🧩 Common Language: A Shared Vocabulary for Complex Learners
Spiral We | Barry B. Gelston, Ed.D. & Dr. Karen Arnstein
© SpiralWe 2025. All rights reserved.
This series introduces key terms used across the Spiral We ecosystem to promote shared understanding of giftedness, neurodiversity, adaptive development, and educational practice.
Each article offers a concise, 500-word exploration of one core concept—bridging research, practice, and lived experience.
🔬 Giftedness & Talent Development
Giftedness refers to exceptional intellectual, creative, or developmental abilities that emerge early and often unevenly.
It includes far more than a high IQ.
Giftedness reflects a complex interaction of:
Potential
Motivation
Opportunity
Expression
(NAGC, 2019)
Definitions vary across cultures and disciplines.
Too often, giftedness is reduced to test scores—ignoring:
Cultural bias
Economic disparity
Developmental asynchrony
(Ford, 2010; Worrell et al., 2021)
In Spiral We, we see giftedness not as a label—but as a clue to deeper complexity.
It may coexist with other exceptionalities, and often masks or amplifies them.
In the Spiral Adaptation Lens, giftedness is often the first “signal” in a learner’s developmental profile—one that may hide critical needs beneath surface competence.
A trait-informed, strengths-based approach allows us to support the whole person.
Because giftedness isn’t the end of the story—
It’s a developmental variable calling for nuanced, responsive care.
Related Terms: 2e, Asynchronous Development, Appearance of Competence, Adaptive Connection, Internal vs External Competence
♊ Twice-Exceptional (2e)
2e learners demonstrate both:
Advanced abilities
One or more learning differences, disabilities, or developmental conditions
(Baum, Renzulli, & Hébert, 1995)
These coexisting traits often mask or distort each other.
A student might:
Read slowly (dyslexia)
But reason abstractly at a high level (giftedness)
In such cases, schools may miss both traits entirely.
Spiral We reframes 2e not as a contradiction, but as developmental reality.
Our lens focuses on:
Trait interaction
Shifting profiles
Adaptive connection
We use tools like the Skills-Age Quadrant and Trait Profiles to map complexity.
Recognizing 2e identities supports both challenge and care—fostering resilience and identity integration.
Related Terms: Giftedness, Masking, Appearance of Competence, Trait Clustering, Strength-Based Approach
📉 Asynchronous Development
Asynchronous development is the uneven pace of cognitive, emotional, social, and physical growth.
A hallmark of gifted and 2e learners:
A child may write at a collegiate level—
Yet melt down like a toddler under stress.
(Silverman, 1993)
Traditional supports often miss both the high and the low.
In Spiral We, asynchrony is a signal of unfolding complexity, not a flaw.
The Skills-Age Quadrant helps visualize misalignments—so we can plan for both:
Growth edges
Support gaps
Asynchrony invites us to move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches—toward developmentally responsive, compassionate care.
Related Terms: Developmentally Appropriate Practice, Skills-Age Quadrant, Giftedness, Self-Regulation, Recursive Development
⚡ Dabrowski’s Overexcitabilities
Dabrowski identified five intensities often seen in gifted learners:
Psychomotor
Sensual
Emotional
Intellectual
Imaginational
(Dabrowski, 1964)
These are not symptoms—they’re signals.
Emotional intensity, for example, may be mislabeled as “drama” but reflect:
Deep empathy
Moral sensitivity
Existential awareness
Spiral We validates these intensities.
They’re not distractions from learning—
They are learning.
We create environments that welcome intensity, not suppress it.
Related Terms: Positive Disintegration, Sensory Processing, Internal vs External Competence, Self-Regulation
🌪️ Positive Disintegration
Dabrowski’s theory proposes that inner conflict, emotional upheaval, or breakdown can lead to higher levels of development.
Growth often doesn’t look linear.
It looks like disintegration.
(Dabrowski, 1964)
In Spiral We, this aligns with recursive development.
Perfectionism, self-doubt, anxiety—these may not be failures.
They may be signs of transformation.
Supporting a learner in disintegration means:
Holding space
Honoring discomfort
Trusting the spiral
Related Terms: Overexcitabilities, Recursive Development, Adaptive Connection, Masking, Internal vs External Competence
🎭 Masking
Masking refers to behaviors that hide or compensate for struggles—often in order to fit in.
It’s common among autistic, ADHD, and gifted learners.
Masking may be:
Social (mimicking peers)
Academic (hiding effort)
Emotional (suppressing distress)
While masking may help learners pass or survive,
it often leads to:
Burnout
Anxiety
Misidentification
In Spiral We, we look for subtle signals of masking:
Post-school fatigue, selective mutism, internalized shame.
Our goal is to create environments where learners feel safe enough to unmask and belong.
Related Terms: Appearance of Competence, 2e, Internal vs External Competence, Adaptive Connection
📚 References
Baum, S. M., Renzulli, J. S., & Hébert, T. P. (1995). The prism metaphor. NRCGT.
Dabrowski, K. (1964). Positive disintegration. Boston: Little, Brown.
Ford, D. Y. (2010). Reversing underachievement among gifted Black students. Prufrock Press.
Gelston, B. B., & Arnstein, K. (2024). The Spiral Adaptation Lens. Spiral We Publications.
National Association for Gifted Children (2019). Definition of Giftedness
Silverman, L. K. (1993). Counseling the gifted and talented. Love Publishing.
Worrell, F. C., Subotnik, R. F., Olszewski-Kubilius, P., & Dixson, D. D. (2021). Gifted students’ potential and underserved populations: A call to action. Gifted Child Quarterly, 65(2), 95–106.