In any given year, the United States Department of Education can track how many students across the country receive special education services under IDEA (approximately 15%) and how many students demonstrate a level of giftedness and exceptional talent in a given area (approximately 6%). What we don’t have concrete data on is the population of children who exist in both categories — students who can demonstrate high ability in one area while also qualifying for a disability category in another. These students are known as twice-exceptional (2e) or multi-exceptional. Unfortunately, lack of common knowledge and research about 2e students, how they learn, and how to teach them to their fullest potential has created a number of cracks for them to fall through, in both addressing their disability-related needs and nurturing their talents.
To help us understand how 2e is defined, assessed, and identified, 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; Emily Kircher-Morris, LPC, mental health professional, author, and host of the Neurodiversity Podcast; 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, co-creator of the Spiral model of development, and 2e adult; and Michael H. Carey, a 2e self-advocate and college student.
Twice-exceptional (2e), also called multi-exceptional, children are those who demonstrate, simultaneously, a high aptitude for a specific academic or social area and a disability that falls under one of the 13 IDEA categories. Additionally, the giftedness need not solely fall under the umbrella of academic achievement; as we explain (soon!), giftedness is an umbrella for a variety of talents, from math skills to artistic ability to out-of-the-box reasoning.
The term twice-exceptional (2e) first appeared in 1988 in a research article by Dr. James J. Gallagher, one of the pioneers of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and one of the creators of the IEP, in which he called for better support and services in school for “a number of children with special intellectual-processing problems that, nevertheless, maintain an extraordinarily high general intellectual potential.” He would also write later that “they are among the most frequently under-identified population in our schools.”
Part of this under-identification, as we’ll expand on later, comes from how nuanced and individualistic the profiles of 2e students can be. Some examples of what twice-exceptional children can look like include:
According to sources and the existing body of research, the most common co-occurring disabilities that present in 2e children are autism, a specific learning disability (including dyslexia or dysgraphia), ADHD, and mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. It’s hard to know exactly how many 2e children attend school every year. While some agencies track populations of gifted students or students with disabilities, few reputable sources have compiled data on the overlap in these populations. The International Dyslexia Association, for example, estimates that between 2% and 5% percent of school-age children meet the criteria for 2e. Some sources estimate the population could be even higher, with an article in Education Sciences showing rates in some states of up to 10%, while others project numbers as high as 36%.
In this clip, Dr. Rivera defines how 2e manifests in children:
While 2e in itself is not a diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), it’s important for both families and educators to recognize it as an identity marker that shapes a child’s learning and view of the world. The duality of 2e or multi-exceptional children often leads to a unique social, educational, and emotional experience. As Kircher-Morris explains, a 2e child is generally considered to be “somebody who is cognitively gifted, [who] has intelligence that we can typically measure, usually through an IQ test, at the 90th or 95th percentile or above.” This high ability, she says, “is then layered with another disability, [such as] autism or ADHD or dyslexia, something that then impacts where we would typically see cognitive giftedness showing up. Often in an academic setting, but just in general interactions as well.”
These impacts can manifest in the child’s behavior, their social interactions with educators and peers, and often their self-image. As we’ll discuss later in this article, finding the ideal balance of support and challenge for a 2e child’s specific needs and interests has an echoing effect in other aspects of their lives.
Giftedness and addressing gifted students in the United States has been a multigenerational endeavor, and one that remains hard to define across the board. While legislation like IDEA and the ADA have helped educators and institutions define what disability in school settings can look like, the same infrastructure does not yet exist for services and programs that support gifted students. The 1972 Marland Report to Congress, issued by then-Commissioner of Education Sidney P. Marland Jr, created the federal law (P.L. 91-230) to define the five major categories that gifted and talented children fall into. They are:
As Dr. Arnstein explained, “Gifted doesn’t necessarily mean in math or highly verbal. It could also be creativity. It could be leadership — they have potentially a strong sense of social justice. There is a range that we have to consider. So when I think about twice-exceptional . . . I think about people with these intersecting traits.”
How is giftedness identified?
