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Dual Exceptional Learners

Brilliance That Breaks the Mold

What Does Dual Exceptional Mean?

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Dual or Multiple Exceptionality (DME) describes young people who have both:

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✓ High Learning Potential (HLP) - advanced cognitive abilities, creativity, or talent in specific areas

✓ Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) - such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, or PDA

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These learners are intellectually curious, academically capable, and often passionate about specific subjects - while also facing challenges that make traditional schooling difficult or impossible.

Research shows that DME learners are a "distinct minority within a minority" - often overlooked by education systems that assume children are either gifted or disabled, but rarely both.¹

Why Dual Exceptional Learners Are Unique

DME learners don't fit neat categories. Their profiles are complex, spiky, and wonderfully individual.

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They might:

  • Solve complex physics problems but struggle to organize their pencil case

  • Write brilliant creative stories but find handwriting physically painful

  • Have exceptional visual-spatial reasoning but struggle with social communication

  • Hyperfocus on astrophysics for hours but melt down over unexpected changes to routine

  • Ask PhD-level questions in science class but refuse to complete "boring" homework

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This asynchronous development means their exceptional abilities can mask their difficulties - or their difficulties can hide their exceptional abilities. Either way, they're frequently misunderstood, under-supported, and exhausted by trying to fit systems that weren't designed for them.

The Challenges They Face

Research into DME learners reveals a troubling picture:

 

Schools often don't know how to identify or support them

  • 72% of parents reported that educational institutions were "not so knowledgeable" or "not knowledgeable at all" when identifying their child's learning needs

  • 74% of parents said resources and services available within educational settings were not adequate to support their child's learning needs

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They're frequently overlooked

  • High abilities can mask difficulties, leading to assumptions that they're "fine" academically

  • Challenges can overshadow strengths, resulting in deficit-focused support that ignores exceptional abilities

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The impact on wellbeing is significant

  • Many DME learners disengage from learning, suffer mental health issues, and experience school refusal or exclusion

  • Parents report emotional exhaustion and financial burden from accessing private assessments and alternative education

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Traditional support doesn't work

  • Teachers find it difficult to accommodate strengths alongside challenges, leading to deficit-focused teaching inappropriate for exceptional abilities

  • Many professionals reported that training in special educational needs does not equip them to support DME learners effectively

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Approximately 10% of parents surveyed in DME research had resorted to home education - often out of desperation rather than choice.²

Reasons to Celebrate

But here's what often gets lost in deficit-focused narratives:

DME learners are extraordinary thinkers.

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They bring:

  • Intense curiosity - questioning everything, diving deep into subjects they love

  • Creative problem-solving - approaching challenges from unexpected angles

  • Passion and drive - when engaged, their focus and determination are remarkable

  • Original thinking - seeing connections others miss

  • Hyperfocus abilities - capable of extraordinary concentration on topics they care about

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These aren't children who need "fixing." They're children who need education systems that celebrate their strengths while supporting their challenges - not the other way around.

Future Pioneers

History is full of dual exceptional minds:

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Albert Einstein (autism, dyslexia), Bill Gates (Dyslexia & ADHD), Emma Watson (ADHD), Simone Biles (ADHD), Greta Thunberg (autism, ADHD) - all exceptional thinkers who changed the world precisely because their minds worked differently.

 

DME learners are tomorrow's innovators, inventors, and pioneers. They're the engineers who'll solve climate change, the scientists who'll cure diseases, the artists who'll reshape culture, the technologists who'll build the future.

But only if we give them the education they need now - one that fits their complex, brilliant minds.

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How Clearspace Supports Dual Exceptional Learners

We get it. Because we've been doing this for 25+ years.

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Clearspace was designed for learners like yours - bright, curious, neurodivergent young people who need education that works with their minds, not against them.

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Our approach:

 

✓ Strengths-Based Learning

We start with what you're brilliant at, not what you struggle with. Your passions and abilities are the launchpad for everything we do.

Research is clear: focusing on difficulties to the exclusion of strengths reinforces negative feelings and damages self-image, directly impacting academic, social, and emotional progress.³

We do the opposite. We celebrate your exceptional abilities while gently supporting areas of challenge.

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✓ Relationship-First Teaching

80% of educators reported that teachers were supportive of DME learners when they understood their needs - but that understanding requires time, trust, and relationship.

We work 1:1 or in tiny groups (maximum 4 students), building genuine relationships where you feel seen, heard, and valued. No rushing. No pressure. Just space to be yourself.

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✓ Hands-On STEM Learning

DME learners often thrive when they can do rather than just listen. Our project-based, hands-on approach lets you learn through making, designing, building, and problem-solving - engaging your exceptional abilities while accommodating your support needs.

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✓ Flexible, Individualized Support

Your needs change day to day. So does our approach. We adapt in real-time - pace, structure, sensory environment, level of challenge - whatever you need to thrive that day.

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✓ Trauma-Informed, Neurodiversity-Affirming

Many DME learners arrive at Clearspace burned out from years of trying to fit systems that rejected them. We understand educational trauma. Our approach is gentle, validating, and focused on rebuilding confidence and self-worth.

What Success Looks Like

When DME learners find education that fits them, the transformation is remarkable:

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  • Disengaged learners rediscover passion for learning

  • Anxious students find confidence and calm

  • "Impossible" behaviors disappear when demands are lowered and autonomy is restored

  • Exceptional abilities that were hidden or suppressed finally get to shine​

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One parent told us: "It could have been a dreadful transition had we not been in a position to pay for the support. I wish all kids were that lucky."

Another said: "They've been the ones identifying and helping us on the road to diagnosis and how to approach schools and other professionals in supporting our child."

We believe every dual exceptional learner deserves this kind of support - not just those whose parents can pay for it privately.

The Research Behind Our Approach

Our work is informed by leading research into dual and multiple exceptionality, including:

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  • The DME Trust - a partnership between nasen and Potential Plus UK dedicated to improving understanding and support for DME learners

  • The School Handbook for Dual and Multiple Exceptionality (Yates & Boddison, 2020) - the definitive UK guide to supporting DME learners in education

  • Department for Education guidance on preventing underachievement in exceptionally able pupils with SEND

 

Key research findings that shape our work:

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A national training programme for teachers, educational psychologists, and other stakeholders is needed to improve DME identification and provision

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Professional development should be provided for all levels of staff in education to empower educators and address disengagement from learning

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Mental health and therapeutic professionals need awareness of how conventional assistance fails DME learners

Awareness and understanding about DME should be raised significantly within education systems and wider support services

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Until systemic change happens, Clearspace exists to fill the gap - providing specialist, evidence-based support that DME learners desperately need.

Is Your Child Dual Exceptional?

If your child is:

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  • Intellectually curious and academically capable in specific areas

  • Struggling in traditional school settings despite (or because of) their abilities

  • Neurodivergent (diagnosed or suspected)

  • Passionate about STEM subjects, making, or creative problem-solving

  • Experiencing school burnout, anxiety, or educational trauma

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...then Clearspace might be exactly what they need.

References

¹ Potential Plus UK (2018). Dual or Multiple Exceptionality (DME)
² Bonsall, A. & Desmond, B. (2022). The Current State of Provision for Learners with DME. DME Trust/nasen/Potential Plus UK
³ Yates, D. & Boddison, A. (2020). The School Handbook for Dual and Multiple Exceptionality. Routledge

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