Disability Identification Considerations
Identifying Colorado Students with Disabilities
Here is a quick-reference guide designed to help educators recognize potential signs of disability in students who are already identified as gifted (credit: Slater, A. E., 2020, Educating Twice-Exceptional Students in Compliance with IDEA and Section 504, LRP publications).
| If a gifted student exhibits the following ... | Monitor the student for additional signs of ... |
|---|---|
| Frequent absences | Anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues |
| Difficulties with attention or focus | ADHD or depression |
| Difficulties with a specific subject or area of curriculum | Specific learning disability |
| Missing or incomplete assignments | ADHD, autism, or emotional disturbance |
| Fidgeting, repetitive movements, or difficulty staying still | ADHD or autism |
| Difficulty with transitions | Autism |
| Difficulties with social interaction | Autism, anxiety, or depression |
| Behavioral outbursts | ADHD or emotional disturbance |
| Frequent disciplinary offenses | ADHD or emotional disturbance |
| Acts of self-harm | Depression or other form of emotional disturbance |
Unlike other gifted students, those who are twice-exceptional find themselves hampered by deficits that interfere with their ability to perform some of the tasks required to learn in the classroom learning. Depending on their disability or disorder, the deficits, often invisible to others, can affect them in various ways, such as:
- Interfere with their ability to make sense of visual or auditory information
- Make it hard to correctly interpret social cues, like facial expressions and tone of voice
- Limit the functioning of short-term memory
- Take the form of language-based disorders that make reading, writing, mathematics, or verbal expression difficult
- Appear as a mood disorder, leaving the child anxious and depressed, or an attention deficit that makes it hard to sit still and focus
- Hamper fine motor skills
- Interfere with the brain's ability to organize and interpret information taken in through the sensory experiences of touch, taste, smell, sight, sound, body placement, and movement (with deficits in the ability to process sensory input, a child reacts to the world quite different from others. Classroom lights, sounds, and smells may seem painfully intense, making concentrating on lessons difficult.)
Remember - 2e children are a diverse group. No one child is likely to display all of these characteristics.