As Kircher-Morris and Dr. Arnstein say, supported with research by the Child Mind Institute and a recent study in Gifted Child Quarterly, there are no federal criteria for assessing or identifying children as gifted; the onus for defining giftedness in students and knowing how to both support and challenge them falls to the states and from there can vary widely depending further on individual school district. California, for example, defines giftedness as follows:
“Students who are enrolled in a public elementary or secondary school and are identified as possessing demonstrated or potential abilities that give evidence of high performance capability are enrolled in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE). High performance capability is defined by each school district governing board. Each district shall use one or more of the following categories in defining the capability: intellectual, creative, specific academic, leadership, high achievement, performing and visual arts talent, or any other criterion proposed by the district and approved by the State Board of Education in the district’s GATE application.”
Dr. Rivera and Kircher-Morris say that this typically also corresponds with an IQ of approximately 125-130. Additionally, there is also the category of highly gifted children, who have an IQ over 145. However, as we will discuss later in this article, IQ tests are by no means the only ways to assess and measure giftedness. Additionally, we must note here that just because a state standard for giftedness exists, it does not mean that every district invests equally in GATE programs and resources for gifted students, including how they are identified.
What if a child's disability affects how they take tests?
This poses a huge obstacle for 2e students to receive accurate assessments and, by extension, the services and accommodations they need to thrive at school. Kircher-Morris states, “A lot of kids who maybe are both gifted and dyslexic, or have another specific learning disability, because of the way schools identify giftedness, those kids often get missed.”
Dr. Gelston adds, “A lot of kids who are twice-exceptional may not be identified as gifted, even if they’re very smart, because the learning disability could be masking; masking takes away from the ability to find the identification.” One of the biggest factors, sources say, that can alienate 2e students from the supports and services they need is that giftedness is in practice defined as existing without disability or without a variation in ability across subjects.
One of the most important aspects for parents and educators to understand about supporting 2e children is that their development usually appears as asynchronous when compared to their neurotypical peers. “Gifted kids tend to be asynchronous in their development,” says Dr. Arnstein, though there is no universal standard for how that asynchrony manifests. For example, she says, “They could be a little bit more socially immature, but all of a sudden, they’re working three grade levels ahead in a specific subject; they’re very highly verbal.”
Dr. Rivera describes asynchrony as under the broad spectrum of neurodiversity rather than as a separate condition. Neurodiversity acknowledges that people’s brains work in a number of ways, not just what has been traditionally thought of as “typical.” Under this framework, neurodivergence, which is more often associated with disabilities like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, or intellectual disabilities, also includes students who are gifted and 2e. “Neurodiversity is this umbrella concept that neurodivergence lives within, and then twice-exceptional lives within neurodivergence. You can see it as kind of a nesting-doll situation,” she says, “with our idea of neurodiversity being a natural human variation in intelligence — our social abilities, our creative abilities, our emotional abilities, our perceptive systems, our salient systems.”
In this clip, Kircher-Morris explains where 2e fits into the umbrella of neurodiversity:
Asynchrony in 2e children can manifest, in Dr. Rivera’s words, as the child living as “many ages at once,” depending on their development in a certain sphere. This can mean that a 10-year-old, for example, is exhibiting the social skills associated with their biological age, while also demonstrating the academic prowess of a 14-year-old, but with the emotional regulation of a 6-year-old. This can lead to challenges both inside and outside the classroom, where the child may feel out of place socially with their same-aged peers, yet feel years ahead of them academically. Dr. Gelston adds that asynchrony doesn’t always mean that a child will need disability-related services indefinitely or that their asynchrony is indicative of a disability. Sometimes, the school may feel reluctant to provide accommodations without evidence of an IDEA-eligible disability.
Neurodiversity in 2e students
Kircher-Morris adds that neurodivergence is far more complex that what many schools’ baseline knowledge is, and for 2e kids, it may not fall neatly into IDEA categories. “We talk a lot about autism and ADHD, [and] I think it’s really important to recognize those are not the only types of neurodivergence. Those are not the only types of twice-exceptionality that you can see. However, often those are the labels where we see twice-exceptionality being specifically identified because of the way that giftedness tends to be identified in the schools. A lot of kids who maybe are both gifted and dyslexic, or have another specific learning disability because of the way schools identify giftedness, those kids often get missed.”
