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Interest in individuals with high potentials and disability is not just a contemporary phenomenon (Yewchuck & Lupart, 2000). There have been many people in the history who were able to achieve tremendous success in spite of their physical disabilities, such as Helen Keller and Ludwig von Beethoven. Due to the nature of their visible disabilities their achievements were recognized with respect to their disabilities. On the other hand, there have been a number of other individuals who had invisible disabilities such as learning disabilities which made it harder for them to be recognized together with their disabilities and their successes. Unlike other groups of gifted students with certain visible disabilities, children with learning disabilities do not constitute an easily identifiable population (Brody & Mills, 1997). When we look through history, we still cannot tell how many people have failed to be recognized and develop areas of potential giftedness due to the lack of appropriate identification instruments and support services (Yewchuck & Lupart, 2000).
In recent years the idea that a person can be gifted and yet have learning disabilities has been commonly accepted by many professionals. A review of the literature shows that there is a consensus on the understanding that high ability and learning disabilities can be present within the same individual. However, empirical research addressing the needs of these individuals has been rather limited. Few students with learning disabilities have been identified as gifted and very few have been able to receive appropriate services to meet their needs (Brody & Mills, 1997).
According to Brody and Mills (1997) students who are gifted and have learning disabilities are those students who exhibit an outstanding gift or talent but also have a learning disability which makes it difficult for them to achieve success academically. Unfortunately due to inefficient identification and assessment procedures, the needs of such children are not usually being met within the current education systems. In fact, there are controversial issues in the field of simply giftedness including the identification procedures, which makes it even harder to decide who are both gifted and have LD.
We come across many problems in the identification of the gifted children with learning disabilities. One of these problems is that giftedness can disguise the learning disability since the child's abilities can help him or her compensate for the disability. Reis and Colbert (2004) mention that as a result of this contradiction between high levels of performance in different fields, and critical problems with learning, they are often underrepresented in the regular education system. These students are in danger of exclusion from both the programs for students with learning disabilities and from programs for gifted and talented individuals (Colbert & Reis, 2004).
Characteristics of the gifted child with learning disabilities The main dilemma in the life of a gifted child with a learning disability is the struggle between understanding how some things can be so easy while others can be very difficult for them. They are in constant struggle between the opposing ends of a continuum. Frustration is an inescapable feeling that they must eventually face. Many gifted students with learning disabilities appear intelligent and do extremely well in one or more areas, but they have major difficulties in other areas (Yewchuck & Lupart, 2000). Strengths of these students often include superior ability in forming concepts, abstract reasoning, rich vocabulary, creativity, math reasoning, science, and the arts. (Winefeld, Barnes-Robinson, Jeweler, & Schewitz , 2002).
While gifted students with learning disabilities often show highly abstract reasoning skills and are able to see the big picture readily, they may have difficulty remembering and putting events in sequences (Winefeld, Barnes-Robinson, Jeweler, & Schewitz , 2002). Writing may also become hard for these students due to the problems in sequencing and attending to details (Winefeld, Barnes-Robinson, Jeweler, & Schewitz , 2002).
Some of the general common weaknesses of these children include (1) lack of attention, poor memory, motivation (2) deficiencies in academic areas like spelling, math, and reading (3) poor handwriting (4) poor auditory, motor or visual perception and (5) low self-esteem with sensitivity to criticism (Cline & Schwartz, 1999). Relations with peers can be particularly difficult for gifted students with learning disabilities if they feel like they don’t belong with either the high achievers or with other learning disabled students (Brody & Mills, 2004).
In addition to these characteristics, Sternberg and Grigorenko (2004) propose some further points that help us to understand the gifted students with learning disabilities. They state that gifted/LD children tend, on average, to be highly motivated. However, they may be poorly motivated in their area of weaknesses since they are a cause of frustration for them. Teachers need to pay attention to the possibility that lack of production in daily activities can be a sign for motivational weakness (Winefeld, Barnes-Robinson, Jeweler, & Schewitz , 2002). These children experience a feeling of frustration when they are left to work on things which they are not so good at, when they can be spending the same time and effort on the things which they can do well. Correcting their weaknesses by compensating with their strengths may be a strategy which may cost them later in life when they actually need their poorly developed skill (Sternberg and Grigorenko, 2004).
Although any child with learning disabilities can have emotional and behavioral problems like low-self esteem, poor motivation, depression and anxiety, gifted children may experience these problems more heavily because of their increased sensitivity levels (Brody & Mills, 2004). Development of high self-esteem requires that students should be allowed to challenge themselves in an environment in which their mistakes and struggles as well as their successes will be allowed and appreciated (Winebrenner, 2000).
Sometimes these students’ learning difficulties may cause them to repress their gifted potential into very average performance (Winebrenner, 2000). Teachers, who are not educated in working with special populations, may not be able to understand how the parents of such students could claim their children are exceptionally capable when their perfectly performance is very typical (Winebrenner, 2000). Teachers may try to use evidence of the student’s learning weaknesses to prove to a parent or administrator that the child is in fact “not truly gifted". This information brings the importance of the role of the classroom teacher on the lives of these young individuals. Every step that teachers take, every decision they make, will have profound effects on the future of these children. McDaniel (2002) explains that the gifted child in a regular classroom is likely to expect challenging tasks that require additional work and attention of the teacher. Those involved in the education of the gifted must be knowledgeable about the curriculum design of the gifted within a mainstream classroom. Today’s educators can achieve this when provided with adequate resources, staff development opportunities and administrative services (McDaniel, 2002). According to him, by educating the regular classroom teachers on how to work with gifted children, large components of problems can be overcome. Leadership in the field of talented and gifted must be provided as parents and educators work collaboratively and learn from each other (Roberts, 1999).
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Winebrenner, S. (2003). Teaching strategies for twice-exceptional students. Intervention in school and clinic, 38, 3, 131-137.
Yewchuk, C Lupart, J. (2000). Inclusive education for gifted students with disabilities. In Heller, K. A Monks, F.J Sternberg, R. J. Subotnik, R. F. (Eds.). International Hanbook of Giftedness and Talent Second Edition, (pp. 659-670). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science.
» left by hatice alkanat from turkey (3 years 71 days ago.)
wonderful paper on Giftedness and Learning Disabilities, ı wish the author writes more on this issue.
» left by belkis kurt from istanbul (3 years 71 days ago.)
what an excellent commantary on learning disabilities Respond to this comment
» left by Emre Agrasoy from Montreal (3 years 53 days ago.)
She is a very promising author. Respond to this comment
» left by stuart Zisook from Northbrook IL 60062 (1 year 298 days ago.)
What is significant about this article is that it is well writen in English. The presentation is excellent and so the bibliography. I enjoyed reading this article as a social sciece and as a father of a child who is gifted and who has ld problems. Respond to this comment
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