Gifted but Learning Disabled: A Puzzling Paradox (continued)

Interestingly, these children often have high-level interests at home. They may build fantastic structures with plastic bricks or start a local campaign to save the whales. The creative abilities, intellectual strength and passion they bring to their hobbies are clear indicators of their potential for giftedness (Renzulli, 1978). Because these students are bright and sensitive, they are more acutely aware of their difficulty in learning. Furthermore, they tend to generalize their feelings of academic failure to an overall sense of inadequacy. Over time, these pessimistic feelings overshadow any positive feelings connected with what they accomplish on their own at home. Research has shown that this group of students is often rated by teachers as most disruptive at school. They are frequently found to be off task; they may act out, daydream, or complain of headaches and stomachaches; and they are easily frustrated and use their creative abilities to avoid tasks (Baum and Owen, 1988; Whitmore, 1980). Since school does not offer these bright youngsters much opportunity to polish and use their gifts, such results are not surprising.

Curricular Needs

Although each of these subgroups has unique problems,they all require an environment that will nurture their gifts,attend to the learning disability and provide the emotional support to deal with their inconsistent abilities. Four general guidelines can assist professionals in developing programs that will meet the needs of these students.

   1. Focus attention on the development of the gift. Remediation of basic skills historically has been the single focus of efforts to serve students once they have been classified as learning disabled. Few opportunities exist for bright students with learning disabilities to demonstrate gifted behaviors. Research has shown that a focus on weaknesses at the expense of developing gifts can result in poor self esteem, a lack of motivation, depression and stress (Baum, 1984; Whitmore & Maker, 1985). In addition to offering remediation, focused attention on the development of strengths, interests, and superior intellectual capacities is necessary. The students need a stimulating educational environment which will enable them to fully develop their talents and abilities. Enrichment activities should be designed to circumvent problematic weaknesses and to highlight abstract thinking and creative production.

      Over the last 6 years, the state of Connecticut has funded a variety of special programs for gifted students who have learning disabilities. All the programs have emphasized the development of gifts and talents of these students. The results of the projects showed dramatic improvement in student self-esteem, motivation, and productive learning behaviors. Improved achievement in basic skills for many students has been an unexpected bonus (Baum, 1988). In fact, according to Whitmore and Maker (1985), more gains are seen when intervention focuses on the gift rather than the disability.

   2. Provide a nurturing environment that values individual differences. According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs(1962), individuals must feel like they belong and are valued in order to reach their potential or self-actualize. How valued can a student feel if the curriculum must be continually modified, or assignments watered down, to enable the student to achieve success? Currently, only certain abilities are rewarded by schools, primarily those that involve strong verbal proficiency. Indeed, according to Howard Gardner (1983), schools spend much of their time teaching students the skills they would need to become college professors. Success in the real world depends on skills or knowledge in other areas besides reading and writing.

      A nurturing environment - one that shows concern for developing student potential - values and respects individual differences. Students are rewarded for what they do well. Options are offered for both acquiring information and communicating what is learned. The philosophy fosters and supports interdependence; students work in cooperative groups to achieve goals. Multiple intelligences are acknowledged; A well-produced video production about life in the Amazon is as valued as the well-written essay on the same topic. In such an environment no child will feel like a second-class citizen, and the gifted students with learning disabilities can excel.

   3. Encourage compensation strategies. Learning disabilities tend to be somewhat permanent. A poor speller will always need to check for errors in spelling before submitting a final draft. Students who have difficulty memorizing mathematics may need to use a calculator to assure accuracy. Thus,simply remediating weaknesses may not be appropriate or sufficient for the gifted learning disabled student. Remediation will make the learner somewhat more proficient, but probably not excellent, in areas of weakness. For instance, students who have difficulty with handwriting will ultimately fare much better if allowed to use a computer to record their ideas on paper than they will after years of remediation in handwriting. The following list outlines suggestions for providing compensation techniques to assist the student in coping with problematic weaknesses typical of the learning disabled student: