experience in the world around them that says, ‘You’re brilliant, you’re smart,’ and that becomes their identity, right?” says Dr. Gelston. “Then they get to this place where they’re average or below average, and it breaks this identity model. They’re not able to maintain that identity across their asynchronous profile, and it creates a certain discomfort, and it creates an internal anxiety, a push to perfectionism — or on the other extreme, [it] can force them to become negatively reactive to the skill that they’re trying to develop.”
Seeking out a counselor or school psychologist, whether it’s a universal accommodation or written into the student’s MTSS or IEP, can be a great way to help that student understand the origin of their emotions. An affirming approach for 2e children, adds Dr. Coleman, is one that focuses on self-confidence, self-knowledge, and effective coping strategies. It can look like:
No 2e child needs to leave their local public school to get the education they deserve; Dr. Pelangka insists that “students can absolutely be successful in a public school setting with the right voice behind them to help push for all of the accommodations, strategies, progressions, and potentially even modifications that they may need.”
But the limited funding that gifted programs receive, coupled with uneven budgets for special education services, give 2e students fewer options for an enriched education. Local public school standards, Dr. Gelstrom adds, weren’t created to serve asynchronous learners. “Twice-exceptional kids,” he says, are “the ultimate example of what’s broken about the grade-leveling model, instead of an individualized education model.”
The National Association for Gifted Children also outlines options for 2e kids, including small groups with students of similar abilities, specialized classes outside of gen ed, and accelerated curriculum. There are a few ways that parents and schools can create such a model for their 2e students, beyond the options offered by the school’s GATE program if it doesn’t provide the balance of challenge and support they need. In some states, such as Colorado, parents can request an Advanced Learning Plan (ALP), a document that “outlines the gifted student’s strengths, needs, and goals based on their areas of giftedness and individual interests” and creates a similar infrastructure to an IEP. If those aren’t available, Dr. Arnstein says parents and students should pursue all available avenues. These can include allowing students into higher-grade classes for their preferred subjects and even into upper-level schools if their aptitude warrants it. Students can also take individualized study and pull out for online classes if they can’t find appropriate institutions in their district. Admittedly, it takes some practice, but it shouldn’t discourage families from doing the work to find the right balance.
Another option is non-public schools. While Lisa M. Carey believes that 2e kids can thrive in public school with the correct scaffolding of support, when looking at a non-public school, parents should “look for a school [that] has a culture that seems to be understanding of these unique kids.”
There are a limited number of schools that aim to serve 2e-specific students. Some of these include:
In this clip, Dr. Rivera explains how parents should approach determining the best school placement for their 2e child:
Outside of schools that cater to 2e students, it’s likely that many teachers and educators may not understand the specific needs of 2e students’ learning profiles. A literature review of research on 2e children and their learning environments published in the journal Education Sciences indicated that teachers have a huge impact on the success of 2e students at school and that having teachers and school personnel well-versed in twice-exceptionality led to better learning and social outcomes. Michael H. Carey recalls having a teacher who refused to let him use assistive technology to complete his assignments, which impacted both his academic performance and his sense of comfort in the classroom. As we mentioned, a 2e student can thrive in a gen ed classroom and public school setting with the right combination of services, accommodations, and teachers who are willing to work to support them. Even if a child does not yet have an IEP or 504 services in place, parents can still collaborate with their student’s teachers by presenting them with as much information about their child as possible. Dr. Arnstein recommends that parents attempt, when appropriate, to establish a line of communication with the teacher as soon as possible.
“Every school year, I approach the teacher,” she says. “[My] attitude is ‘I want you to be successful and not frustrated with my kid. Here are his strengths; here are the things he’s going to ask about. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I’m here to help you.’” Lisa M. Carey adds that giving the 2e child a laminated copy of their needs, strengths, and services they receive to bring to school can help them begin to self-advocate for their needs to a teacher outside of a scheduled IEP meeting.
Ensuring that as many teachers as possible have a strong foundational understanding of 2e not only benefits the 2e students in the classroom but contributes to a learning environment that takes many forms of learning and development into account. “We need to continually recognize that not all learners are the same, and we need to get more resources into the school system to be able to support the teachers that are teaching our children, because it is a systemic issue,” says Dr. Pelangka. “It’s not the teacher’s fault.”
