Emerging research on the 鈥渘eurodevelopmental paradox鈥� of twice-exceptional students highlights the need for educators to take an earlier, more holistic approach to evaluating and teaching students with disabilities.
Often, when people think of a gifted student with disabilities, they picture an autistic savant, like Dustin Hoffman鈥檚 character in the movie 鈥淩ain Man,鈥� but in reality, 鈥渢here are a lot of kids who are really struggling, and we totally miss them,鈥� said M. Layne Kalbfleisch, the principal investigator of the Krasnow Investigations of Developmental Learning and Behavior, or KIDLAB, at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va.
Ms. Kalbfleisch and other experts estimate there were 300,000 twice-exceptional students鈥攊ntellectually gifted children also diagnosed with learning disabilities鈥攊n 2004, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act first noted that students with disabilities may also be gifted.
Researchers say that, when it comes to processing reading and spatial tasks, the brains of adults who are both gifted and reading-disabled look very much like those of other people with reading disabilities.
SOURCE: Jeffrey M. Gilger
No national count of twice-exceptional students has been done, however, and researchers at the American Educational Research Association鈥檚 annual conference Vancouver, British Columbia last month noted that the recent movement to use response-to-intervention models to identify students for special education鈥攊n lieu of the long-standing practice of measuring the discrepancy between a student鈥檚 IQ and academic performance鈥攃an cause many twice-exceptional students to be misdiagnosed.
Timing of Evaluation
Sylvia B. Rimm, the director of the family-achievement clinic at the Educational Assessment Service in Watertown, Wis., and a clinical professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine agreed. The timing of an evaluation can mean the difference between a student being identified as gifted or disabled, she explained, because while giftedness can mask a disability early on, over time, the disability can hide a student鈥檚 strengths.
鈥淚f they don鈥檛 read a lot and they struggle with reading, their verbal IQs really go down鈥�20 or 30 points over a few years,鈥� Ms. Rimm said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 interaction between learning and the brain. The brain of a reading-disabled child who has not figured out how to read actually changes.鈥�
鈥淚f we do response to intervention first with these kids, we just assume they have a reading disability and they鈥檙e not gifted, and by the time we get to evaluate them, their verbal IQ has gone down.鈥� Then, when the student gets referred for an evaluation, Ms. Rimm added, 鈥渋t isn鈥檛 the disability that鈥檚 missed; it鈥檚 the giftedness that鈥檚 missed.鈥�
At the AERA conference, Susan G. Assouline, the associate director of the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, found more than 60 percent of the difference in reading and writing achievement among students with high IQs could be traced to differences in their working memory and processing speed. Those differences could cause a twice-exceptional student to look average or simply disabled on overall test scores, making it critical for educators to look at a comprehensive evaluation, including differences in scores of different skills or subjects.
鈥淚f you just look at a full scale score, especially considering the differences in processing speed and working memory, you will not get the full picture of the student and the student鈥檚 strengths,鈥� she said.
Atypical Brains
In an ongoing study contrasting the brain activity of gifted and typical adults with and without dyslexia, Jeffrey M. Gilger, a social sciences professor at the University of California-Merced, used functional magnetic-resonance-imaging, or FMRI, which measures the magnetic fields created by electrical activity in the brain, to compare the brains of 40 college-age adults with and without giftedness and reading disabilities.
Preliminary results show the brains of gifted people with reading disabilities processed both verbal and spatial tasks in the same way as other people with reading disabilities: They had more activity spread throughout the brain than those with regular reading abilities.
鈥淚f it is true that dyslexic brains are born into this world with the propensity to be at risk for reading disabilities 鈥� and if they also have atypical brains with the propensity to pick up spatial information in a more-effective way than the rest of us do,鈥� Mr. Gilger said, 鈥渋f you get them early enough, the way the brain molds and shifts itself, early-development [research] tells us there might be sensitive or critical periods to pick up those spatial skills they may have.鈥�
He and Ms. Assouline argued that screenings for early disability intervention should also include analysis of and support for students鈥� potential strengths.
鈥淚f we focus all our attention on the left side of the brain鈥攔emediation and getting these kids up to par in terms of reading鈥攁nd neglect the other kinds of skills they may have a propensity toward, we may actually be shaping the brains of these kids to be locked in reading and miss the opportunity to develop other skills that they may manifest,鈥� Mr. Gilger said.
That鈥檚 why the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., has prioritized research to identify potential strengths associated with cognitive disabilities such as autism, dyslexia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
As a student 鈥渋n elementary school, you鈥檙e supposed to be this Renaissance person; if you鈥檙e great in every subject except for one, which is an unmitigated disaster for you, then you鈥檝e had a terrible day, just terrible,鈥� Alan E. Guttmacher, the NICHD director, said at the March Society for Research in Educational Effectiveness conference in Washington. 鈥淲hen you are an adult, if you鈥檝e done very well in four out of five subjects, you don鈥檛 take that subject鈥攜ou hire someone to do that subject.
鈥淭his thing which is seen in 2nd or 3rd grade as a terrible liability is not the same thing when you are an adult,鈥� Mr. Guttmacher said.