Sources agree that parents and 2e students should understand that twice-exceptionality is one form of neurodiversity. As Dorreen puts it, their brains merely express “neurological differences and natural variations, not deficits. We’re all different. We’ve all got our own unique talents and gifts.”
In practice, this means moving away from neurodiversity and asynchronous development as a deviation from a norm, and more toward them as a unique way of learning and engaging that begets unique methods and services. “We want to move that thinking away from ‘how do we fix the child?’ to remove those barriers to learning. We want to have our educators being encouraged to think about strength-based thinking for our students and alternative problem solving areas for our kiddos.”
As we noted above, the breadth of research on 2e and multi-exceptional children and adults remains disproportionately small, leaving room for misconceptions and harmful assumptions to fill in knowledge gaps. This starts at the very existence of twice- and multi-exceptionality, which can at first appear like an impossible paradox.
“For a very long time, people really assumed it was either one or the other. It wasn’t necessarily something that could coexist,” says Kircher-Morris. This has extensively impacted how 2e children navigate and perceive the world. “More than stereotypes about twice-exceptionality, there are stereotypes about what giftedness is, or about what those disabilities are. But when you have that layering, they show up much differently than what you might expect.”
Some misconceptions, she continues, also stem from a lack of recognizing the nuance in what giftedness (which, like we said, lacks clear demarcations!) looks like. “There’s this assumption that because somebody is cognitively gifted, they’re going to get good grades and be successful academically,” but when compounded by an undiagnosed or unsupported disability, “that often is not true.” Because many 2e children are also often identified later on in school or have not had their disability and giftedness assessed at the same time, educators may struggle to recognize the layering. The Bridges Academy 2e Center uses a color model originally developed by Susan Baum, PhD; if a gifted child is yellow and a child with a disability is blue, then a 2e child is green, and there are infinite shades that come with their own abilities and differences.
“If a child is identified as cognitively gifted in the schools first, without knowing that other piece, that can be very confusing for people to see: ‘Well, you’re smart, but then you’re not performing in a way that aligns with that.’ The flip side of it is people think about ADHD or autism or dyslexia, and often, if that is the first piece that is identified, they don’t recognize that there can also be that superior cognitive ability that exists along with that. And so they don’t look for those things. They don’t look for ways to support those traits,” says Kircher-Morris.
For Michael H. Carey, he has experienced firsthand how enduring myths not only impede 2e children’s learning but also impact their self-image. “One that I see the most is that just because I’m smart in some ways doesn’t mean that I’m fully capable in every way,” he tells us. “I still need help. I still need accommodations. Just because I can sit down and write an essay now doesn’t mean I’m going to be able to do that essay in every environment in every situation. I think a lot of people see, ‘Oh, this 2e student is capable in this one area, so obviously they’re capable in every other area to an equal degree.’ We as human beings are multifaceted; we have different levels of capability in different areas. And some people just need accommodations in some areas that wouldn’t be obvious, especially with non-apparent disability, as many 2e students have.”
There are many factors that can impact how quickly or accurately a child is assessed for 2e. “It’s a very qualitative experience,” says Dr. Rivera, “meaning it can be difficult to quantify and diagnose. They’re having this qualitative experience of life and their neuro-complexity is showing up in this qualitative way, meaning that it can be incredibly difficult to quantify or to diagnose or to assess in the conventional way that we tend to assess for either advanced abilities or learning disabilities.”
Dr. Pelangka adds that, in her experience, this can look like a 2e child showing what the school may interpret as defiance or “not following the rules” for their schoolwork, because their ability is so much higher than what the assignment requires. For a two-paragraph writing exercise, for example, they may instead write two pages; not directly following the assignment isn’t a reflection of inability but rather how their twice-exceptionality comes through, such as the student having both high verbal intelligence and poor executive functioning.
She adds that she has often observed that the impetus for 2e identification comes from a parent or an educational advocate like herself, rather than the teacher recognizing the student’s potential. For a teacher, she says, they should take this as a potential indicator of giftedness before assuming it comes from disregard.
