Twice exceptional

The term twice-exceptional or 2e refers to individuals acknowledged as gifted and neurodivergent. As a literal interpretation implies, it means a person (usually a child or student) is simultaneously very strong or gifted at some task but also very weak or incapable of another task. Due to this duality of twice-exceptional people's cognitive profiles, their strengths, weaknesses, and struggles may remain unnoticed or unsupported. Because of the relative apparentness of precocious developments, such as hyperlexia, compared to subtler difficulties which can appear in day-to-day tasks, these people may frequently face seemingly contradictory situations which lead to disbelief, judgements, alienation, and other forms of epistemic injustice. Some related terms are "performance discrepancy", "cognitive discrepancy", "uneven cognitive profile", and "spikey profile". Due to simultaneous combination of abilities and inabilities, these people do not often fit into an age-appropriate or socially-appropriate role. An extreme form of twice-exceptionalism is Savant syndrome. The individuals often identify with the description of twice-exceptional due to their unique combination of exceptional abilities and neurodivergent traits. The term "twice-exceptional" first appeared in Dr. James J. Gallagher's 1988 article "National Agenda for Educating Gifted Students: Statement of Priorities". Twice-exceptional individuals embody two distinct forms of exceptionalism: one being giftedness and the other including at least one aspect of neurodivergence. Giftedness is often defined in various ways and is influenced by entities ranging from local educational boards to national governments; however, one constant among every definition is that a gifted individual has high ability compared to neurotypical peers of similar age. The term neurodivergent describes an individual whose cognitive processes differ from those considered neurotypical and who possesses strengths that exceed beyond the neurotypical population. Therefore, the non-clinical designation of twice-exceptional identifies a gifted person with at least one neurodivergent trait.