About the project

This project’s objective is to explore ways to better identify, recognise,twice-exceptional children. These are children who demonstrate potential for high achievement while also manifesting one or more disabilities. The contradiction these conflicting exceptionalities present can be a challenge to teachers who have not historically been trained to recognize twice-exceptional children, and to schools whose policies do not necessarily allow for the identification and provision of their contradictory needs. These students are often misdiagnosed, and identification is a key issue hindering both research and practice in the area of twice-exceptionality. In this study, data from the Growing Up in NZ (GUiNZ) study will be analysed for indicators of both potential for high achievement and disabilities. The stability over time of those indicators will then be explored. In Study 1, the eight-year GUiNZ data wave will be analysed for indicators of high cognitive potential and possible learning difficulties. Learner, variables in the 54-month and twelve-year data waves will be analysed for indicators of exceptionalities which predict those identified in the previous studies. Published research resulting from this study will explore the incidence of high cognitive ability in the GUiNZ cohort, the presence of indicators of possible learning difficulties within a sample of those high ability children, as well as the characteristics and protective factors of specific groups of high ability children.

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Start date: 1/10/2024

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