For students with a pre-identified disability, it may also be wrongfully attributed to their disability. “If the teacher is like, ‘It’s not what we asked them to write,’ let’s look beyond that. We need to do more assessment here and figure out if we have a 2e kid going on,” she says. “When you dig deeper and you look at their abilities and their strengths, it’s to make sure that we aren’t missing [anything], because there are ways to support that type of mind.”
For parents who themselves are not 2e, the emergence of their child’s abilities can be surprising, especially if they do not fall into the tidy box of universal giftedness or if their disability was identified first, which, as we noted, can obscure the full extent of a child’s aptitude.
Parents will often be able to recognize a child’s potential giftedness and/or disability before they start school. For Dr. Arnstein, her son had an IEP at three years old for speech therapy, but by six was completing high-level math problems. Both Lisa M. Carey and Michael H. Carey recall that Michael’s disability was identified years before he was identified as 2e, but the signs of his abilities were there.
As Dr. Rivera explains, “You’ll see children who are able to access higher-order thinking or advanced concepts with ease. They’ll take in things like terraforming Mars or developing vaccines and medicines for people and be able to elaborate on those topics from an almost adult perspective. Then you’ll notice that they didn’t learn to tie their shoes until they were 12, or they cannot, or refuse to, write by hand. We’re seeing advanced conceptualizations or rapid conceptualization, with these skills that other children their age seem to master with relative ease just completely escaping them.”
If you as a parent start to feel an inkling that your child’s abilities sit outside general standards, trust your gut. As Dorreen explains it, the child may be too young to articulate how they’re feeling yet or may lack the confidence to speak up (more on this later), despite already showing eligibility for 2e. For parents, “That’s when we would open up that conversation with the school district and say, ‘My son is really struggling,’ or ‘We’re seeing some really great talents in this area.’ It’s really about, ‘How do we have that conversation about where my child fits, and what are we seeing in the classroom?’”
Masking
As sources including Dr. Coleman, Kircher-Morris, and Dr. Rivera attest, a delay in identification for a 2e child often comes from a child’s giftedness or disability “masking” the other. This can come from educators not recognizing a potential disability because, for example, the child may still complete assignments and make good grades. But it can also come from intentional effort on the child’s part to hide a learning difference that they fear may ostracize them from peers, educators, and their family.
Dr. Coleman, who is herself 2e, recalls that she was able to progress through various grades of elementary school without being able to read, despite coming from a highly educated and well-read family. “Everyone just assumed that I could read,” she says, “and somewhere in the third grade, I could no longer mask or hide my challenges. My teacher was pretty shocked, and my mother was flabbergasted that I really was a non-reader [but] smart enough to cover it up for quite a while.”
Because IDEA supports and the language for 2e didn’t exist at the time, Dr. Coleman repeated third grade but did eventually learn to read and even graduated high school at only 16 years old. But the masking, she says, stemmed from a desire to not be set apart from her peers. “That experience of not quite fitting and not quite belonging and not quite understanding, I chalked it up to maybe something wrong with me.”
As with many forms of disability, 2e and the labeling associated with assessments can give parents pause. A child’s disability, for example, may overshadow the giftedness that parents want to foster in conversations with educators. In some cases, Kircher-Morris says, even the label for 2e can make parents nervous. But more often than not, the label proves beneficial for both the child’s education and their self-image.
“I often talk to parents and they will be really hesitant about going through a diagnostic process, about labeling their child,” she says. “The problem with that is you can choose not to label a child, not to get a formal diagnosis. However, they are always being labeled. Society is labeling them. Are they internalizing the message that ‘I’m lazy’ or ‘I’m unmotivated’ or ‘I’m dumb’?” The upside of a diagnosis, however, is that the child understands why their brain works the way it does. It also gives them the language to answer the questions all children ask themselves, such as, “What are my strengths? What are my struggles? What does this mean for me? How does it [impact] how I interact with other people, how I show up, how I learn? This is what works for me, and this is what is difficult.”
