Dr Michelle Ronksley-Pavia (GIER) and Dr Janis Hanley recently received the Best Paper Presentation Award from the Conference Scientific Committee for their conference presentation at the 17th Asia Pacific Conference on Giftedness (APCG) in Taipei.
Entitled ‘Strength-Based Approaches for Supporting Twice-Exceptional Learners: A Systematic Literature Review’, the prestigious award was issued by the Director-General, Mister Fu-Yuan Peng, K-12 Education Administration, Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan).
The APCG Conference Scientific Committee said of the paper that:
“After thorough review and discussions, all scientific committee members agree that the short paper reached the high standard of qualification for this Award.”
Dr Ronksley-Pavia said the award is:
“a significant honour, a great achievement, and recognition for our research work in the area of twice-exceptionality (gifted children with co-existing disability).”
Dr Ronksley-Pavia hopes the award will help to further promote the visibility of research in this field, and also promote much-needed societal recognition of twice-exceptional learners.
Dr Ronksley-Pavia said of the findings from the project that:
“The preliminary results from the project demonstrate that strength-based approaches for supporting twice-exceptional students (students with giftedness and disability), encompass an iterative cycle of nurturing students’ giftedness, inside and outside the classroom, to enable talent development.”
Other findings include the need for a better conceptualisation and understanding of what is meant by strength-based approaches and what these might look like in educational practice for twice-exceptional learners.
The project also found that existent research could potentially be improved through an explicit focus on engagement aspects of talent development for twice-exceptional students, particularly through four engagement dimensions: Behavioural (e.g., presence and participation); Affective (attitude and interest); Social (sense of belonging and involvement), and Cognitive (self-regulation and goal setting). This will form the next phase of the project.
This recognition increases visibility of Dr Ronksley-Pavia’s research, to continue to measure impact and provides international recognition of her leadership in the field, rewarding, recognising and encouraging excellence.
