Twice Exceptional Students

What it looks like

• one who exhibits great talent or strength in certain areas and disabling weakness in others
• Giftedness may hide disability however, the disability could hide giftedness

What to look for

• - early identification may prevent some of the emotional distress associated with early school experiences

Combination of giftedness and LD

• Poor memory for isolated facts, but excellent comprehension Preference for complex and challenging materials; easily distracted Lacking self-regulation and goal-setting strategies Boredom with rote or memorization tasks, but often disorganized Difficulty reading, writing or spelling, but excellent oral language skills Skill in manipulating people and situations, but poor interpersonal skills Poor performance on simple facts such as addition and subtraction, but capable of complex, conceptual manipulations such as algebraic concepts Strong sense of humor, but inability to judge appropriate times to display it Penetrating insights, but inability to determine cause and effect related to own actions Ability to concentrate for unusually long periods of time when the topic is of interest, but inability to control his or her actions and attention when the topic is not of interest

What can teachers do to Help?

• Use active inquiry involving discussion and involvement
• provide open ended challenges such as small groups and divergent thinking
• Consider students learning style - technology focused, independent learning, kinetic, auditory
• use acceleration and curriculum compacting when required such as going to a different classroom for their strength subject(s)

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• Teach whole concepts then parts rather than part to whole
• - limit chunking instructions
• Provide students with detailed rubric, checklists and performance lists to reduce frustration

Social/Emotional Support

• Tap into students strengths
• - bibliotherapy - use of books to change behaviour
• Cinematherapy - use videos for therapeutic purposes
• - peer to peer counselling
• - encourage individual counselling
• - encourage individual counselling reflection Journals
• - set short and long term goals

Strategies to compensate for areas of need

• pair students with complementary strengths
• use picture books, tapes and oral instruction
• encourage students to choose assignment that rely on students' strengths rather than weaknesses
• understand students need for emotional support and crate correctedness that is powerful in motivating the student
• teach students learning strategies that provide students with logical sequence of steps that make attacking difficult tasks more manageable
• teach self-regulation