The Overlooked Role of Modalities in Multi-Exceptional Children

ABSTRACT

Multi-exceptional children often have deficits in auditory, visual, or sensory processing. As few psychologists have training in modalities, these deficits may be misdiagnosed as AD/HD, Nonverbal Learning Disorder, Autism, Dyslexia, or a host of personality disorders. This article describes the symptoms of these processing deficits and offers suggestions for therapeutic interventions. Conundrums in diagnosing the complex profiles of multi-exceptional children are addressed. Qualitative assessment is recommended as an alternative or adjunct to traditional assessment. The Checklist for Recognizing Twice Exceptional Children is included to help parents, teachers, and graduate students gain awareness of the many manifestations of multi-exceptionality. The author’s experience as a clinician specializing in multi-exceptional children serves as the basis for the article.

KEYWORDS:

• auditory
• diagnosis
• multi-exceptional
• sensory
• twice exceptional
• visual

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linda K. Silverman

Linda K. Silverman, PhD, is a licensed clinical and counseling psychologist. She founded and directs the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development, and its subsidiary, Gifted Development Center (GDC, www.gifteddevelopment.org) in Westminster, Colorado. In the last 44 years, she has studied over 6,500 children who have been assessed at GDC, the largest data bank on this population. This research enabled the creation of extended norms on the WISC–IV and WISC–V. Her PhD is in educational psychology and special education from the University of Southern California. For 9 years, she served on the faculty of the University of Denver in counseling psychology and gifted education. She has been studying the psychology and education of the gifted since 1961 and has written over 300 articles, chapters and books, including Counseling the Gifted and Talented, Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner, Advanced Development: A Collection of Works on Gifted Adults and Giftedness 101. She founded the only juried psychological journal on adult giftedness: Advanced Development. With her colleagues, she created the Checklist for Recognizing Twice Exceptional Children. Email: [email protected]