Identifying and Providing Evidence-Based Services for Twice-Exceptional Students

Twice-exceptional students have complex cognitive, academic, and psychosocial profiles that present challenges to identification and intervention practices. A high ability student’s disability or mental health diagnosis may go unidentified; a student’s talent domain may go unnoticed as they receive disability accommodations; or a student’s ability and disability may mask each other, resulting in neither being acknowledged. Most of the extant research literature has focused on identifying twice-exceptional students’ cognitive and academic profiles, potentially at the expense of examining their behavioral, social, and emotional strengths and areas for growth. Comprehensive assessment of all domains is needed to guide appropriate interventions. There are few individual, group, and school-based empirically validated interventions for twice-exceptional populations, yet best-practice guidelines exist within the clinical psychology, special education, and gifted education literatures. Educators and mental health professionals should consult these resources while considering ability and disability among the numerous contextual factors that influence a child’s presentation. To improve services for twice-exceptional students, we recommend increasing professional development opportunities regarding twice-exceptional students’ presentations and multifaceted needs; adapting for twice-exceptional populations current empirically supported treatments; assuming a strengths-based perspective where talent development is regarded first; and disseminating resources about twice-exceptionality to parents, school personnel, and mental health providers.