Uncovering the Hidden Potential of Gifted Students: An Interview with Author Dr. Steven Pfeiffer
We re-connected for a second interview with Dr. Steven Pfeiffer, an internationally recognized psychologist and expert on the resiliency and social competency of high ability children and twice-exceptional (2e) individuals—those who are intellectually gifted while also having a learning difference or disability. Known for his clinical insight, research contributions, and the development of the Gifted Rating Scales™ Second Edition (GRS™ 2), Dr. Pfeiffer brings decades of expertise to the nuanced world of high ability learners.
In this conversation, we dive deeper into what it means to identify and support 2e students, and how tools like the GRS 2 can help schools move toward a more fair and accurate understanding of giftedness.
The interview below has been edited for length and clarity. Views expressed are those of the GRS 2 author.
You recently hosted an MHS-sponsored webinar to share more about the Gifted Rating Scales™ Second Edition (GRS™ 2) and introduce your “Tripartite Model.” What are some recent developments or insights in the world of giftedness since introducing this model?
PFEIFFER: I have observed with keen interest the maturing of the fields of gifted education, expertise, intelligence testing, and talent development over the course of my career. Since I introduced the “Tripartite Model” about 12 years ago, there have been a few important insights that we’ve learned about high ability students.
First, authorities now agree that gifted students learn at a faster pace and with greater depth and complexity than their “neuro-typical” classmates. Gifted students, particularly when they are interested in the subject matter, can devour huge amounts of complex academic material at a rapid, almost breathtaking rate.
The second indisputable insight is that a young child’s gift can present in one specific domain—such as in mathematics, music, creative writing, dance, theater, or even athletics—or in multiple domains. There is no one rule of thumb. Some highly able learners are precocious in one narrowly defined domain, whereas other gifted students are blessed with multiple talents that amaze their peers, teachers, and parents.
A third unassailable fact is that no matter how precocious or advanced a young child’s gifts might be, the nurturing of the gifts is almost always necessary for the highly able student to maximize their potential. Even highly capable, young kids—who might, for example, test at the upper limits of an IQ test—need to work hard to reach the highest levels of their “natural” gifts.
The fourth undeniable fact is this: Not only do we humans present with a wide range of gifts and talents—the number limited only by what society deems relevant and noteworthy—but the degree of giftedness varies tremendously across domains. I am reminded of a recent trip that my wife and I took to the quiet seaport of Nazaré, Portugal, made famous for its breathtakingly huge surfing waves. Only a handful of expert surfers dare challenge the gigantic, 25-plus-meter breaking waves; much like how surfing skills range from competent wave riders to a rare few who can handle these monster waves.
Many in the high ability field like to consider the minimal threshold of two standard deviations above the mean, or the top 2%–5% of kids, as gifted. There certainly is no exact science that can help us set the minimal threshold demarcating gifted versus not gifted. That said, among the top 2%–5% of gifted students in any given school or school district, there is a considerable range of abilities amongst this already select, elite group! I again borrow from the surfing world to make this fourth point clearer.
In all human fields, there is a huge range of ability even amongst the most capable. Only a few reach the highest levels of distinction in any field.
The fifth indisputable fact is that many highly able kids (we simply do not have the hard data to know exact numbers or percentages) experience heightened feelings of sensitivity and emotional reactivity, including asynchronous development, peer relation problems, and inner turmoil due to a sense of being different and having different interests than their peers. This creates what I call an uncomfortable “outlier” status. Also, many highly able students find themselves bored in classrooms ill-equipped to meet and challenge their intellectual and academic needs. For too many gifted students, this is a chronic problem.
Parenthetically, my motivation for writing a parenting book for raising resilient and successful gifted students was because a considerable number of very bright kids present with quirky social-emotional behaviors, poor social skills, and low emotional intelligence. In my experience, all too often parents and educators focus on what I call the “head strengths” of the gifted student and neglect their “heart strengths”¹.
In an interview with the Journal of Gifted Education and Creativity, you expressed that you think of the GRS 2 as being an “assessment tool that can play a huge role in the screening and early identification of many typically unrecognized young ‘diamonds in the rough².’” Why is it so easy to misidentify (or entirely miss) 2e students (i.e., those who are intellectually gifted while also having a learning difference or disability)? How can the GRS 2 help prevent that?
PFEIFFER: High ability students with co-existing disabilities—the twice exceptional learner or 2e—are challenging to correctly diagnose and treat due to multiple factors. These include variable definitions of what it means to be “gifted,” the influence of high intelligence on mental health diagnostic presentation, and the time of onset of the first appearance of the child’s gifts and the child’s social-emotional concerns. The problem of symptom masking by the gifted student further complicates matters.
