Today, I’d like to welcome Sophie Miller. Sophie is a Production Coordinator for ThinkFun, one of our family’s favorite game companies! She is also a regular contributor to the ThinkFun blog. Today, Sophie is here to talk about twice exceptional girls. I’d love for you to weigh-in with your experience once you’ve finished reading!

Thrice Exceptional: How to Encourage Twice Exceptional Girls {Guest Post}

 

Wondering if your child is gifted/2e?

How to encourage twice exceptional girls

Parents of twice exceptional children can tell you that raising their kids is no easy feat. There is little knowledge of this community of children, those “who have a disability and are also academically gifted” (National Education Association). As a result, there can be fewer resources for parents of twice exceptional kids. Furthermore, twice exceptional children sometimes exhibit visible attributes, such as the hyperactivity associated with ADHD, that other people see as problems but that you understand as the difficult quirks that make up who your kid is. But some parents find their experience with their twice exceptional kid/s particularly difficult, and these are the parents of twice exceptional girls. Many parents may not even know they have a twice exceptional daughter because these girls go undiagnosed all the time.

What makes a child twice exceptional?

There are two key components to twice exceptionalism the diagnosis as being differently abled and the diagnosis as being gifted, and both pose a problem for twice exceptional girls. The University of North Carolina School of Education reports that male students are significantly more likely to display learning differences, with the gender discrepancy varying depending on the type of learning difference. While some of these conditions, such as autism, clearly have genetic links between occurrence and gender, the more subjective ones leave lingering questions about how we discriminate in how we diagnose children with learning differences. 

Bob Cunningham, an educational expert for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, explains how these uneven diagnostic statistics can occur. In the case of ADHD, for example, “boys with ADHD tend to show more hyperactivity, impulsivity and physical aggression than girls with ADHD. That behavior makes them stand out from the other boys.” Female students, on the other hand, “are more likely to show a different set of symptoms and side effects. These include anxiety, depression, constant talking, daydreaming and low self-esteem. But their behavior appears more typical of how other girls behave.” So in cases like this one, not only are educators unsure of how to diagnose female students, they may not even be on the lookout for a learning difference in the first place.

Identification of gifted girls

Similarly, girls are diagnosed as gifted far less frequently than are their male counterparts. Part of this is believed to be related to the culture around female versus male success in the classroom. In her book Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher relates how, “because with boys failure is attributed to external factors and success is attributed to ability, they keep their confidence, even with a failure. With girls it’s just the opposite.” Because of this cultural inclination to write off girls’ academic strengths as mere hard work, we may be missing opportunities to see gifted girls’ abilities for what they are and encourage them to flourish.

Is your daughter thrice exceptional?

So how do you identify whether or not your daughter or female student might be a twice exceptional learner? It is important to keep an eye out for signs that female students learn differently while keeping an open mind about what these differences mean. Remember that many of the “textbook” definitions or signs of learning differences were written with male-bodied people in mind and that the signs for girls can be less pronounced.

Additionally, remember that the language that we choose to use around our children, both male and female, is extremely important in how they see themselves and their abilities. The Davidson Institute found that “when boys ask questions, call out their answers (sometimes without raising their hands) or engage in debate, adults tend to see the signs of eager minds at work. Girls receive reprimands or disapproval for behavior deemed aggressive, pushy, unfeminine or impolite. This message is not lost on gifted girls.” Make sure to encourage your daughter when she excels academically, encouraging her natural talents in addition to her hard work. Recognizing the multi-faceted faces of both learning difference and gifted learning can help to identify more female 2e learners and expand the future for these young girls.

Are you the parent of a twice exceptional child?

Be sure to check out the following resources:

• Parenting Gifted? Bookmark These Helpful Resources
• Asynchronous Development and the Gifted Child
• Giftedness: To Test or Not to Test
• When it Feels Like Worry is Winning
• Academic Acceleration and Gifted Children
• Resources for Sensory Processing Disorder

Be sure to follow ThinkFun

Read more from Sophie Miller on the ThinkFun blog. You can also find ThinkFun on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and G+.

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Now, it’s your turn. Tell me: Are you the parent of a twice exceptional girl? Can you relate to this post? Why or why not? Share here.