Twice-exceptional (2e) students are gifted individuals who also have a learning difference or disability that impacts how they learn, such as ADHD, dyslexia, or autism.
Identifying a 2e student can be challenging, as learning differences often mask their academic abilities, especially when anxiety around school is involved. However, recognizing that a student is 2e is crucial for supporting their social and emotional growth. There are specific strategies parents can use to support their 2e child, as well as schools that are equipped to help them thrive.
In this post, we cover:
- What it means to be twice exceptional and how to identify 2e students
- The challenges twice exceptional students face
- How parents can help their 2e child
- How Fusion Academy offers personalized education for 2e students
What Does It Mean to Be Twice-Exceptional? And How Do You Identify a 2e Student?
Twice-exceptional (2e) students are gifted in certain areas while also having a learning difference.
They’re gifted in that they:
- Have a high IQ
- Possess advanced critical thinking and problem-solving skills
- Are intensely focused on one or more intellectual, creative or artistic fields
- Are often skilled in math, music, or writing
- Process information more deeply than neurotypical students
Common learning disabilities that a 2e student may have include:
- ADD and ADHD
- Dyslexia
- Dyscalculia
- Speech or language disorders
- Anxiety and depression
- Physical disabilities like epilepsy or cerebral palsy
- Executive functioning disorder
- Auditory processing disorder
Students with autism spectrum disorder may also be 2e, though technically, autism isn’t classified as a learning disability.
2e students develop asynchronously compared to their peers. For example, a twice-exceptional 8th-grader may have college-level math skills but a grade level or more behind in other subjects due to a below-average reading level. This can lead to misdiagnosis, as some students may not be diagnosed at all because they compensate for their learning disability by leveraging their strengths. In other cases, their intellectual gifts are overlooked, and schools focus solely on their struggles.
To identify if your student is 2e, you should recognize both ways in which they’re exceptionally oriented.
What Challenges Do Twice-Exceptional Students Face?
Traditional schools aren’t equipped to address both the learning differences and gifted areas of 2e students. This level of personalization isn’t possible in an environment where a teacher’s main focus is to ensure the whole class progresses together.
While schools may offer programs for students with learning disabilities and gifted programs for advanced students, a 2e student needs both — and thrives when these programs work in tandem.
For example, emotional-behavioral disorders can impact a gifted student even when they’re excelling in areas like music or math. Enrolling them in an accelerated math program without addressing their emotional challenges isn’t beneficial, as their emotional needs must be considered alongside their academic strengths.
Without the proper tools and environment to succeed, a 2e student is likely to:
- Fall behind academically. When their learning disability isn’t addressed, a 2e student may struggle through their education, often falling behind or working extremely hard just to keep up. For example, a student with ADHD may understand the material and engage with it but be hindered by difficulties sitting still, staying focused, and organizing tasks. As a result, a 2e student can fall behind or fail a class they’re gifted in. This may be evident when a student performs well on tests but struggles with homework or staying focused in class.
- Develop social and emotional problems, such as school-related anxiety. A 2e student may feel like they don’t belong. They may feel out of place in gifted classes due to their learning differences or feel disconnected when paired with other students who have similar learning differences but lack their intellectual strength. This can lead to anxiety, depression, and school refusal.
How Parents Can Help Their Twice-Exceptional Children
Although many of the challenges faced by 2e students take place in the school environment, parents can implement strategies at home to support their children.
Here are some examples.
Teach Executive Functioning Skills at Home
Gifted children often excel in a particular academic subject but struggle with executive functioning skills, such as structuring their day. Parents can help by teaching these skills at home and modeling successful strategies.
For example, if you use a planner or calendar to organize your day, you can show your child how that system works and help them create their own. Or, if you tend to get overwhelmed by too much work at once, you might break it up into smaller, more manageable chunks and discuss this strategy at home. The goal is to teach your child how to manage tasks and learn independently, not just memorize facts.
Look for Opportunities for Experiential Learning
All students find learning to be the most engaging when it’s meaningful and relevant to their own life, but this is even more important for 2e learners.
This raises the question: what is meaningful to your child?
If you’re unsure, plan experiences that allow your child to explore their curiosity and imagination, and expose them to a wide variety of hobbies so that they can discover where their passions lie.