Student Study Team (SST)
Before initiating the in-depth assessment process, the child’s school district will likely first suggest what’s called a Student Study Team (SST). An SST can be a great start for conversations between the family and school personnel about a student’s abilities and needs, Dr. Pelangka says, and an effective SST should create measurable parameters for supporting the child. However, if parents feel the SST isn’t proving effective, parents can walk away. Dorreen encourages parents to keep requesting additional testing and to look beyond a strictly academic lens. “We’ve got to be able to go back to the school and say, ‘These are the concerns that we have. How do we address this?’”
School IEP evaluation
As with any assessment, “if you or someone else — maybe your child’s doctor or therapist — believe that a child should be assessed for special education, then a parent should ask the school in writing to evaluate,” says Lisa M. Carey. “A lot of times, parents get caught up in the informal pushback and the formal pushback,” which can unintentionally halt or obstruct the assessment process. Carey says this can be as simple as a school telling a parent that they don’t think the child needs an IEP, and the parent saying okay. “The school records that the parent withdrew their request,” she says. “So a parent should simply reply, ‘Thank you for your input, but I would still like the evaluation,’ and then the school has to provide an assessment plan or a formal written denial within 15 days.”
Dorreen adds that if the school denies the evaluation and provides a prior written notice, parents may have the option to seek out testing by a third party, called an Independent Educational Evaluation. Parents also have a right to outside testing if they disagree with the results of the school’s completed assessment; for example, parents may feel that the appointed assessment proctor does not have a foundational understanding of what 2e looks like and how it will influence the outcome of the assessment. However, Dr. Pelangka adds, there must be a reason to suspect eligibility for an IEP before parents can start the IEE process; simply requesting an IEE doesn’t guarantee that the district will agree. But, Dr. Gelston says, beginning conversations about assessment between parents and the child’s school can help everyone involved better understand how twice-exceptionally manifests in unconventional ways.
Other testing
“We look at multi-exceptionality as this multi-variant model,” says Dr. Gelston. “Giftedness is not just an intelligence quotient. It can also be a wide range,” and the assessments given to the child should reflect that. If you suspect your child is twice-exceptional, you should begin conversations with their teachers and school as soon as possible, because, as the Davidson Institute reports, most schools do not have regular standards of 2e testing.
Assessments for twice-exceptionality will vary state to state, county to county, and even school to school. Because GATE is no longer funded at the federal level, and in California’s case not even at the state level, a school may regularly test students in a certain grade level for GATE eligibility, or they may do so on a case-by-case basis. If you feel your child may be twice-exceptional, you can pursue a number of assessments, which involve not only assessments for an IDEA-defined disability but also certain tests for giftedness.
Potential benefits and drawbacks of assessments
As we have discussed in other articles about emotional disabilities and mental health, some parents may feel that seeking testing or assessments for their child creates a stigmatizing label, especially when associated with the disability aspect of twice- or multi-exceptionality. But testing and assessments are also one of the most important parts of accessing both disability services and the supports that can help a child pursue their giftedness and interests.
Assessment, Kircher-Morris says, “offers opportunities for accommodations, for accessibility, for understanding these different avenues of support that might not be available sometimes without having that understanding. In addition to just the identity, the self-concept, the self-awareness of being twice-exceptional, there’s also just the practical, functional benefits of having that identification.”
Testing and assessments for 2e follow some of the same lines as testing for disability, but they aren’t identical. Additionally, some results may be skewed by the student’s ability to mask their deficits with their gifts, or their disability may “cancel out” their aptitude. One of the most popular and long-standing assessments is some form of cognitive assessment, such as an IQ test, but there are plenty of other means of measuring ability, disability, and specific areas of giftedness that do not rely on IQ. One of the most common tools that schools across California and the country use to identify a student’s intellect and academic aptitude is the IQ-achievement discrepancy model.
Per the Vanderbilt University Iris Center, the IQ-achievement discrepancy model “assesses whether a substantial difference, or discrepancy, exists between a student’s scores on an individualized test of general intelligence (that is, an IQ test such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) and his or her scores obtained for one or more areas of academic achievement (e.g., the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities).”
These assessments have within them various subtests to gauge a variety of the child’s abilities, including processing speed, oral language, fluid reasoning, verbal comprehension, arithmetic, and short-term memory. Comparing the discrepancy between the test score and academic achievement is meant to help educators identify potential learning disabilities.
