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Disability Identification Considerations

A Peek at Some Numbers

Note: There are no federal laws requiring gifted education services and most states do not collect data on twice-exceptionality; therefore, data on twice-exceptionality is not prevalent.

Data to be considered:
  • There are approximately 3.3 million academically gifted children in grades K-12 in the United States, comprising approximately 6% of the total public-school population (2103-2014 NAGC).
  • The number of students identified as having a disability in American schools continues to increase; between 2011-2012 and 2017-2018, the population of students who received special education services grew from 6.4 million to 7 million.
  • When the data for gifted and special education overlap, we can reasonably estimate that a comparable percentage (approximately 6 percent) of the students served by IDEA must also be academically gifted (Patti Ralabate, The Twice-Exceptional Dilemma, 2006).

Barnard-Brak and colleagues (2015) estimate that 9.1% of students with identified disabilities may be academically advanced.  Their data below is from SEELS and represents students in special education who scored >90th percentile on the WJ-III-R Passage Comprehension, Letter-Word Identification, Applied Problems or Calculation. 

  • 9.1% of all children receiving special education services, demonstrate twice-exceptionality with the highest rates for students identified HI, VI, OI, & SLI.
  • Only 36 out of these 330 children (11%), who were likely twice-exceptional, reported receiving gifted education.
  • The authors note that the parameters of this study likely failed to identify many students with SLD who are also gifted, because they used academic achievement measures, not intelligence measures.

Barnard-Brak, L., Johnsen, S. K., Hannig, A. P., & Wei, T. (2015). The incidence of potentially gifted students within a special education population. Roeper Review, 37(2), 74-83, DOI:10.1080/02783193.2015.1008661.

Colorado

In the state of Colorado, in 2018, there were approximately 910,280 pk-12 students.  Of the 910,280 identified students, 7.3% were identified as gifted.  Of the population identified as gifted, 6.73% were identified as twice-exceptional.  1,518 were gifted with an IEP.   2,913 were gifted with a 504.  61 were gifted with an IEP and a 504.

Current Colorado data is troubling and may reflect the difficulties in identification during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In the fall of 2020 There were approximately 883,199 pk-12 students in Colorado (2020-2021).  Of the 883,199 students, 7.4% were identified as gifted but only 2.95% of students identified as gifted were also identified as 2e compared to the 6.73% in 2018.

As a result of under-identification we are leaving thousands of students without the support they are due.