The Science and Politics of Gifted Students With Learning Disabilities: A Social Inequality Perspective

Abstract

Researchers and advocates who argue for increased recognition of gifted students with learning disabilities (G/LD students) often frame their arguments in terms of the need to increase the diversity and inclusiveness of gifted education. However, the criteria used to identify G/LD students are sufficiently vague and fluid that the G/LD category can serve as a vehicle for the very elitism and social class reproduction that the category's advocates abhor. Empirical research suggests that G/LD students often fail to satisfy traditional criteria for either aspect of their label, while the incentives of the classification are nonetheless evident to knowledgeable parents and school personnel. Implications of these findings for practice are discussed.

Keywords:

• dual exceptionalities
• giftedness
• learning disabilities
• social justice
• twice-exceptional

Notes

1. This discussion should not be taken to imply that RTI models are without problems. Indeed, RTI implementation often involves logistical difficulties, and setting the criteria for determining which students have shown an adequate response to instruction can be a controversial process (Fuchs & Deshler, 2007). There are “third method” alternatives to both RTI and IQ–achievement discrepancies (Flanagan & Alfonso, 2011), but there is a clear scientific consensus against the use of simple IQ–achievement discrepancies in LD identification.

2. At times, these ancillary factors are even officially included in identification criteria; for instance, Silverman (2003) argued that when assessing potentially G/LD students, factors such as “the presence of giftedness in siblings should all be … given greater weight in placement decisions than test scores” (p. 539).

3. Interestingly, although G/LD identification and programming is likely to be more common in affluent areas, parents who are in districts without much gifted programming may be especially likely to push for G/LD identification, because current laws require more services for students who have both giftedness and a disability, rather than only giftedness (Zirkel, 2005).

4. I should note that neither academic redshirting nor G/LD identification need actually involve sinister motives. In any competitive situation, relative advantage determines absolute success, and so it is understandable (if problematic) that parents would want their children to not only be doing well but also be doing better than others.

5. This point should be reinforced. To ask whether G/LD students exist assumes outdated, essentialist notions of giftedness and learning disability. Thus, when empirical researchers (e.g., Assouline, Nicpon, & Whiteman, 2010) conclude from their data that G/LD students exist, they miss the point. It is an obvious and uninteresting fact that some students will meet whatever identification criteria we set for G/LD. Instead, research should investigate which children the label is useful for, as well as what the larger effects are on the school, including effects on social inequality.