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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 10, No. 1

Publication Date: January 25, 2023

DOI:10.14738/assrj.101.13830.

Burger-Veltmeijer, A., & Minnaert, A. (2023). Needs-based assessment of twice-exceptional gifted students: The S&W-Heuristic.

Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(1). 245-263.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Needs-Based Assessment of Twice-Exceptional Gifted Students:

The S&W-Heuristic

Agnes Burger-Veltmeijer

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8624-0691

Department of educational sciences,

University of Groningen, the Netherlands.,

ABV Private practice, Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Alexander Minnaert

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3886-1634

Department of educational sciences,

University of Groningen, the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Misdiagnoses and missed diagnoses of gifted students with co-occurring learning-,

developmental and behavioural disorders are often mentioned in literature and

practice. Consequently, these Twice-Exceptional (2E) students often fall between

two stools regarding appropriate psycho-educational interventions. This article

offers a research and practice informed assessment procedure, namely the

Strengths and Weaknesses Heuristic (S&W-Heuristic), that can help to tackle such

problems in case giftedness or any 2E is suspected. This S&W-Heuristic was

developed via the method of design research. Initially the S&W-Heuristic was

developed to assess students with (suspicion of) the co-occurrence of intellectual

giftedness (IG) and autism in a needs-based way, though, subsequently to assess

(potential) 2E-students in general. The systematicity of the S&W-Heuristic may help

psychologists and special remedial educationalists to reveal hitherto camouflaged

strengths or weaknesses in underachieving smart students and to understand their

ambivalent psycho-educational needs. Being the product of design research, this

article also offers a prelude to new theoretical perspectives regarding the concepts

IG and 2E. By shifting from a ‘classification-based’ to a dynamic ‘dimensional-based’

definition of 2E, camouflaged talent will be recognised more effectively and will get

more opportunity to flourish. Accordingly, it is proposed to consider IG and 2E as

constructs on a continuum.

Keywords: intellectually gifted, twice exceptional, needs-based assessment, adhd, autism,

dyslexia, dyscalculia

INTRODUCTION

Twice-Exceptionality (2E) is a rather new phenomenon in the international educational and

psychological gifted literature. Since about the late 1990s, publications about the co-occurrence

of giftedness and learning disabilities appeared (e.g. Brody & Mills, 1997), and about the year

2000 the first publications on giftedness in combination with developmental disorders came

up (e.g. Antshel et al., 2007; Burger-Veltmeijer, 2008; Neihart, 2000; Webb et al., 2005). Only

over the past decade, a few systematic literature reviews have been published on (parts) of 2E

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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 10, Issue 1, January-2023

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

addressing cognitive and/or non-cognitive aspects of the co-occurrence of (intellectual)

giftedness and autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, or specific learning disorders (Beckmann &

Minnaert, 2018; Burger-Veltmeijer, Kroesbergen, Hoogeveen & Minnaert, 2019, 2020; Burger- Veltmeijer, Minnaert & Van Houten-Van den Bosch, 2011; Foley-Nicpon, Allmon, Sieck, &

Stinson, 2011; Gelbar, Cascio, Madaus, & Reis, 2021; Lovett & Sparks, 2013; Martin, Burns, &

Schonlau, 2010; Rommelse et al., 2016).

Identification in International Literature

The international literature showed a wide variety of descriptions of 2E. Most definitions

include that 2E-students have the potential of exceptional ability on the one hand and

demonstrate learning- and/or developmental disabilities on the other hand. In addition, some

behaviours of gifted children can appear similar to behaviours of disabilities and it is usually

stated that both exceptionalities may mutually camouflage, distort or neutralise one another,

so that either the abilities or the disabilities or both are hidden (e.g. Baldwin, Baum, Pereles, &

Hughes, 2015; Reis, Baum, & Burke, 2014; Webb et al., 2016). This is called the camouflaging

effect. 2E-students are often identified late (Amend & Peters, 2015; Hughes, 2011) and show

more complex socio-emotional development and problematic behaviours than (highly) gifted

students without 2E (Beckmann & Minnaert, 2018; Foley-Nicpon, 2016; Hughes, 2011).

Appropriate guidelines for identification and provisions are, however, not yet well established

for 2E (Prior, 2013). Misdiagnoses and missed diagnoses of gifted students with co-occurring

learning-, developmental and behavioural disorders are often mentioned in international

literature and in psycho-educational practice (Burger-Veltmeijer, 2016; Pfeiffer, 2015; Prior,

2013; Webb et al., 2016).

