Services and programs for academically talented students with learning disabilities

Conclusion

Gifted students with LD are a unique population of young people who are at special risk academically and for social and emotional issues due to the potential incompatibility of extraordinary talent with significant learning problems. These issues can result in unresolved social and emotional problems and serve to diminish the full development of talent in gifted students, resulting in the underachievement of many talented young people. The review of research in this article suggests that a movement has occurred in the field of gifted education toward providing gifted students with LD with services that are flexible, comprehensive, focused on the development of students' gifts and talents, and based on authentic approaches to instruction. Some work has had a positive impact for many talented young people with LD, yet many others remain underserved and misunderstood (Baum, 2004). More research is needed on how educators can provide appropriate levels of service and support for this population. A carefully articulated research agenda for this area would include intervention studies focusing on the use of various interventions on the identification of and programming for gifted and talented students with LD at several stages of school, from elementary through postsecondary. Another type of study could collect information on areas such as depression and other social and emotional issues experienced by a large sample of gifted and talented students with LD in secondary school and college. Of course, it would also be fascinating to study the outcomes of educational efforts to involve these students in high quality interventions that would address the continuum of services described in this article, and we believe that depression and social and emotional problems would be less prevalent in a population of students who had participated in these services.