As we discussed earlier, 2e students often require modifications to their academic curricula, whether that involves implementing supports and modifications for their disability or advancing them to higher-grade classes in their gifted areas. The same article in Education Sciences also showed that 2e students thrive at school when challenged and nurtured in their areas of interest in tandem with addressing the areas that their disability might impact. Tailoring a child’s education to a curriculum that foregrounds their strengths, some studies show, not only keeps them engaged and excited to learn but also gives them the confidence to more proactively work on their areas of need.
“Having individualized instruction for these kiddos is fantastic,” says Dorreen. When crafting specific learning projects for a 2e kid, “we want to be able to increase those demands slowly in a nurturing environment. We want to be able to ensure that that student is supported through that process of learning.” A successful learning plan isn’t just about grades but also prepares that 2e child for adulthood and the new parameters of the world after graduation. “We want to have that balance between getting them to learn and being able to make sure that we’re not putting too much stress on them as well.”
“The goal is that you’re going to hold that complexity as high as possible, honoring the strengths and the giftedness for that individual,” adds Dr. Coleman. “You’re not going to automatically reduce the complexity by saying, ‘We’ll just make it easier for you because you have a learning disability.’ The accommodations and the ways the modifications are made should all be designed to promote independence, so the student can operationalize them to support the highest level of complexity that the student can reach.”
How the parents and school team develop these projects will look different for every child, and Dr. Arnstein and Dr. Gelston both implore all the adults in a 2e child’s life to recognize that even with the best supports and strength-based challenges, the child’s learning may not follow a linear trajectory. Part of embracing their asynchronous development is seeing that not every year will look the same and that each year will require different interventions.
“This is not failure. This is us regrouping,” says Dr. Arnstein. “This is us learning and incorporating and sense-making of potentially new skills, new ideas, new ways of approaching things and incorporating them into who we are.”
Even the best schools and teachers can’t fulfill all of a child’s desires and interests, especially for the less-known topics that 2e kids might want to explore. Lisa M. Carey followed her son Michael’s lead. “I tried to put him in activities that were with things that he was interested in, because I feel like that interest was that common link. There are many virtual opportunities for things like that,” she says. “There’s also locally things that you can do in-person. If your kid is into dance, put them in dance. If your kid’s into gaming, find them a way to game where there are other people that are a similar age. That, I think, is really important.”
Dr. Arnstein adds that there are a number of ways to nurture a child’s hobbies or spheres of interest, including seeking out programs, coordinating independent study with their school, seeking out internships in relevant fields, and joining activity-centric social groups. Parents can also try to participate. “Maintaining a sense of awe and wonder about things helps, because it’s like they see the kid in you. It’s okay to be goofy and go on roller coasters and waterslides,” she says. “I think, for these kids, getting to see different aspects of life has been helpful. . . . It’ll get better in the future, but sometimes we do need to hear that from an adult . . . and not just say, ‘Just get over it,’ right?”
Dr. Pelangka also encourages parents to, when appropriate, encourage 2e kids to explore beyond their established interests, especially to explore areas that get them out of their comfort zone. “I don’t think we should ever necessarily stop a kid from being interested in what they’re interested in, but I do think it’s important for families to at least try to expose kids to some age-appropriate things,” she says. “It is important for our kids to be able to engage in topics of discussion with same-age peers.”
Enrichment can also look like exposure to adults or public figures who are also 2e, whether in person or online. “Representation really does matter,” says Michael H. Carey. “Seeing that you can be successful because people like you are successful. You don’t know who has a disability and who doesn’t. I remember a time where I assumed every successful person had to not have a disability, and everyone who was failing, well, that’s because of disabilities. ‘Obviously, I’m like them,’ right? It was so important for me to see that people with disabilities can succeed with accommodations. They can do it, and they’re out there.”
As multiple sources attest, many 2e kids recognize that they have particular needs and interests from an early age. Depending on how apparent their disability and/or giftedness may be to their parents and school personnel, they may receive assessments before they have the language to express how these assessments make them feel. Kircher-Morris believes that kids should be part of the assessment conversation before assessments are administered.