Consequently, these 2E-students often fall between two stools when it comes to appropriate

psycho-educational interventions and tailored arrangements (Burger-Veltmeijer, 2020). Even

if 2E-students are identified in an unbiased way, it might be difficult to tune appropriately to

their complex psycho-educational needs (Hughes, 2011; Trail, 2011).

This may increase the chance of internalising and externalising behavioural problems as it may

increase the likelihood of frustration of (latent) talent (Burger-Veltmeijer & Minnaert, 2017).

The latter is too bad, not only for a student’s own development, but also for society, because of

the loss of high potential and unlocked learning opportunities.

Identification in Psycho-Educational Practice in the Netherlands

Since the act for ‘Befitting Education’ (in Dutch: ‘Passend Onderwijs’) in 2014 came into effect,

the focus on giftedness and talent development has grown strongly in the Netherlands. Not only

in education, but gradually in youth mental health care as well.

Professionals, parents, and psycho-educational organisations became even more interested in

giftedness after the onset of the government funding for gifted students in 2019 (Burger- Veltmeijer, 2020; Minnaert, 2022). This is a good thing, because gifted and highly intelligent

students need to be sufficiently challenged at the level of their zone of proximal development,

to be able to really ‘learn how to learn’ and to optimally develop their talents.

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Burger-Veltmeijer, A., & Minnaert, A. (2023). Needs-based assessment of twice-exceptional gifted students: The S&W-Heuristic. Advances in Social

Sciences Research Journal, 10(1). 245-263.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.101.13830

In clinical and educational practice, however, we experience a detrimental side effect of the

current 'hype', viz that learning and social-emotional problems in smart children increasingly

are one-sidedly interpreted by professionals and parents as characteristics of giftedness. For

example, if a student has problems getting along with other children or has a strong fear of

failure, and at the same time shows signs of high intelligence, then often the child is referred by

the school and/or the parents to a school- or youth-care psychologist with the question

whether this child is (highly) gifted, and the request to administer an intelligence test.

We experience that rather often such initial questions are being followed up literally by

psychologists in education as well as youth mental health care (Burger-Veltmeijer, 2020, 2021).

If, subsequently, the IQ turns out to be very high, then the social-emotional problems are rather

often attributed to giftedness, by (school)psychologists or other professionals, whilst

counterhypotheses were not assessed. This is not in line with the current empirical findings

that intellectual giftedness cannot be regarded as a cause of problems at all.

High intelligence is not a risk factor, but rather a slightly protective factor with regard to social- emotional and learning problems (Alabbasi, Ayoub, & Ziegler, 2021; Rommelse et al., 2016;

Verschueren, Lavrijsen, Weyns, Ramos, & De Fraine, 2019). Such an approach, in favour of the

strength of high intelligence, may lead to one-sided and insufficiently coordinated psycho- educational interventions (Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert, & van den Bosch, 2015).

Conversely, it is also biased and disastrous if a 2E-student’s identification and treatment are

one-sidedly based on the weak developmental characteristics, and the strong capacities and

talents are not recognised or even ignored. This is often emphasised in giftedness literature

(e.g., Webb et al., 2005, 2016). The bias that students are unilaterally recognised for their

strengths, however, seems to be a rather new phenomenon in giftedness literature. Only a few

authors explicitly warn against the impeding effect of particularly this unilateral vision on the

mental wellbeing and healthy development of individual 2E-students (Amend & Peters, 2015;

Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert, & Van den Bosch, 2015, 2016; Rommelse & Slaats-Willemse,

2020).

Eventually, in either direction the tolerance for asynchrony is very important. This may be

inferred for instance from the publication of King (2022), who recounted his own and others'

experiences as a 2E-student and illustrated that neither special education nor gifted education

meet the ambivalent needs of this target group, due to issues with identification and service

provision.

AIM

Up to now, there are no evidence-based methods available regarding diagnostics and

assessments of (potential) twice-exceptional students, as these subjects have never been

thoroughly or rigorously empirically researched.

This is related to the lack of an unambiguous definition among and between the various 2E

labels. Meanwhile, in education and mental health care, psychologists and remedial

educationalists experience a growing need for clear guidelines. For the benefit of psychologists

and special remedial educationalists and other professionals in psycho-educational practice, it