Twice exceptional kids are future mathematicians, scientists, authors, rock stars—and they need our help.

We are proud to be among a handful of schools nationwide that is working to create new models, settings and approaches that are specifically tailored to the needs of “2e” kids, and one of the few to put their needs at the center of a mainstreamed program with other bright and gifted kids.

Twice exceptional kids have high intellectual or artistic gifts, coupled with an area of learning, social, emotional or physiological difference. They see things differently, leading “2e” thinkers to be among history’s greatest leaders in politics, math, science and the arts. But these same differences create a unique childhood experience that can put them at odds with support structures and expectations that are architected with neurotypical kids in mind. All too often, this leads to social and academic isolation, with high long term rates of anxiety and depression.

We believe it’s time to change that. Scroll down to learn more about the great diversity of 2e kids, how we are creating a truly-supportive community to meet their needs and why the time is now to bring change to better meet their needs.

You’ve heard the stereotypes, but what does the range of 2e kids really look like? Twice exceptional kids are as varied as any other cohort of kids, with personalities, gifts and challenges all their own. Some soar ahead in school while others struggle to keep up. Some are socially awkward while others are social butterflies. Many have highly-asynchronous development and/or complex learning profiles, combining all of the challenges of both gifted education and addressing their disabilities. Find out more about the huge range of twice exceptional kids, and why individualization is essential if we are to meet their needs.

Twice exceptional kids and other students with uneven neuropsychological skills often become resistant to new tasks, or seek to avoid ones that aren’t directly within their areas of interest. We understand these behaviors as a logical defense mechanism that kids develop when they have widely divergent skills and haven’t been given a lens they can use to predict which tasks will be boringly easy and which will be impenetrably hard. We understand task avoidance not as a “behavior” problem, but as evidence that the child has become hypervigilant to the possibility of failure—a common response to the challenges of going through life with both outlying strengths and outlying challenges. Rather than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ curriculum, we create highly-personalized strategies to address the specific issues driving the challenge for this child, leveraging close teacher relationships and a trauma-informed approach.

By definition, twice exceptional children’s needs are complicated, with outlying strengths and weaknesses competing for educational support. Across the country, fewer than twenty specialized schools exist to meet this need. Within public and independent schools alike, the complexity of 2e profiles disproportionately limits these kids’ options to one-to-one instructional programs and homebound settings. At Cajal Academy, we are passionate about raising the bar for 2e kids through new models for meeting these children’s highly-individualized needs, but within the social learning environment that all kids deserve.

Like all cohorts of special needs children, twice exceptional children need a spectrum of educational alternatives, including expert environments with socially-engaged programs. Twice exceptional kids’ complex needs for both challenge and support strain traditional educational models and environments, and those models and environments strain twice exceptional kids. They have high rates of mental health challenges lasting long into adulthood for what should be some of our strongest creative thinkers. And yet, across the country there are extremely few special education schools tailored to their needs. Find out more about why these kids need new educational models now to better meet their educational needs.

Wear your 2e stripes with pride!

These are just a few of the thinkers, scientists and artists known or believed to have been twice exceptional who have already changed our world—send us a note to share the 2e leaders who inspire your child!