Twice or Thrice? Identification Issues and Possibilities Related to Students with Exceptionalities in Australian Schools

Abstract

<p>In Australia, early identification of the diverse abilities/needs of twice-exceptional youth in both mainstream and indigenous education requires urgent teacher access to comprehensive, investigative, assessment strategies. This goal, however, remains problematic owing to the existing complex interplay of environmental and intrapersonal factors that place limitations on adequately recognising and supporting the unique learning profiles of the twice-exceptional. In addition, in Australian indigenous communities a more multi-dimensional perception of exceptionality, in terms of cultural influences, provides a challenge to our current understanding of the term 'twice-exceptional'. Two studies utilised strategies that were designed to assist teachers in identifying students' abilities/needs. One study developed and trialled a teacher checklist questionnaire or screener (TCQ), with Section A incorporating six categories/scales based on Gagné's domains of Natural Abilities from his Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT 2.0; 2008, 2013), and Section B, three categories/scales of learning difficulties. Findings from the first trial of the TCQ, subject to further trialling, suggest that the questionnaire shows promise as an investigative tool in its scale reliability, validity, and practical usefulness. The second study considered the influence of Aboriginal culture on the gifted experience. The findings of the second study illustrate that it is possible for schools to identify and support culturally mediated intellectual giftedness whilst at the same time working with the broader community to catalyse cultural gifts, thus tackling a different form of twice-exceptionality than is the usual focus. Considered together, the two studies demonstrate the importance of unveiling the learning strengths and difficulties of twice-exceptional students. They also reveal the importance of acknowledging the complexity of the interplay of differing exceptionalities on a student's learning profile, and raise the possibility of the indigenous student who is intellectually and/or culturally gifted and who also has a learning difficulty.</p>