المشاركة في مؤتمر دولي حول التربية والعلوم

International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES)

MEETING ROOM 2
SESSION	April 29, 2018 – Sunday  09:00-10:30
ICRES0171	THE SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL REALITIES OF UNRECOGNIZED TWICE EXCEPTIONAL STUDENTS Muhammad Zayyad

The Social and Emotional Realities of Unrecognized Twice Exceptional Students

Muhammad Zayyad, Ph.D.

ICRES 2018 conference, Marmaris, Turkey

Gifted students with learning disabilities, commonly called twice- exceptional, go through an enormous battle to reach their academic potential throughout their academic endeavor. This pilot study concerns with this particular group of students who are mostly identified either as gifted or as children with a disability. This, of course hinder their rights to be identified for both conditions, the gift and disability, and thus suffer from lack of educational services, including timely assessment and appropriate interventions. The research suggest that twice-exceptional students face social and emotional difficulties, such as feelings of anxiety towards academic tasks when compared with their peers. This emotional distressful feeling may lead to fear of school failure and social isolation.

For this study, a group of eight high-school Palestinian students from East Jerusalem with twice-exceptional, were identified by their teachers as having a gift in one area or with some sort of learning disabilities who are performing at or below grade level. The participants were individually interviewed, and data were derived from school archive on students' current and previous performances. The preliminary results indicate that teachers are not fully aware of the twice exceptional conditions. Further, school personnel do not possess the necessary resources to assess, and thus make educational decisions for this unique group of students. On the other hand, those students are being left alone to face their fate and the daily social and emotional challenges. Findings from the study and implications for future research will be discussed.

Key words: gifted, learning disabilities, twice-exceptional,