“Whenever I’m doing assessments with kids, the way that I frame it with them is we’re learning more about how their brain works, how they learn, how they think. What are the things that they’re good at? What are the things that are hard for them?” she says. When students can answer these questions, “their parents can parent them better, their teachers can teach them better, and they understand themselves more effectively. It’s really important to have real conversations with students, to talk to them about their diagnoses or labels. We don’t want to magnify any stigma or shame that students might internalize about those things.”
Sources agree that giving 2e kids the appropriate language and confidence is a key part of helping 2e kids advocate for themselves at school, at home, and in the world at large. These conversations don’t have to happen only at school, and, as Michael H. Carey says, it may take time for the 2e child to find the language they need; don’t mistake silence for lack of need. “They might know what accommodations they need. They know where they’re struggling. They might not know the terminology, the ways to say it, how to communicate it, but they know exactly what they need to thrive and get an [appropriate] education at school. It’s invaluable to get that information from your kid.”
In this clip, Michael H. Carey emphasizes the importance of starting conversations with 2e children about their needs and listening to their answers, no matter how unconventional:
Dr. Coleman encourages parents to start including their 2e kids as early as possible, so they start understanding how the conversations can translate into action and services for them. “When you’re meeting with the mom and dad and the teacher, the child has to be there. Number one, they’re going to learn to self-advocate, but number two, they’re going to see that all the adults are hearing the same thing at the same time. As the person that’s being discussed, they have a voice in what is said and what is decided — that child is part of that advocacy team, part of that decision-making team. They begin to trust the adults, versus ‘The adults are those people that sit around and talk about me.’”
Many 2e kids have no trouble making friends at school, whether it’s kids in their GATE classes, their electives, or their outside activities. But for those who do have challenges with making friends, there are a number of ways to give the child the opportunities they need to find community. Dr. Gelston says that, firstly, socialization for 2e kids doesn’t need to look “normal” or follow a traditional ideal of friendship. “I always want to push back and say that’s not normal socialization that you’re telling us that we have to force kids into. All kids communicate differently, and they find other kids that they have a compatible communication with, whether they are 2e, gifted, have a disability, or not.”
When it comes to overcoming challenges to making friends at school, what sources want parents to understand is that there’s nothing wrong with unconventional methods of connection for kids who are unconventional. Seeking out friends in different grades or those who may not be in their day-to-day classrooms can be a great way for 2e kids to connect with peers who meet them where they’re at. Rather than looking for peers who are the same age or live in proximity, sources say to look for peers who have similar interests. “A lot of twice-exceptional people have very specific, deep, intense areas of interest,” says Kircher-Morris, “so there’s lots of different ways that those things can influence, specifically the social relationships.”
As we mentioned in the bullying section of this article, lack of understanding about 2e children can lead to them feeling isolated from their peers. Encouraging 2e kids to pursue friendships forged through interest-focused activities, such as school clubs and camps, helps them develop the social skills to connect to communities that embrace them, even if the people in the community aren’t their immediate peers. “Oftentimes these children socialize or they make social connections with children that are older than them [or] younger than them,” says Dr. Rivera. “There can be a really heavy prioritization on playing with children your own age, and forcing a fit is not going to lead to the outcomes that you want.”
However, parents can still guide their children, when appropriate, to explore social situations outside their interests. Learning how to engage with kids without the foreknowledge of a common interest or learning profile creates a foundation of skills for how that 2e child will move through the world as an adult. “Parents can still have their values and their morals and still allow their kid to be interested in what they’re interested in, but at least try to expose them to some level of play,” says Dr. Pelangka. “Take your kid to the park [or] the playground and at least try to expose them to that so they can be around other kids. That’s still exposure. If they just like to sit at home and line up cars all day, that’s fine, but if they never go to a playground, then that’s going to be hard when they’re at school.”
But ultimately, 2e kids will connect best with others that make them feel safe and supported. “This is true of all friendships, but I think it’s especially true with twice-exceptional students, because we understand that we’re different,” says Michael H. Carey. “We understand that there are ways in which we’re not going to mesh with the general population. Having that entry point of, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, and these people know how to do this, and we all like to do this,’ is just such a revelation for someone who understands that they’re different in so many ways.”
Save your favorite resources and access a custom Roadmap.
Get Started
Social and behavioral challenges at school