Particularly good formats for this sort of experiential learning are:
- A trip to a museum
- A hike through a forest
- A robotics club
- A theater group
- A cooking class
- A board game night
Get Help From Professionals
If you’re unsure how to support your 2e child, seeking professional guidance can be incredibly helpful. Experts in gifted education and special education services can offer valuable insights tailored to your child’s needs. For psychological and behavioral support, a therapist or psychologist may be beneficial.
You might also consider working with professionals in specific areas where your child is struggling. A tutor can help with subjects they’re behind in, particularly foundational skills like math or English. If your child has trouble articulating their words clearly, a speech-language pathologist could be a great resource.
Whatever path you choose, you’ll need the right paperwork to ensure your child is properly identified and treated. Depending on where you live, this could include an IEP, an RTI, or 504 plan.
Find a Supportive School
2e students need a supportive learning environment to reach their full potential, but not every school provides the necessary support. As a parent, you might consider helping your child transfer to a school that offers accommodations for their unique needs.
Our school, Fusion Academy, is an example of a school that supports twice-exceptional students. In the rest of this article, we’ll explain how we do that.
How Fusion Academy Supports Twice-Exceptional Learners
Fusion Academy is a private middle and high school with a unique model of personalized learning. At Fusion, we use a one-to-one teaching method, meaning each student is instructed by one teacher per class. This approach allows us to tailor the learning experience to the individual needs of each student.
Here’s how this benefits a 2e student:
Let’s say a 2e student at a traditional school is exceptionally gifted in math but struggles with reading and writing due to debilitating dyslexia. They’ve managed to “keep up” in other courses by working really hard just to pass, but now they’ve reached a point where this is no longer sustainable. The gaps in their learning have caught up with them, and they don’t have the tools — or support — needed to succeed. This has led to school-related anxiety, especially since reading and writing are core elements in most classes. Their math ability hasn’t helped; it’s made things worse. In math class, they’re consistently bored with assignments, leading to disengagement with the curriculum. This results in yet another classroom where they feel isolated from their peers.
At Fusion, we can help this student in several ways:
- They’ll be paired with a math teacher who meets them where they are academically and challenges them intellectually. This may include teaching more advanced concepts or connecting their math studies to other topics, such as music or history.
- We’ll assess your child’s reading and writing skills and create personalized lessons to help them catch up. This often includes extra time in our Homework Cafés, where they can work on their reading and writing skills with a trained educator. Our programs are flexible — students may start our reading remediation program with literacy assessments that place them two grade levels behind, but in a supportive environment, our students quickly make significant progress. We regularly update each student’s learning plan to reflect their abilities, helping them catch up faster and avoid staying in programs they no longer need.
- They’ll have access to an executive functioning skills class that helps them learn life skills such as time management and organization. These skills serve as tools to assist them when facing subjects they may not excel in. The class also aims to develop the student and prepare them for future challenges, whether it’s a difficult essay or a college admissions interview.
- They’ll be on a campus (either in-person or virtually) with similar students. At Fusion, our campuses are highly social, with events, activities, clubs, and more. Students can also take advantage of our Social Homework Café — perfect for eating meals together, playing games, and having discussions. Our diverse student body ensures that 2e students will find peers they relate to.
At Fusion, we create an interconnected ecosystem between classes. Each teacher considers your child’s strengths and areas for improvement, ensuring that their time is spent effectively. Daily performance notes are logged and shared with all teachers, and these recaps are also sent home at the end of each day. This approach ensures that students aren’t isolated in classes based on where they excel or struggle. Instead, they’re treated as a whole, with support tailored to their individual needs.
Fusion has 80+ campuses across the US, including campuses in California, Texas, Florida, and New York. You can find the campus closest to you here.
If you don’t live near a Fusion campus, you can still benefit from live, 1-to-1 learning by enrolling in our online school, Fusion Global.
If you’re interested in learning more, request more information or keep reading to find out why Fusion is an ideal school for 2e students.
Classes Tailored to Each Student’s Individual Needs
In traditional schools, teachers often lack the time to address the complex learning challenges of 2e students due to the large number of students they manage. With many teachers overseeing over 100 students each day, it’s difficult for them to provide the individualized attention 2e students need.
