Empowering Twice-Exceptional Youth in Australia
Unlocking Potential
Raising awareness about twice-exceptional individuals requires a multifaceted approach that combines education, advocacy, and community engagement. Each story shared and each misconception addressed can contribute to a culture that honours both the gifts and challenges faced by these unique individuals. Your efforts can help to reduce stigma and promote a more inclusive society where everyone’s potential is recognised and nurtured.
This site has grown from the closure of Kids Like Us (KLU) in Dec 2022.
This site aims to support the Australia twice-exceptional young person after
Kids Like Us was forced to close in Dec 2022. Hopefully it will allow the knowledge acquired from the extensive work of Kids Like Us to continue, as the amazing twice-exceptional young people seek even greater recognition.
Thank-you for travelling onwards.
In Australia, the widely accepted definition of giftedness and talented is adapted from Gagné’s models. Giftedness is understood as outstanding potential and talent as outstanding performance. The gift is an exceptional potential, however such individuals may not be able, or choose not to use their natural ability. Some may disengage, underachieve or be hampered by a difficulty that reduces their ability to learn in the classroom. Talent involves the mastery of the gift such that a skill or knowledge is widely demonstrated to knowledgeable others. Gagné’s models acknowledge that gifts and talents are to be found in every domain of human endeavour such as: mathematics, science, languages the humanities, an area of physical, artistic or technical ability, as creativity, innovative thinking or problem-solving ability or in social, communicative and leadership ability. The student who also lives with a difference in learning which impacts on their ability to develop their talent is widely acknowledged to be the most underserved student in the school environment. That the gift may be hidden beneath a disability or cancels the ability or is perceived as the dominant feature which disqualifies any identification of a difficulty in learning, all result in incredible problems and conflict for a gifted student. Instead such a student, who carries a gift and a difficulty into the classroom, deserves daily challenges in their areas of ability and interest, a learning experience that scaffolds their disability and opportunities to socialise and learn with peers of like-ability “When high-ability children and young people are in educational settings where their abilities are not recognised and supported, they typically experience boredom, frustration and decreased motivation" (Neihart et al., 2002). In some cases, more severe forms of psychological distress can result.
At Kids Like Us (KLU) we frequently encountered twice-exceptional (2e) students who were struggling with the requirements of their environment. In addition to the challenge of living with gifts and disabilities, such students found themselves anxious, and/or depressed which often stunted their academic and emotional well-being. A common concern was that they felt misunderstood by adults and peers, being seen as disengaged, a trouble maker, a clown, not trying, lacking respect, angry, out of synch, lazy etc. Such a situation may have come about because teachers and parents were uncertain of how recognise and then work with twice- exceptional students to help them to achieve their full potential – and this potential is huge! At KLU one of our founding goals was to help these young people to gain the confidence and self-assuredness to recognise that they were not the problem, the problem is the problem. We worked hard to help 2e students embrace themselves and what they can be. We worked to see our students taking their gifts and challenges and using them to open the doors to their future, wherever it may lead. In order to do this KLU counselling staff used Narrative Therapy skills believing that: •Children are usually far more verbal than adults give them space to be. Telling one’s own story of events, feelings, ideas and dreams is very empowering to those who have little voice. •Gifted kids often use words accurately and appropriately making verbal explanation easy to follow if an adult is willing to listen and to not be intimidated by the use of language. •Narrative therapy is able to include the use of any concrete material that assists the story to unfold: clay, drawing, music, drama writing etc. •People are experts in their own life. The personal interpretation of their story has allowed them to survive and cope this far. The preferred story is the one the person dreams of, but it may not be the one Society wants to hear. •Externalising a problem, which is seen as a reflection of identity (I’m dyslexic) in the space between the therapist and the person allows the problem (I’m a person who lives with dyslexia) to be studied and incorporated into the preferred story for life. •Children deserve to have their story heard and believed.
Once upon a time the animals had a school. They had to create a curriculum that would satisfy everyone, so they chose four subjects: RUNNING, CLIMBING, FLYING, AND SWIMMING. All the animals, of course, studied all the subjects. The duck was very good at swimming, better than the teacher, in fact. He received passing grades in running and flying, but was hopeless in climbing, so they made him drop swimming so that he could practice climbing. After a while he was only average at swimming, but average is still acceptable, at least in school, and nobody worried much about it except the duck. The eagle was considered a troublemaker. In his climbing class he beat everybody to the top of the tree, but he had his own way of getting there that was against the rules. He always had to stay after school and write, “Cheating is wrong” five hundred times. This kept him from soaring, which he loved, but schoolwork comes first. The bear flunked because they said he was lazy, especially in the winter. His best time was summer, but school wasn’t open then. The zebra played hooky a lot because the ponies made fun of his stripes, and this made him very sad. The kangaroo started out at the top of the racing class, but became discouraged when told to move swiftly on all four legs the way his classmates did. The fish quit school because he was bored. To him, all four subjects were the same, but nobody understood that because they had never seen a fish. The squirrel got an A in climbing, but his flying teacher made him start from the ground up, instead of from the treetop down. His legs got so sore practicing take offs that he began getting Cs in climbing and Ds in running. The bee was the biggest problem of all, so the teacher sent him to Doctor Owl for testing. Doctor Owl said that the bee’s wings were too small for flying and they were in the wrong place. The bee never saw Doctor Owl’s report, so he just went ahead and flew anyway. I think I know a bee or two, how about you? The duck is the child who does well in math and poorly in English and is given tutorials by the English teacher while his classmates are doing math. He loses his edge in math, and only does passably well in English. The eagle is the child who is turned into a troublemaker because he has his own style of doing things. While he is not doing anything wrong his non-conforming is perceived as troublemaking, for which he is punished. Who does not recognize the bear? The kid who is great in camp, thrives on extra-curricular, but really just goes flat in the academics. The zebra is the heavy, tall, or short, self-conscious kid whose failure in school few realize is due to a sense of social inadequacy. The kangaroo is the one who instead of persevering gives up and becomes that discouraged child whose future disappears because he was not appreciated. The fish is a child who really requires full special education and cannot shine in the regular classroom. The squirrel, unlike the duck who manages, just becomes a failure. The bee, oh the bee, is the child who the school just feels it cannot deal with, yet, against all odds, with the backing of his parents, has enough self-motivation to do well even though everyone thought he couldn’t. Rabbi Z. Greenwald
KLU was critical in funding, designing, dreaming and enabling Tombolo Academy to achieve the status of a school. Since 2021 Tombolo has been developing programs and running independently of all input from KLU.
