Twice-exceptional (2e) learners carry both significant intellectual gifts and learning, attentional, or developmental differences that interact in ways that can mask each — the gifted student whose ADHD prevents them from demonstrating what they know, the highly verbal autistic student whose social challenges lead to underestimation of their capacities. This population is consistently underserved because educational systems are designed around single dimensions of performance. Serving twice-exceptional learners well requires holding both the gift and the challenge simultaneously, which demands greater sophistication than serving either alone.
Each step builds on the last.