Twice-Exceptional
Fred Bonner
Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas, USA
The mainstream definition of twice-exceptional students offered by the National Education Association (NEA) states, students who are gifted and disabled are at risk for not achieving their potential because of the relationship that exists between their enhance cognitive abilities and their disabilities serves as one of the formal definition, In this workshop I advance an alternative view of this term when applied to the P-12 schooling experiences of academically gifted Black males. I re-theorize and unpack the term tw(y)ce exceptional, which I offer as  an approach that more aptly represents the engagements of gifted Black males.
Whereas twice-exceptionality recognizes the simultaneity of possessing giftedness and a disability, so too does tw(y)ce-exceptionality recognize this duality.
However, where the definition of these two terms differ is the codification of the actual disability.
For the twice-exceptional student, the list of disabilities potentially includes:
  • Specific Learning Disabilities (SpLD)
  • Speech and Language Disorders
  • Emotional/Behavioral Disorders
  • Physical Disabilities
  • Autism Spectrum
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (NAGC, 2018)
For the tw(y)ce-exceptional student, the list of disabilities potentially includes:
  • Gender
  • Race
  • Class
  • Culture
  • Ethnicity
  • Socioeconomic Status
Workshop participants will be actively engaged in a brainstorming and problem-posting activity that will require them to think deeply about how giftedness is nuanced across diverse contexts and populations.