Twice Exceptional Kids (and Adults)

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Last two days I can have discovered a very big piece in the puzzle of my life.

I have been struggling with retraining last years with much more difficulties than I expected. I was a brilliant kid when I was in the school, usually scoring a the top of the school, and I couldn't understand what was happening to me in this period of my life. I have been feeling incredibly useless and lazy and stupid.

I started with an 'attention enhancer' drug that is used as treatment for ADHD. And well, it has been amazing. It just turnt upside down many things I believed.

First thing: I finally must accept I have learning disabilities. I always discarded that because I was academically successful at the school. But I can't deny it longer. I have been looking information about it and I have discovered and very interesting concept: the twice gifted people. 'Twice gifted' is an euphemism, but in a nutshell it refers to kids (or adults) that have both learning disabilities and high skills at the same time. So they use the high skills to 'compensate' their disabilities.

(I'm finding that I have less energy in adulthood, so those coping methods that worked well when I was in school have been failing these years. The ADHD med I took has given me this edge of energy or focus I have lacked since then. BIG discovering ).

I found a interesting page about it here: http://www.twicegifted.net/

And some articles here,here and here.

In the wikipedia es called Twice Exceptional, the link here. And it gives the following symptoms:

Strengths
* Superior vocabulary
* Advanced ideas and opinions
* High levels of creativity and problem-solving ability
* Extremely curious, imaginative, and questioning
* Wide range of interests not related to school
* Penetrating insight into complex issues
* Specific talent or consuming interest area
* Sophisticated sense of humor

Deficits
* Poor social skills
* High sensitivity to criticism
* Lack of organizational and study skills
* Discrepant verbal and performance skills
* Poor performance in one or more academic areas
* Difficulty with written expression
* Stubborn, opinionated demeanor
* High impulsivity

EDIT It looks like the most usual name is Twice Exceptional (more than Twice Gifted), also known as "2e".

Here's some more good sites about it:

http://www.2enewsletter.com/

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/twice_exceptional.htm

http://giftedhomeschoolers.org/resource ... xceptional

And a couple of interseting blogs:

http://marlosbrideun.blogspot.nl/

http://7thm7.wordpress.com/

Last edited by Greb on 10 May 2013, 2:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

that list is all me

Sounds like you're describing me. I'll read up on these "twice-gifteds."

That's me, except for the stubborn, opinionated demeanor and the poor writing skills. Maybe it's because I'm female.

I'm pretty sure that my daughter and I could be described as twice exceptional, but we are very different. I was always about top of the class, for just about every subject. The only thing I struggled with was reading and answering questions, under a time constraint, and anything involving fine motor skills. When I went to high school, I remained within the top 5% or so, that is until studying became all important. Then, my high flyer position disappeared. As the list in the first post says, my organisational and study skills are seriously lacking. I did well enough to go to uni, but if my earlier school years had been anything to go on, I would have been a brain surgeon now.

My daughter is very bright, although she comes out about average, in the case of reading, writing and maths. But, when it comes to anything scientific, she's way ahead and I mean she has the knowledge and understanding of the average child double her age. She has a roving science teacher, who regularly checks the internet, to make sure what my daughter has told her is correct. To date, she has never been wrong. She's also extremely creative (art, story writing and drama). She has a diagnosis of Aspergers and her concentration difficulties are perhaps down to (as yet undiagnosed) ADHD.

That's very interesting. When I was in the university I went through a lot of familiar drama that took away my energies and I clearly underperformed. I always blamed all this drama but I'm realizing now that perhaps this was only 50% of the problem. As I have read in a page about the subject, it's difficult to understand how you can learn so bad when you can think so well, and until now I even didn't considered being disabled with regard to learning. I never wondered that during the university, besides the familiar drama, I could have suffered from learning dissabilities. It's likely that both things summed up.

Did your problems with learning increased through the years? When I was 15 I had much more resistance I have now (logically), and I feel like learning now make me feel completely exhausted in a short time.

Last edited by Greb on 10 May 2013, 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

I mostly recognise myself in the deficit list.

Learning was never a problem for me at primary school and the first couple of years of secondary school. It's only when I was at the certificate exam stage (14 plus or thereabouts), that I started to struggle. My problem was studying. I understood most of what was said in class and really had very little problem with that, but in order to keep the info fresh in my mind, I really should have been studying, like everyone else in my class. As I wasn't able to study the basics of a topic and was at risk of forgetting what I'd been taught, it was hard to move onto more difficult stuff, that built on the basics. So, I can learn and understand most things probably better than most. But, keeping that info fresh and ready for exam is the problem. Modular exams are great for me, as I can swot quite well, if there's not a great deal to re-memorise. But, that method of studying causes the info to be eventually completely lost, so it's not of benefit long term.

It's possibly down to the issue I've always had with reading. I can read well and have been reading since I was 3yrs (started school a year early because of it), but when there was any time constraints or pressure, the stress of that seems to take over and my mind wanders. I rarely read for pleasure, as that pressure of reading something within a specific timescale has seriously affected me. So, I'm still, in effect, timing myself, even though it doesn't actually matter how long I'm taking. I can read a page of a book (with my eyes) and not know what I've just read (with my brain).

This is really helpful. Thanks.

When I was 14, I was at my best. At 16 I still could score at the top of the class in High School, but I failed to pass an additional language course (when two years before I had passed thre ones without problems). I was accused of lazyness and punished being locked the whole summer. That was the start of the family drama and conflicts, and from then on it got worse.

I always blamed all this family stuff for the subsequent performance decrease, thinking that one day, when I had enough psychological and personal stability, the high performance would return. That day never arrived. But now I'm reading to you... perhaps I was wrong (though obviously conflicts and anxiety are not very helpful). Perhaps this decrease would have happened anyway, and not being able to pass this language course at 16 was the beginning of it.

And I feel identified with what you say about reading. I was a big fan of reading in the 20s (edit: my 20s ), but it has become more and more difficult over time. Studying something through reading is a nightmare (up to the point that I made a program that can read pdfs in the screen of the laptop to avoid reading). More than once, I was seeing some examples of any topic, and just couldn't understand it. So I closed the eyes, solved it mentally, and then checked it. It's crazy, but many times it was much easier for me to solve it than to read the solution.

One question. Have you tried ever some med for ADHD or similar?