by Amanda Phillips

Created on: August 06, 2007

Upon walking into my special education class in the Bronx, NY, one might not think that there is any hope of finding a gifted child among these twelve students. Though they are in second grade, most of them cannot read beyond an early first grade level, and some of them do not know all of the letters of the alphabet. Most of them have speech and language impairments, and, upon first glance, none of them are particularly academic. First impressions, however, are often incorrect, and my own certainly were as I got to know my class.

Simply having a learning disability doesn't mean that a child cannot be gifted. One of the children in my class, Billy, was an extremely slow learner. He was in his second year of second grade, and he still struggled with reading words like "cat" and "the." What was amazing about him, however, was his visual memory and artistic skills. He could draw better than most adults I know, and his artwork was recognized around the school. Though he struggled to read, he was truly a gifted artist.

In addition, there was another child in my class who, I discovered, was gifted academically. Though he battled his severe ADHD, he proved to be the best reader in my class. Once his mother got him the treatment he needed-medication and therapy-he was able to focus on reading lessons. He rose from reading on a first grade level to reading on a third grade level in a few months. He also asked interesting questions and thirsted for more knowledge. Upon first glance, it may have seemed that this child couldn't learn, however he is quite intelligent and was one of my highest achieving students.

I will not argue that all learning-disabled children are gifted, however, being learning-disabled does not exclude a person from having a high IQ, amazing creative abilities, or other talents. If we can expand our notion of what it means to be gifted, and also give our children the tools to break free of their academic struggles, we might notice just how gifted some of our learning-disabled children are.

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