Beyond IQ
Kircher-Morris, Dr. Rivera, and a growing body of research indicate that IQ tests come with a degree of controversy and may prove ineffective for accurately identifying 2e students without taking a holistic, nuanced approach. A research paper published in the Journal of Intelligence indicates, “It is not sufficient to show that IQ test scores are related to academic achievement test scores, nor is it sufficient to show that there are statistically significant mean differences between IQ test scores across SLD [specific learning disability] groups,” and the the idea that a high IQ correlates directly to high achievement is outdated. Reporting from the The Hechinger Report supports this, with the article calling IQ test results “arbitrary” as a means of definitively assessing children for learning disabilities like dyslexia.
Parents should know that they do not have to accept the results of a discrepancy-based cognitive assessment at face value.
“For gifted individuals, depending on what assessments you’re using, it may look like they are achieving at grade level, but their ability is much higher. But the question is, are they progressing? How effortful is some of that work that they’re doing?” says Kircher-Morris. “So you really can’t use a straight discrepancy model when you’re looking for specific learning disabilities in that way. You have to take the results in context with the overall cognitive ability of somebody. . . . When you layer in that gifted piece, you have to take a nuanced view of the entire assessment process in order to contextualize all of it, to see the overall impact for that student without making blanket statements.”
Strength-based testing
Dr. Rivera adds that each area within an assessment has information that can help families and schools identify areas of both challenge and strength. “Investigating those subtests and perhaps speaking with somebody who understands these things,” she says, “that’s really great data that you want.” Coupling this information with any potential disability can help demystify “how the constellation of symptoms is showing up for your child, so that you can again support, accommodate, celebrate, and then double down on those strengths, talents, interests, and abilities.”
Things parents should consider asking the assessor about the use of IQ-discrepancy models are:
In this clip, Kircher-Morris explains how different disabilities impact the results of assessments:
Not every district uses the same assessments, and parents can discuss alternative assessment models that do not rely on IQ and standardized tests to determine their child’s aptitude. In fact, as Dr. Pelangka explains, many traditional assessments for either giftedness or special education do not reflect the full scope of 2e kids’ strengths and needs.
“There are specific cognitive assessments that are best for individuals on the [autism] spectrum,” she says. “I would obviously recommend to the team and to the family that they consider specific cognitive [tests], versus if it’s someone that has ADHD or a different [other health impairment (OHI)].” An OHI can include anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. The same applies to a student who may have cerebral palsy or a disability that impacts their fine motor skills, or one who may require assistive technology because they are nonspeaking or minimally speaking. “You have to tease that out. Is that truly a deficit, or is that because there’s an underlying skill deficit in the area of fine motor? Understanding the learner and knowing those pieces, parents need to be informed. . . . Knowing those variables and what can conflate or deflate scores is, I would say, most important, and being able to get accurate scores.”
Response to Intervention (RTI)
An alternative to traditional IQ testing that many states have adopted is the Response-to-Intervention model (RTI). RTI refers to, quite literally, a model in which a student’s ability is monitored over a period of time “to determine whether they show adequate growth (referred to as responsiveness) following the implementation of high-quality instruction. Students who do not respond adequately to research-validated instruction in the general education classroom are provided with increasingly intensive and validated interventions,” which are often part of the school’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). With RTI, “we’re not looking at that ability achievement discrepancy any longer, because we’re recognizing this is a student who’s struggling, who needs something more, regardless of whether or not we can identify through testing a specific learning disability,” says Kircher-Morris.
Unlike an IEP or 504 accommodations, MTSS is available to all students at a school and aims to serve them through a comprehensive framework that addresses both their areas of challenges and their areas of giftedness. This can include realigning supports and services, modifying curriculum and curriculum delivery based on student needs, and educating school staff on how to approach unique learners. However, MTSS is not a replacement for an IEP if a student demonstrates need; parents have the legal right to request assessment for an IEP regardless of RTI results. Rather, parents can use information about their child’s response to RTI and MTSS to strengthen their case for an IEP or higher supports.
