Is it ADHD, giftedness or both?

“He cannot be gifted. Look how much he struggles.”

“She cannot have ADHD. She can focus on her interests for hours.”

I hear versions of both statements regularly. Each one assumes that ability and difficulty cannot exist in the same student.

They can.

Twice-exceptional learners, often described as 2E, have high ability alongside a disability, learning difference or neurodevelopmental condition. A student might be gifted and dyslexic, gifted and autistic, or gifted and have ADHD.

The difficulty is that the two parts of the profile can disguise each other.

When the school sees only half the student

A student may contribute highly sophisticated ideas but struggle to put them on paper. Another may understand complex mathematical relationships while repeatedly losing instructions, materials and deadlines.

When ability is the most visible characteristic, adults may interpret the difficulties as carelessness, laziness or insufficient effort.

When the difficulty is more visible, adults may lower the intellectual level of the work and never discover what the student can actually do.

Some students compensate so effectively that they achieve average results. Their ability helps them manage their difficulty, while the difficulty prevents them from demonstrating their full ability. The school sees a student in the middle and assumes there is nothing unusual to investigate.

A recent systematic review of twice-exceptional identification highlights why schools and professionals need to look beyond one overall ability score. Differences in working memory, processing speed and other areas can make a complex profile appear less capable when it is reduced to a single number.

Be careful with the word “misdiagnosis”

Certain gifted behaviours can resemble characteristics associated with ADHD or autism. Intense focus, rapid thinking, sensitivity and frustration with repetition can all be interpreted in different ways.

But giftedness should never be used to dismiss a genuine disability.

A child is not too intelligent to have ADHD, autism or dyslexia. Equally, every difficult behaviour should not automatically be medicalised without considering the curriculum, environment and level of challenge.

Diagnosis belongs to qualified clinicians. The school’s role is to record what happens across different situations, listen to the student and family, and avoid choosing the simplest explanation merely because it is convenient.

What a strength-based approach actually means

Strength-based support does not mean ignoring difficulty or replacing intervention with praise.

It means refusing to define the student only by the area in which they struggle.

A learner who needs help with writing may still need advanced ideas. A student who needs executive-function support may also need greater complexity and choice. Removing intellectual challenge because a student needs help accessing it solves the wrong problem.

Research on strength-based teaching for twice-exceptional learners supports beginning with students’ interests and capabilities while also providing specific support for their difficulties.

Ask two questions:

• What support will help this student participate and demonstrate their thinking?
• What level of challenge will allow this student to keep developing?

The Beyond IQ Teacher Workshop Series explores the profiles that are most often missed, including twice-exceptional learners, underachievers and highly creative students.