ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the learner with multiple exceptionalities including gifted and talented, commonly known as twice exceptional, or 2e. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, when it was reauthorized in 2004, included the possibility of gifted and talented learners also having other exceptionalities. Amy’s challenges epitomize the 2e learner’s challenges—difficulty in being identified as either having a disability or being gifted, challenge in having appropriate services that ensure continuous progress, and the importance of advocacy. Proper identification of giftedness for a 2e student can change not only her academic trajectory as it did for Amy, but it can also change self-perception. Parent and university professor of special education Claire Hughes described her frustration with educators who focused more on her son’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Tourette syndrome than his intellectual giftedness.