“Response-to-Intervention cannot be used to delay or deny an IEP evaluation,” says Dorreen. “Often, parents are told, ‘Your child’s at grade level,’ or, ‘Your child has to do six weeks or six months of Response-to-Intervention before we can do those assessments,’ and that’s actually not the case under the federal requirements. So Response-to-Intervention is designed to identify students who’re struggling academically compared to their peers, and for 2e students that’s often difficult because they can maintain average performance through compensation or through excessive effort, and that excessive effort can be increasing those other factors,” such as mental health and social struggles.
Outside of school, it’s likely that some adults in a 2e child’s life do not understand the nuances of their identity, which can sow doubt in the parents’ perception of the child’s abilities.
Lack of awareness
As Kircher-Morris explains, 2e itself is not a diagnosis and does not have a federally implemented definition. “An accurate assessment when you are twice-exceptional is tricky for different reasons. Giftedness, on its own, is not a super well-understood concept, even among clinicians. There are mixed opinions about what that even really means,” and those opinions often filter into assessment results. “When we’re talking about twice-exceptional students, especially with ADHD, the first step that families usually take when they are concerned about ADHD with their child is they will go and talk to their pediatrician, and oftentimes, the first question out of the pediatrician’s mouth is, ‘How are their grades?’ For twice-exceptional kids, often, their grades are not showing the difficulty that they might be having.”
In this clip, Dr. Pelangka explains how different forms of disability, including autism, OHI, or SLD, can impact the results of a cognitive assessment and how to support children with different skills:
It’s possible that the assessment proctor, usually a school psychologist or other qualified professional, isn’t well-versed in alternative assessments; as we mentioned earlier, parents cannot dictate what types of assessments the school or district uses. But if parents disagree with the results, they can still notify their child’s school and discuss additional options. Dr. Pelangka notes that if parents seek out an IEE, they’re entitled to more collaborative input with the private proctor and the specific assessments administered for their children. Parents should be aware that certain tests do have restrictions, she adds, such as not being allowed to be administered more than once within a certain timeframe even if the proctor has changed.
Baselines
Assuming a baseline for grade level has its uses, Dr. Gelston adds, but it can also limit the individuality that students — and not just 2e students — deserve. “Kids are in age-based grades,” where the assumption is that “everybody can do the same math, the same English, the same gymnastics, the same spelling. The underlying assumption that we’re really trying to dispel here, the myth, is that kids develop evenly. So when you look at these outliers, like gifted kids who are twice-exceptional, it’s like, ‘Wow, you have kids that are really smart, but they struggle with reading, or they struggle with social situations.’ It is a big mistake to think everybody’s developing the same way.”
Not every student can be assessed for twice-exceptionality in the same way due to legal reasons, and the limitations on certain assessments can hinder appropriate identification. For example, the landmark case Larry P. v. Riles, initially filed in 1971, created an injunction (that has since been expanded on) banning the use of IQ tests to assess Black students for certain types of disabilities, such as intellectual disabilities.
The intent of the injunction was to protect Black students from being wrongfully placed and overrepresented in special education classrooms, but the inverse consequence is that many Black 2e students who show signs of twice-exceptionality do not get the assessments they need to access programs like GATE or supports for their needs and interests. The Larry P. case does not make IQ testing for Black children illegal across the board, nor does it prevent IQ testing for the intent of 2e identification, but many schools and assessment professionals may not want to use IQ tests for fear of accusations of cultural bias.
This does not mean that Black 2e children cannot be appropriately assessed and identified as twice-exceptional. As Dorreen recommends to all families with 2e kids, “It’s important to not use just one eligibility model when we’re looking at these kids,” she says. “Historically, the discrepancy model has been used to identify specific learning disabilities, and many states now allow multiple models for that. The other way in which a lot of states measure whether a child needs to have an IEP or to be looked at is through the Response-to-Intervention or the Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS). A lot of states, believe it or not, do not use the discrepancy model at all.”
Exploring alternative assessments
As previously stated, parents cannot choose the exact models a school psychologist or assessment proctor may use, but they can discuss these alternatives with their child’s school psychologist. If they do not feel there is someone at their child’s school qualified to assess for 2e, parents also have a right to an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE).