By contrast, Fusion teachers rarely see more than 7 or 8 students per day, and each lesson is taught in a one-to-one format. This gives them the time, energy, and emotional bandwidth to dive deep into each 2e student’s needs, serving as both an instructor and a mentor.
This extra time and energy is a huge relief for twice-exceptional students. One-to-one classes give them the freedom to explore their areas of interest in detail, at a level that challenges them, without the worry of moving too fast for their peers or being judged by them.
The specific techniques used by Fusion’s teachers in the classroom are as diverse as the needs of the 2e students they support.
Here are a few examples:
- Switching the lighting for students who are sensitive to bright, fluorescent lighting
- Using flashcards to support students who struggle with dyslexia and literacy
- Allowing students with ADHD to take short movement breaks to help release excess energy
- Using color-coding to support visual learners
- Letting students use fidget spinners if it helps them concentrate
- Allowing kinesthetic learners to solve math problems while dancing
As well as the individual lessons themselves, Fusion can also personalize the entire school schedule of each 2e student so that they get the best results.
For example, we could schedule a class that a particular twice-exceptional student enjoys less:
- More frequently, to provide extra practice
- Less frequently, to prevent emotional overwhelm
- Next to an elective they enjoy, allowing them to redirect energy and momentum from something they feel successful at
Depending on the 2e student’s relationship with movement and their physical body, we could:
- Spread classed throughout the day so that an ADHD learner doesn’t have to sit still for extended periods of time
- Schedule classes in evenings, if classes during the day would interfere with a gifted athlete’s training schedule
Supportive Emotional Environment for All Students
Twice-exceptional students often feel misunderstood in regular public schools. The combination of being bored in classes they excel at and feeling frustrated or ashamed in classes where they’re behind grade level can lead to emotional outbursts, social isolation, and even skipping school altogether.
Twice-exceptional learners who come to Fusion find it to be a breath of fresh air because the whole community is alternative to some degree. Since everyone has their own story of struggles in a regular school environment, they automatically feel more accepted by their peers.
Fusion Academy goes out of its way to foster an accepting environment. Teachers are specifically trained to look for opportunities to help students make friends with like-minded students. For example, if a teacher notices that two particular 2e students both use the same type of music to relax, they’ll tell them about it. To help students get in touch with their emotions, every class starts with a check-in to assess students’ well-being before diving into learning.
We offer two types of Homework Cafés:
- Quiet Homework Café: A quiet space for students to work on their homework and focus without distractions. This is great for homework that requires more attention like reading or math.
- Social Homework Café: A place where students can socialize with peers, work on homework, explore hobbies, and play games.
Having both a quiet space and a social one is ideal for twice-exceptional students.
If they want to go deep into their area of interest, they can go to the quiet Homework Café to study or read. And if they want to blow off some steam or bond over similar interests with other students, the social Homework Café is the perfect place. In the social Homework Café, student clubs include Model United Nations, photography, movies, chess, video games, and yoga.
On top of this, Fridays are often dedicated to excursions in the local area, which is great for 2e students who thrive on experiential learning. Imagine how energized your child would be after visiting a zoo to study zoology, volunteering at a local senior center for community service, or taking a trip to the beach to measure tides.
Post-Secondary Counseling for 2e Students: Find the Right Path After High School
Plenty of 2e students want to continue their education after high school, but they have reasonable concerns about which university or college would be best for them. Just like how you found Fusion, you also want to find a post-secondary school that can accommodate both parts of your exceptional learning abilities, a program that caters to your learning differences and styles and also challenges you intellectually.
Fusion offers post-secondary counseling that takes all these individual needs into account. Our advisors are able to help you with identifying good-fit universities, colleges (including vocational schools), and non-academic programs.
They can also help your student prepare for applications and interviews.
Discover a Supportive Learning Environment Tailored to Your Child’s Needs
With our 1-to-1 classes and focus on social-emotional learning, Fusion is an ideal school environment for 2e students.
If you’re curious about what a Fusion education could look like for your child, reach out to us today for more information. We’d love to hear from you!
