Education
Twice Exceptional ADD? ADHD? Anxiety? OCD? Is there something ‘going on’ that could be masking your child’s true potential? We investigate…
E
very child has areas of relative strength – something they can do better than other activities; however not all children are gifted. Every child has areas of relative weakness – something they don’t do as well as other activities; however not every child has a disability. The use of the terms ‘gifted’ and ‘disability’ indicate a significant degree of difference from the norm; a level of development that exists well outside the range of abilities and skills usually expected of a child at a particular chronological age. Professor Françoys Gagné, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Quebec, explains a gifted child has advanced abilities that exist within the top ten percent of the population. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a child with a disability experiences impairments in one or more of the intellectual, cognitive, neurological, psychiatric, sensory or physical areas and around ten percent of the world’s population live with a disability.
There are gradations of giftedness, with children identified as mildly, moderately, highly or exceptionally gifted, depending upon their level of abilities, skill development and associated support needs. Likewise, there are gradations of disabilities, with children diagnosed as mildly, moderately, severely or profoundly disabled, depending upon the level of impairment, reduced functional capacity and associated support needs. In both these areas, the numbers of children within each level reduce as each level is located further from the average range of abilities; however the child’s needs increase according to greater levels of giftedness or disability. Provision for children with special educational support needs is a matter of equity and social justice within our society – or at least it should be. The NDIS legislation has acted as a catalyst for increasing the awareness of disabilities within our society. State and Federal Government funding provides support in school for children who experience disabilities in specific (but not all) areas of disability. Despite two
bipartisan Federal Senate Select Committee Enquiries (1988, 2006) The Education of Gifted and Talented Children reporting that gifted students are the most educationally disadvantaged students in Australia, there is still limited awareness of the characteristics of gifted children and knowledge of the ways in which schools and parents can provide for gifted children’s intellectual, educational and psychosocial needs. One of my favourite quotes, “There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequal individuals” (attributed to Thomas Jefferson), highlights the importance of providing appropriate supports for these exceptional students, whether their needs are related to heightened abilities, impairments – or both. Children who are gifted and have a disability experience exceptionalities in two or more areas. These twice-exceptional children usually have an extremely wide scatter of abilities and disabilities, causing intense frustration and requiring interventions to provide appropriately for each of the areas of
Brigidine College Indooroopilly A Catholic Girls' Secondary College
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Your Local Families Magazine – Brisbane Issue 11 - August/September 2015
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