Parents may suspect that their child is gifted, yet be baffled when their smart child has difficulty learning in certain areas. Some intellectually gifted students also have special learning needs such as a learning disability. Gifted students may also have other special educational needs such as auditory processing problems, dyslexia, ADHD or emotional problems.
When a highly intelligent child has a learning disability, it is difficult for parents to make sense of the learning and behavior patterns they observe. A “masking” phenomenon often occurs; high intellect is partly hidden by learning problems, and learning difficulties partially obscure a child’s true level of intelligence. This can result in two problems: the child’s intellectual gifts are not nurtured and developed, and the learning disabilities may not be properly remediated.
Because these students are extremely intelligent, they can utilize many compensatory strategies in order to learn and appear (more…)
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