Twice Exceptional
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Anonymous
| My dd is 8, just finished first grade and we just did a neuropsych evaluation of her. We have learned that she is extremely smart and also has an attention disorder. We don’t have the final report yet but this is what the psychologist explained. I was speaking with a friend who has older kids and she told me this is called Twice Exceptional. I hadn’t heard that term and wonder what others who have kids who are twice exceptional might be able to share? |
Anonymous
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The term was first used in the 90s. Means gifted plus a disability. If your child's GAI or FSIQ was 130+, she probably would be considered 2e.
There are many 2e children, but not many 2e programs or a standard approach. Basically you want to make sure you give your child enough challenge to engage her, but also support her areas of deficit. Don't just focus on the strengths or the weaknesses. Here's a primer https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/empowering-your-child/building-on-strengths/gifted-childrens-challenges-with-learning-and-attention-issues?gclid=CjwKCAjwjZjZBRAZEiwAPeLSK-AngRa6GH_WqdHvSrRibTSv-DQE3bAOBFpcujYyHgnvIEoGCZPRuhoCAhAQAvD_BwE |
Anonymous
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IMO and IME, 2E doesn't tell you more than that there is more going on than the usual. There is too much variety in each "E". Even within ADHD there is quite a bit of variety.
The PP is correct. Support both Es. You child's strengths will be the path toward overcoming her weaknesses and lead her to independence as an adult. Montgomery County has a 2E handbook, so does Virginia. Fairfax is currently working on theirs and should be out next summer/fall. |
Anonymous
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She also had anxiety, does that make her thrice exceptional? Right now we are just trying to process how all these things affect her daily life and learning. She’s very smart and can compensate a lot for the inattention, but she seems to have confidence issues and the anxiety combined with not paying attention spiral into “I don’t know how/I can’t do this”. If we remind her to take a deep breath and re-read the instructions (she often only reads the first sentence), she immediately dives in and can complete the work quickly and independently.
We don’t know the actual scores yet but were told she was 98th or 99th percentile on all of the intelligence tests. |
Anonymous
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My DS11 has ADHD and expressive/receptive language impairments. IQ hovers 145-150 (he's a three in last six years).
What I can tell you: 1. It is true that kids benefit from intellectual peers- I have found that other gifted kids tend to overlook my son's social deficits because he brings a lot of skills to the table that they respect. 2. Don't get overly focused on either the gifted or the learning issue. Create a balance of challenge and scaffolding. In other words, get as much meaningful support from your school as possible- while nurturing intellect. With ADHD and a high IQ, my son's biggest challenge will be dealing with a locker and transporting his "stuff" from one location to another. 3. Find an activity that gives confidence- DS does indoor rock climbing (team) and plays the piano. He excels at math competitions and meets a lot kids and families who want his friendship at these competitions. 4. ADHD is hard- but we have found with our son that it seems to contribute to intense creativity. My DH and I aren't slouches, but our DS plays the piano like he was born for it, creates beautiful artwork (for his age) in the car(!), and dreams up creative short stories without effort. He's never short on ideas, and that is really something special in this society. 5. Oh and be prepared for the teen years- gifted, ADHD and hormones are no joke. Drama, drama, drama. |
Anonymous
Should say that he's had three IQ tests in the past six years. First was school test in K, and next two were for neuropsych testing and re-evaluation. That was probably confusing. |
Anonymous
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Thank you so much for the detailed reply!! Dd is super social and has always been, and she is well-liked by her peers but does come across as naive (she’s our eldest) which has made her a target for bullying (which is when we first noticed the anxiety).
She’s in a private school for “gifted” kids (I say that in quotes because the school has a wide range of kids, but they are mostly all creative, love learning and have individual passions). She loves theater and singing and is involved in those activities in and out of school. She’s not a sporty kid but is an excellent skier and does that a lot in winter months. It’s given her a lot of confidence as she’s better than the rest of the family and allowed a lot of freedom on the small mountain where we ski. She’s 8, going into 4th grade in the fall. She is heading to sleepaway camp this summer (at her request) and school starts ramping up next year, so we are hoping to put a lot of additional help with executive functioning in place at the end of the summer. She’s not a disruptive kid, she tends to say dream and go off on tangents. And thanks for the heads up about teen years - I’m already terrified! |
Anonymous
pp here- all kids are individuals. We did notice more anxiety in 4th and 5th because of increased social expectations and executive functions. You might consider a social skills group and/or individual executive functioning therapy. I don't know about your school, but I noticed in ours that the girls and the boys started to penalize differences more heavily as the kids age- especially tangents and inattention/disorganization, when most kids are becoming more socially aware and judgmental. The thing about the gifted- is don't let people tell you to downplay it- they will, but it's really frustrating for smart kids when they struggle unnecessarily with organization and attention. It causes something called imposter syndrome and underachievement. Brilliant people can feel overestimated and deeply insecure because they struggle with simple things related to their ADHD. I've found with my son that it sometimes requires different teaching methods- right now, he is learning algebra- and is struggling far more with the "rote" than the word problems. His tutor said he is able to internalize the "rote" only when it's tied to applied math (word problems). For most people, it's the opposite. That is just one example of how gifted/ADHD may combine. |
Anonymous
No thrice exceptional. Lots of kids have multiple SNs with ADHD/Anxiety being very common, they are all 2E. 99th percentile would translate to about a 145 IQ. It's good you that you remind her to slow down and read directions. The pattern of just diving into work and getting confused is very common with ADHD. Always praise her for hard work, not smarts. This helps overcome the imposter syndrome that PP mentioned because you can't control your IQ or your SNs, but you can control your effort. Also studies show that effort counts for more than brains in the real world. |
Anonymous
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OP, I have a similar kid. ADHD, Generalized Anxiety, high IQ. I agree with PPs about supporting both sides. It can be challenging in school when teachers kind of average out strengths and weaknesses and don't help enough either way.
