Twice Exceptional: Supporting Gifted SEND Students

By Alice Guile

An exploration of practical strategies for identifying and supporting ‘twice exceptional’ students – those who are both gifted and have SEN needs.

Some of the world’s greatest geniuses have passed through school with their talent largely or entirely unnoticed. In his book ‘The Element’, creativity in education expert Sir Ken Robinson describes a conversation with Sir Paul McCartney who described that he hated music at school, and that his teacher didn’t notice that he had any talent. George Harrison had the same teacher. This music teacher had half the Beatles in his class and did not recognise that his students were anything out of the ordinary. Sir Ken Robinson argues that exceptional talent is often deeply buried, and you must go looking for it.

Interestingly, there is high anecdotal correlation between genius and SEN needs. Very many of the people that the world considers to be geniuses have also displayed SEN traits. Sir Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and Leonardo Da Vinci all displayed traits that modern psychologists consider as indicating that they may have been neurodiverse.

In fact, it is possibly to argue that neurodiverse traits, such as Autism, ADHD, and Dyslexia are overrepresented in some of the world’s most gifted people. This is potentially because neurodiverse people think differently, which is a fairly important trait for a genius. Having a learning difference/ SEN needs and being gifted can be described using the term ‘Twice Exceptional’. Being highly gifted is as much of a learning difference as SEN needs.

One reason why some exceptionally talented people may go unnoticed by teachers, is that the mainstream education system is set up to get as many students as possible to reach a minim standard and is generally geared towards the needs of neuro-typical young people. Schools are required to provide for educationally underachieving SEN children.

However, gifted students whose educational achievement is average or slightly above average are still underachieving, if the purpose of education is to help young people to reach their full potential. If the purpose of education is to pass exams, on the other hand, their progress is adequate. If schools believe their purpose to be to help young people reach their full potential, it is imperative that gifted students are supported. In the case of Twice Exceptional students, it is important to support their difficulties and exceptional abilities equally.

I am Twice Exceptional. In year 12, my sixth form were given the opportunity to take a Mensa exam. I scored 157 and was admitted to Mensa. I also was diagnosed with ADHD and am fairly sure I am autistic, because I have traits and because several people, other staff and one student in Year 7 have come to the conclusion that I am autistic. The correlation between ADHD and autism is very high, and when your twelve-year-old pupil comes and sits next to you and discreetly asks you if you are autistic, it is worth considering.

I think the fact I told his class a long running story each lesson, in which the whole class were characters, while they did their art, marked me out as different than other teachers. “We think some of our teachers could be autistic” said the student, when I asked him what made him ask.

There was a student in another class who was openly autistic and behaved differently; I think that the students in this class, who knew that boy well came to the conclusion that people who behave differently might do so because they are autistic, and this could include their teachers.

Several of them asked me for advice on how to interact with him. They told me they were trying to be friends with him, but he wasn’t understanding their hints, which is normal given that autistic people struggle with social cues. I explained to them they needed to be very direct.

In any case, I told the Year 7 boy who asked if I was autistic, that he was probably correct. I coped at school, but my life would have been a lot less stressful if my SEN needs had been recognised. My constant daydreaming, scattiness and inability to organise myself were traits that I had to try to mask and cope with alone. A huge stumbling block for getting support for my SEN needs was the belief that some people have, of SEN students as being less intelligent than average. I saw my former Spanish teacher in the supermarket and told him my problems focusing in class were caused by having ADHD and that I had been an undiagnosed SEN student. “You can’t be SEN you are too intelligent!” came his reply.

So, how, on a practical level, can schools support their gifted SEN students? Firstly, I believe that the young gifted and talented program which closed in 2010 should be brought back. Cutting this program may have saved money in the short term, but I believe that denying opportunities to gifted young people is more expensive in the long term, as gifted young people could become the innovators of the future. People with ADHD for example, are 300% more likely to start a business according to a study from 2005.

There is currently no national definition for exceptionally talented students beyond ‘More Able’, which needs to change. Furthermore, I believe that every school should have a gifted and talented co-ordinator who is trained in nurturing exceptional talent, and helps other teacher to spot signs of neurodiversity in gifted students who may be masking their difficulties to fit in. This is especially important for bright female students with SEN needs, due to females often being better at masking their symptoms to appear neuro-typical, than males. It is not uncommon for bright female SEN students to go unnoticed through school, and to just about cope, but to flounder when they get to university, due to the relative lack of structure. I certainly found this to be true, and while I managed to get a degree, I had some difficulties.

These young people who appear to be coping, are not really, they are masking. It is therefore incredibly important that these students are identified and given support to develop coping strategies to manage their SEN needs, such as organisational strategies for students with ADHD.

I’m aware that what I am suggesting requires funding, and that a gifted and talented co-ordinator for every school is just a nice fantasy unless there is money to pay for it. I hope that by raising awareness of this issue that it may contribute to the issue one day being taken up more prominently by unions, who could campaign for gifted and talented funding to be brought back. It is in everybody’s interest that our most promising young people are supported, because their ideas may one day change the world.