As an academic clinician, over the course of my 40-plus-year career, I’ve worked with many gifted students with co-existing sensory, physical, behavioral, social, or communication disabilities. They are a challenging group to diagnose and treat in part because we know very little about how intellectual and academic gifts and various disabilities interact and influence the developing child socially, emotionally, behaviorally, academically, and spiritually³.
Further complicating matters, the co-existing disability or disabilities can vary in severity of impairment, ranging from quite mild and almost imperceptible to rather severe and debilitating⁴,⁵. The majority of information on the 2e student is based on case study and anecdotal clinical reports; very few empirical studies exist. Most of what the gifted field knows is based on case studies or small, unrepresentative clinical samples⁶. Currently, there is not even one prospective, epidemiological study that has examined a large community sample of non-referred gifted students to explore the etiology, pathogenesis, course, and prevalence for those who are 2e students.
In other words, one needs to be cautious and conservative when reading reports based on clinical studies of the 2e. There are real limitations when generalizing from small clinical samples; as the reader knows, clinical samples are anything but representative of the general population of gifted students in the community at large. Gifted students who show up at a gifted specialty treatment center tend to present with more serious symptomatology and tend to be more impaired.
It is unclear exactly when the term “twice exceptional” was first used or who first coined the term. Many contend that it was James Gallagher, and it would be lovely to believe that he did, if for no other reason than him being one of my professors in graduate school at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. However, the earliest reference that I was able to locate appears in a chapter titled Gifted handicapped: A desultory duality, in the International Handbook of Research and Development of Giftedness and Talent, written by Yewchuk and Lupart (1988)⁷.
Comorbidity challenges disease-specific guidelines in medicine. Medicine has long documented that the interacting effects of two or more concurrent diseases complicates treatment. Physicians report that effective individualized care requires more than simply the sum of separate guideline components. There is little research, and an urgent need for evaluating the impact of treatment guidelines for patients with comorbid diseases.
A somewhat analogous, although not parallel, case can be made for the twice exceptional student. There is no peer-reviewed research that has examined the effectiveness of evidence-based treatment protocols (e.g., behavioral parent training for ADHD, cognitive-behavioral treatment protocols for depression, or parent management training for disruptive behavior problems) when applied specifically to a clearly defined cohort of 2e students. Of course, being gifted is not the same as having a medical disease such as angina, diabetes, hypertension, renal failure, or post-partum depression.
We do know from medicine that comorbidity is almost always more serious and requires more comprehensive and intensive intervention. The concept of complexity is related to, but not the same as, comorbidity. Complexity or “case mix complexity” is a term used in medicine to refer to a set of multiple patient attributes that include, in addition to co-morbidity, socioeconomic factors, lifestyle factors, access to healthcare, severity and chronicity of the illness, prognosis with and without intervention, treatment compliance and difficulty, need for intervention, and resource intensity to manage the illness⁶. The more complex the case mix, the greater the need for multiple resources, and the less predictable the course and outcome. In addition, the more complex the case mix, the greater the reliance on clinical judgment and a tailored intervention plan, and the more important coordination of services.
One final point bears mentioning. Most authorities recognize that diagnostic boundaries in medicine are not absolutely precise and that a gray area and degree of overlap exist among disorders. For example, shared symptoms in arthritis, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and stroke complicate correct diagnoses. The same is true for diagnostic boundary issues clouding precise diagnoses with intellectually gifted students presenting with possible co-existing neurodevelopmental, behavioral, and social-emotional problems. Some experts in the gifted field contend that misdiagnoses stem primarily from the widespread ignorance among otherwise well-meaning and well-trained professionals about the social and emotional characteristics of gifted children and adults⁸. Misdiagnosis can occur if the practitioner incorrectly attributes characteristics of some gifted students as defining symptoms of underlying disorders.
For example, the high activity level, boredom, restlessness, and resistance to rules and regulations, or intellectual over-excitability in a high IQ child might be misinterpreted as defining symptoms of ADHD. Some authorities estimate that as many as half of gifted students with the diagnosis of ADHD are misdiagnosed⁸. I suspect that this is probably an overestimate for what is, very likely, a real diagnostic conundrum of some gifted students being misdiagnosed.
I should also point out that in addition to misdiagnoses, there is the risk of missed diagnosis. What this means is that the student’s intellectual gift or special talent can mask from the teacher, parent, or school psychologist the presence of an actual disability. Equally probable, a disability’s adverse impact can mask or disguise a student’s gift or special talent. In both instances, the student is not correctly identified as 2e when they are. A final possibility exists: In some instances, a high ability student with a minor disability could go unidentified as both gifted and disabled. The school psychologist could overlook both the giftedness and the disability if features of each conceal or mask one another. I have seen this missed diagnosis phenomenon far too often in my consulting work.