It really depends on the child, but what I noticed was mine is that school--instead of being a source of pride and self-esteem, as we naively expected it to be--was incredibly frustrating for him. The disparity between what was in his head and what he produced on paper was enormous and he was frustrated and annoyed. The difference between his quickness at something and slowness at others was painfully huge. He constantly felt like he was failing and became very depressed. The other comment I have is that challenges and strengths change over the years. I thought my son's challenges would always be related to production and writing. Well, we put an enormous effort into writing and now, at age 13, he is an exceptional writer. On the other hand, for years he was extremely strong in math and that has become MUCH harder as problems are consistently multi-step and require so much attention to detail. So... you have to be flexible and watch out in so many ways! |
Anonymous
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One thing I'd add is that high IQ kids with ADHD can very easily mask the ADHD symptoms at the lower levels of school (if they are not super impulsive). You start to see the cracks when school gets more challenging around 4th, 5th, or middle school grades. This is particularly true with girls that tend not to be disruptive but maybe just "chatty" so don't bother the teachers much.
At the upper grades: (1) the social dynamics become more nuanced and more difficult for these girls to pick up on the subtle social cues that are so important to pre-teen girls; (2) their are more "due dates" for assignments, and forgetting to do things can lead to falling grades and stress; and (3) the curriculum is focused less on stuff you can learn intuitively (like reading and arithmetic) and more on facts and methods that you need to be paying attention in class to get -- especially now that many schools no longer have any textbooks -- so even a high IQ kid might get left behind because they just spaced out when the information was conveyed. All this is to say that you should just keep an eye on stuff as she ages and adjust as needed. |
Anonymous
New poster here with gifted, kid who has ADHD, dyslexic, dysgraphia and just finished 2nd. I gotta be honest; I'm depressed as hell. He took some other kids' work samples home (dumpster diving he told me) and has been reading their stories and appreciating their work and telling me all about it. None of that pride in his own work. I'm actually in tears now, was last night when I saw all this and probably will be again. |
Anonymous
It will get better. Slowly. Small steps do add up over time. My son is intellectually gifted and has a profound form of dyslexia (double or triple deficit depending on where you are in that debate), severe dysgraphia, combined ADHD and a few other borderline issues (sensory issues, OCD leanings....). His self esteem was very poor in 2nd grade, but that was the nadir. We started to make self advocacy one of his IEP goals- putting a little more on him each year. By 11th grade he was fully in charge of IEP meetings. In 2nd grade, we started with a reading tutor who was certified and experienced with Wilson 3 times a week including summers- from 2nd grade to 7th grade he went 2-3 times a week.We had "homework" on the non tutor days. In school, he received daily one on one reading tutoring in ES and took two reading classes in MS (one each year) I scribed and read for him until he was competent on technology- it was gradual and did not end completely until he was entering his junior year of HS. He had an IEP from 2nd grade until he graduated in 12th grade. We used audio books from the library and Learning Ally and Bookshare. He still uses audio books in college. He had a scribe, reader and extra time for all assessment in MS and HS and now in college (they are electronic in college). He received teacher notes for classes from 7th -12th and still gets them in college. He has use of a calculator. He gets electronic textbooks. He loved science and historical non-fiction books as well as the usual fiction. In later ES we mined the Newberry Honor and Award books- they were always available on audio and are excellent. Sometimes, We hooked him in a 20-30 minute car ride and he would listen to the rest at home. We used graphic organizers to help his with the non-printing aspect of dysgraphia (there is a ton online for every type of writing assignment) We made sure he was in the accelerated math classes ( he took the full route from Algebra Honors in 7th to Multivar calc and Matrix Algebra in 12th). Supporting our children's gifts is as important as supporting their weaknesses. He won the math award for his graduating class. He took team taught English from 7th through 12th grade. He took 2 math and 4 science AP classes. He has used Kurzweil since the end of 6th grade and still uses it in college- excellent for text to speech of handouts and being able to scan and type answers on handouts. You would not believe how far he has come from that 2nd grade scared mad little boy with so many walls of frustration built up. He is home from his first year in college and did very well. He is a math major and trying to decide on a double major (physics or environmental/evolutionary biology). I think we over achieved on building up his self esteem. 
Good luck in the coming years, it is a long slow slog and you have to pace yourself. Tackle one or two things at a time, you cannot do it all at once. ((((hugs)))) |
Anonymous
Wow! Congratulations to your son and family! Thanks for posting this 
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Anonymous
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OP, as someone with high IQ, anxiety, and ADHD, I'd advise you to keep a close watch out for perfectionism. It can be very corrosive and cause her to avoid the risk of failure (i.e. always choosing the easier option). Also read up on "Growth Mindset". The best resource is still Carol Dweck's book.
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