None of these alternative assessments should inhibit a family from seeking disability services. As we’ve written about before, “the Department of Education has issued instruction that Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) or Response-to-Intervention (RTI) measures cannot be used as a reason to delay assessing for an IEP,” meaning that parents have recourse for a school delaying assessment and potential access to IEP services.
Dr. Pelangka also notes that even if a child has access to the necessary assessments, the assessments may not suit the student’s communication styles or native language. Assuming that a child isn’t gifted because they cannot, for example, express their knowledge vocally further impedes that child’s education. “We have all these assumptions and thoughts that, ‘Oh, they’re not smart because they can’t tell us what they need or what they want,’ but you can be twice-exceptional and be nonspeaking,” she says. “I think that’s something to be mindful of — how language impacts scores and making sure that the testing is appropriate for the student, and not making it look as though the student has less ability than they do because there’s a language component. So nonverbal testing is really important.”
This also applies to children whose primary language is not English or a language with easily accessible translators and/or translated materials. In California, for example, there may be materials and assessments that native Spanish speakers can easily access, but not those for a student who speaks Turkish as their first language. In those cases, Dr. Pelangka says, parents can discuss alternative assessment options, such as “ nonverbal IQ tests and making sure we’re able to get a true idea of their processing abilities and their IQ, their cognitive abilities, to make sure we’re not missing something. Just because you can’t speak with your voice doesn’t mean that you can’t be gifted. So that’s important for families to know. Don’t let people not presume competence.”
What parents should keep at the front of their minds, sources agree, is that the research and understanding around 2e children is still nascent, and that the knowledge we have as a society today is always poised to change. “The first thing that we can do is have an open mind,” says Dr. Gelston. There are more and more psychologists, teachers, educational advocates, and school districts that understand and look holistically at twice-exceptionalism, so parents should always aim to meet educators where they’re at and build together. Some of the most important advice for supporting a 2e child includes the following:
Trust your instincts. Don’t let initial hesitancy or pushback from your child’s school prevent you from pursuing assessments and advocating for services, especially if your child has articulated their needs.
Collect data. Dr. Arnstein and Dr. Gelston both encourage parents to keep a journal, and in fact have produced their own for parents to document the changes in their child’s development across multiple spheres besides their school performance. Even if you write in the journal for only a few minutes per day, making notes of how your child responds to different supports, enrichment activities, and social situations creates a record that can be used to get the best collaboration from the school.
Listen to your child. All children should have a say in their education, especially 2e kids with the unique hybrid of strengths and challenges they face at school. Their ideas for accommodations or changes in curriculum come from their lived experiences and shouldn’t be discounted just because they may be novel or aren’t part of a traditional learning model.
Engage in their interests. Just because your 2e child has a niche special interest that you may not understand, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with them. As Dr. Arnstein says, kids love sharing their interests with others, including their family members. “Go all in with them on whatever their interest is at that moment; get out there and nerd out with them big time. They love it. If it’s swimming, if it’s cubing, if it’s Legos . . . We have a lot of hobbies in our house, and we cycle through every few months, and that’s okay.”
Connect with other 2e families. “Anything that normalizes disability is a good starting point. We do not want to convey to our kids that that part of them is broken or wrong,” says Lisa M. Carey. “There are so many organizations out there that you could connect your kid to, to show them that this is just something on the spectrum of the human experience.”
Don’t use their abilities against them. It’s easier than it seems for educators and parents to leverage what a child is good at to help them address their areas of challenge, withholding the activities they enjoy as a reward for doing the work that’s harder. “If there’s nothing for them to look forward to during the school day, then there’s really no reason for them to work on developing those social and emotional aspects of themselves,” says Dr. Rivera. The intentional and deliberate development of talents for their own sake, not as a leverage point for growth in some other area that’s lagging, is extremely inspiring to these young people.”
Collaborate with your student’s teachers. Just like parents, teachers learn about the children in their classrooms every day, and parents should see them as comrades. “As a teacher, I think it’s just breaking the stigma and learning how to incorporate interest, but also helping them feel included as much as possible,” says Dr. Pelangka. “Communicating with the families: ‘How can we help your kid at school? What can I incorporate here that he likes or she likes?’ Try to support them in playing on the playground or doing this for a club or whatever they have access to on the campus.”
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