You’ve emphasized the importance of looking at the intersection of multiple factors (like cognitive, emotional, environmental) when working with 2e students. How can school psychologists or educators better design interventions that are truly tailored to the unique profiles of these students, rather than relying on one-size-fits-all approaches?
PFEIFFER: I’ve long expressed concerned that the gifted field has over-focused on the academic and intellectual development and scholarship of gifted students, including 2e students, to the relative neglect of their mental health and well being.
I contend that school psychologists and gifted educators, along with parents of gifted and 2e students, focus on ways to encourage mental health and well-being in the classroom, playground, home, and community. There is an exciting, growing evidence-based literature related to ways to promote the social-emotional development and character strength of all kids, including gifted students and students with disabilities¹.
Promoting the social-emotional development and character strength of 2e students is a particularly promising direction that I would encourage educators and school psychologists to explore. There exists a library of published resources on practical, cost-effective and low-burden interventions that can easily be individually tailored and integrated into the existing curriculum that have demonstrated long-term positive effects on students’ social-emotional development and academic outcomes.
Zeidner and Matthews, for example, offer effective and proven strategies to promote emotional intelligence in the classroom⁹. In my own private and consulting practice, I’ve had success teaching gifted and 2e students social skills, ways to identify one’s own and others’ feelings, relaxation techniques, perspective taking and empathy, mindful attention, responsible decision making, and behavioral coping skills¹.
How do you hope the GRS 2 changes the conversation around giftedness and learning differences in schools to ultimately support and maximize 2e students’ potential?
PFEIFFER: The new GRS 2 is a remarkable clinical tool that provides the field with what I like to call a “second generation” diagnostic tool to assist in the proper identification of gifted and talented students.
The support from MHS to encourage us to develop and publish a companion parent gifted rating scale was huge. We recognized the many practical and psychometric challenges in designing and publishing a companion parent scale that was reliable, accurate, and provided useful information on both the head strengths and heart strengths of bright kids, ages four to 18.
MHS was supportive of our weaving into the new GRS parent rating form new items and a unique, new scale that measure social-emotional competencies. The scale is fully compatible with my “strengths of the heart” model and provides users with a more expanded and new way to view high ability kids. For example, at workshops that I’ve led on the new GRS 2, practitioners have commented on how the new scale provides data on prosocial skills and character strengths that complements a positive psychology framework. I love these unsolicited comments because they confirm that we “hit the mark” in publishing a scale that measures and can actually be used in the classroom to help promote social and emotional intelligence!
Finally, users of the GRS 2 report that the new rating scales work because of the care that was taken in its revision, updated norms, expanded age range up to 18 years, reduced number of items, new modular administration and reports, and helpful analysis of a student’s relative strengths. These are not superficial enhancements—they make the GRS 2 a powerful, new diagnostic tool for work with high ability students!
Have questions about the GRS 2? Get in touch with a member of our team.
Visit our storefront to purchase the GRS 2.
Check out our first interview with Dr. Pfeiffer to learn more about what inspired him to initially develop the GRS and further advancements in the GRS 2.
References
¹ Pfeiffer, S. I. (2024b). Parenting from the heart: Raising resilient and successful smart kids. NY: Routledge.
² Shaughnessy, M. F. (2023). An interview with Steven I. Pfeiffer: Parenting from the heart. Journal of Gifted Education and Creativity, 10 (1), 73-79.
³ Pfeiffer, S. I. (2024a). Optimizing mental health and well-being: Successful parenting is one key component. EC Psychology and Psychiatry, 13 (2), 1-5.
⁴ Pfeiffer, S. I. (2013). Serving the gifted. NY: Routledge.
⁵ Pfeiffer, S. I. (2015). Essentials of gifted assessment. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.
⁶ Pfeiffer, S. I., & Foley-Nicpon, M. (2018). Knowns and unknowns about students with disabilities who also happen to be intellectually gifted. In Scott Barry Kaufman (Ed.), Twice exceptional: Supporting and educating bright and creative students with learning disabilities (104-121). NY: Oxford University Press.
⁷ Yewchuk, C., & Lupart, J. L. (1988). Gifted handicapped: A desultory duality. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks, & H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 709-725). London: Pergamon Press.
⁸ Webb, J. T., Gore, J. I., & Amend, E. R. (2007). A parent’s guide to gifted children. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press.
⁹ Zeidner, M., & Matthews, G. (2017). Emotional intelligence in gifted students. Gifted Education International, 33 (2), 163-182.10 Pfeiffer, S. I. (2017). Success in the classroom and in life: Focusing on strengths of the head and strengths of the heart. Gifted Education International, 33 (2), 95-101.
