Inclusive Practice Casework

Tammy – Case 8 – Considered Response

                Tracey’s case is centered on a gifted/learning disability diagnosis as well as why and how she should be accommodated. Tracey’s teachers are concerned about her ability to keep up with the course load and her ability to get into university. Tracey’s parents keep her involved in several extra-curricular activities, including a tutor 3 times a week and are also concerned about Tracey’s grades. Tracey has been tested by a psychologist and the findings suggest a gifted/learning disability diagnosis, however no diagnosis has been officially given. Tracey’s teachers recognize her inherent artistic ability as well as other strengths but the idea of “giftedness” has not been mentioned in school meetings. To date, Tracey’s teachers have been unable to appropriately accommodate Tracey to ensure her success and growth. Instead Tracey’s teachers are focused on where she is falling behind.                    

Gifted and learning disabled students are commonly referred to as twice exceptional students, a diagnosis given when there is a discrepancy between potential and actual classroom achievement. Twice exceptional students are typically able to conceptualize quickly, identify patterns and relationships, reason abstractly as well as generalize concepts quickly. These students are typically thought of as being street smart with school problems, because outside the confines of a classroom a child’s gifts and abilities are less likely to be constrained and therefore shine through. Gifted/learning disabled is a relatively new diagnosis in terms of the DSM because historically giftedness and learning disabled were considered mutually exclusive.  There are three groups of twice exceptional students. One, a student has been identified as being gifted but is currently working at grade level because his learning disability is undiagnosed. These students are sometimes thought of as lazy or unmotivated, but in fact these particular students have to work extremely hard to cope with their undiagnosed learning disability just to achieve average grades.  Identifying twice exceptional students with a learning disability is tricky because a learning disability is not necessarily defined as an obstruction of overall intelligence and therefore if a student performs at an average range it isn’t typically cause for concern. Two, a student has been identified as having a learning disability but his giftedness is undiagnosed due to inadequate assessment or depressed IQ scores because of his LD. Because giftedness is not recognized in this group of students, their strengths never become a focus of instruction and frustration remains constant for the student. Three, a students abilities and disabilities mask each other and therefore the students performs at grade level and is never considered for either a gifted or remedial program. This group is thought to be the largest group of twice exceptional students, a group of students who will be chronic under-achievers because their true ability is hidden under the reign of a learning disability.

What I found striking while researching this case is that the recommended practice for twice exceptional students is simply good teaching practice. There was nothing in the research that indicated that twice exceptional students need anything more than what would already benefit their classmates. The research was frustrating in suggesting and recommending accommodations that should already be present in classrooms; such as access to assistive technology, teaching study skills, learning strategies and time management. What was even more alarming is that the idea of teaching to strengths appeared as a novel concept or a strategy only suited to twice exceptional students. It’s infuriating that good practice is considered an accommodation, what was being done for the class before these “accommodations” were put into place, mediocre practice? There were however some accommodations that I found particularly insightful, such as curriculum compacting, tiered assignments, addressing a student’s perception of their own self-efficacy and teaching meta-skills.

  

                Curriculum compacting is a pre-teaching strategy to address the diversity of a classroom and is particularly useful in addressing the enrichment needs of a gifted learner. A teacher pre-tests the classroom on a unit and in doing so is able to identify students who have already mastered the content. For the group who has a sufficient understanding of the content, the teacher can develop an enriched curriculum to deepen a students understanding or simply move the students on to another topic. Tiered assignments can be an outcome of curriculum compacting where students who understand the basic concepts of a unit are asked to delve deeper into the concept and investigate further. This could include “how” or “why” questions to uncover the “big ideas”. Self-efficacy, a student’s perception of their ability to follow through on an instruction, is an interesting subject in terms of twice exceptional students; research shows that gifted learners are typically harder on themselves than their classmates and therefore have poor judgement in terms of their self-efficacy. A student’s perception of their self-efficacy should be monitored and addressed when necessary to stop negative self-talk. Negative self-talk can be addressed with teaching meta-skills, skills that students have that enable them to help themselves. These can include self-coaching, recognizing one’s inner voice (positive or negative), learning strategies that they can implement on their own, like approaching a task in small chunks, sentence by sentence etc. 

                Tracey is in a peculiar position because her teachers recognize her strengths and are aware of her weaknesses but do not realize the severity of either. Her weaknesses are what are bringing attention to her and yet they are not considered a learning disability, and her strengths are obvious but not built upon. However her parents agree with a previous diagnosis of gifted/learning disabled, but it is not yet included in teacher-student discussions.  In Tracey’s case not all the pieces have been put together, they are all laid out but still a little jumbled.

                What I’ve come to realize is that this case is not about what Tracey needs to do, or what accommodations her teachers need to give her. This case is about changing the current education model, challenging the old and out dated notions that teachers have about students and their abilities and their perceived disabilities. The old and sometimes current model of education is failing students that don’t fit into a box, a box that only captures average. Do we as educators only want to be focused on the average? When we only teach to the average we get average results. Teachers should always be striving for excellence, excellence in teaching and excellence in their students. If we teach to the exceptions and the excellence in our students then we will get excellence in return. Education must stop focusing on the disabilities that students present and find a way to find the exceptional that is present in all.

               

The term twice exceptional is useless, it only summarizes the fact that a student has strengths and weaknesses, but is this not the case for all our students? The accommodations that are useful in helping gifted students realize their potential also has to be true for other students to reach their potential. Assistive technology should be accessible for all students otherwise what is the point in having it in the classroom? Nothing looks worse than having a 17 year old fret during an exam that his handwriting is not neat enough for his teacher while a desk top sits idly by in the back of the classroom. Audio books help all students regardless of giftedness, stay engaged with the material when the stress of reading is absent. Adults enjoy being read to for the same reason children do because they don’t have to do the reading and can just enjoy the story being told. A teacher would never push a book on a child who was learning to read, early literacy is about exposure and to an extent exposure is still key with those who are struggling readers. It’s less about decoding and more about comprehension. Study skills and learning strategies don’t only need to be taught to children with exceptionalities. These skills and strategies are not inherent, “learning to learn” skills warrant their own instructional time, I imagine no teacher would regret taking the time to review or teach “learning to learn” skills rather than having a group of students who took worthless notes or never knew how to prepare for an exam. In the field of autism “learning to learn” skills are typically thought of as skills that a child must have or learn before therapy can become therapeutic, such as the ability to sit in a chair, frustration tolerance and self-regulation. Its scaffolding necessary before any cognitive or curricular targets can be addressed. This is no different than a student learning how to study before actually having to take a test. As the accommodations are listed here it becomes evident that they are not accommodations specifically for a student diagnosed with giftedness/learning disability, nor any diagnosis, but they are just good teaching practice.    

Tracey needs her parents to advocate for her, they should remain vigilant in receiving an official diagnosis and at the very least push for the accommodations that a diagnosis would warrant. Tracey’s teachers should approach the accommodations as pro-active classroom management and consider the accommodated teaching practice as what all students deserve.