• Introduction

The purpose of the special education is that make students developing their greatest potentiality and to accept suitable placement. It’s no matter the gifted education and disabled education. All the time, the act of special education is divided into gifted education and disabled education in Taiwan. It seems that black-and-white and clear between gifted education and disabled education, does not overlap at all. But in fact, there are more and more gifted people with disabilities. For example, musician Beethoven, inventive king Edison and Taiwanese painter Dr. Huang who has cerebral palsy. It reveals that there have obvious evidences that gifted and disability is coexisting. However, no matter in Taiwan or in other countries, they begin paying attention to the education gifted with disability students in recent a decade (Lu, 1995). According to the Taiwanese report of the National Science Council, gifted with hearing impairments student has the highest rate (almost 40%) in all gifted with disability students in Taiwan (Wu, 1999). But most gifted with disability students are placed in regular class, and they don’t have opportunity to enjoy the resources of gifted education. So I try to discuss the educational problem of gifted with hearing impairments students, summing up their characters and learning needs in regular. As a result, hope teachers will know how to help gifted with hearing impairments students learning in regular school.

• The definition of gifted with hearing impairments

Many foreign scholars call gifted with disabled for “twice-exceptional” or “dual exceptional” while discussing the characters of gifted with disability students, and they think these names can avoid the influence of their disabled characters. There are a lot of names for gifted with disability in Taiwan, for example, gifted-disabled, disabled-gifted, the handicap of gifted, and the act of special education calls it for gifted students with physically and mentally disabilities. According to above, if one appears to have excellent characters with disability, we can call him/her for gifted with disability. The “gifted with hearing impairments” means that one has gifted characters and hearing disability at the same time.
The “gifted” as appeared in the act of special education refer to R.O.C citizens possessing one or more of the following traits or substantial potential for developing the following traits: General intelligence, Scholastic aptitude, Artistic talent, Creativity, Leadership and Other special talents.

• The characters of gifted with hearing impairments students

  Whitemore and Maker said that dual exceptional people have the positive characters and negative characters, and induced the characters of gifted with hearing impairments students in their case studies as follow (Huang, 2002):

• has the strong support of his/her family
• the hearing impairments is accepted and admitted by he himself and his family/she herself and her family
• his/her family usually has the higher socioeconomic class
• has self-confident and the strong achievement motivation
• has the excellent abilities of reasoning and problem-solving

 
Yewchuk and Lupart (1993) synthesized the U.S. related research and thought that the positive characters of gifted with hearing students are cancelled out by their negative characters (ex: his interpersonal relationship is bad because of his shyness, he is shy because of his hearing disability). It’s nearly 90% gifted with hearing impairments to do so in fact.
In Taiwanese related research, it reported the characters of gifted with hearing impairments students as follow:

• they can accept their disability
• have high intrinsic motivation
• have introverted personality traits
• trend internal thinking  

 
In general, most gifted with hearing impairments students are placed in regular class in Taiwan, it’s so rare to attend program of gifted education. The one of all reasons may be that it’s disadvantageous for students with impairments whom ability of speech is limited in the IQ test of gifted identification. However, it’s true that most gifted with hearing impairments students are placed in regular class without enjoying the resources of gifted education in Taiwan. Next I will take the characters of gifted with hearing impairments as the core, discuss the factors that influence gifted with hearing impairments students learning, and suggest that teachers how to help they learning in regular class.

• The factors of gifted with hearing impairments students learning

  According to the coordination of famous people with hearing impairments why can get success from Huang (1987) and Chang (1999), we can know that the factors of influencing gifted with hearing impairments students learning should include as follow:

• psychological characters
• family
• teachers
• the acceptable degree of others
• whether or not overcome the handicap of communicating with others

  Next will take the school and the family of gifted with impairments students as the core, induce the factors that can help they learning in regular class.

• The school

It’s much important for student with hearing impairments learning in school.
If teachers can accord to the characters of gifted with hearing impairments students to devise courses, it’ll produce much benefit for students learning in school. Wu (2004) in his reports mentioned many factors to help gifted with hearing impairments students learning in school as follow:

• keep good relationships/interaction with his/her teachers and classmates
• his/her disability is accepted by teachers, classmates
• The staff support special education in school
• barrier-free environment
• the ways of seeking advice are flow without obstruction

     
According to above, we can know that “teacher” is the most effective factor that has very important impact on the learning of gifted with hearing impairments students. For this reason, teachers must understand the physical environment (the position of class in school; have noise or no), physiological state (physiological limitations and hearing aid) and psychological characters (his/her feel about the acceptance of others) of gifted with hearing impairments students. If teachers can understand every advantageous factor in deeply and then to change their teaching for gifted with hearing impairments students, it’ll have much benefit for students learning in regular class.

• The family

For all children, family is the earliest place to learn. So it goes without saying that family is important and has many functions. Wu (2001) suggested some factors are advantageous for gifted with hearing impairments students in family as follow:

• his/her is accepted by parent
• his/her kith and kin like and support he/she much
• his/her parent have high willing to participate in all activities in school
• his/her parent pay much attention to social welfare and policy correlated with their child
• his/her parent would like to take their child out to learn

• Conclusion

  To discuss how to help gifted with hearing impairments students from his/her school and family, we can know that the education of teachers and of parent are main important key for gifted with hearing impairment students get success. There are more and more gifted with hearing impairments students are placed in regular class, teacher should understand the characters of gifted with hearing impairments students. As a result, teachers will find out the excellent characters of gifted with hearing impairments students and devise suitable courses/programs for they learn.
Because the act of special education in Taiwan can ensure the learning rights of disabled students and gifted students, there is more and more attention to disadvantaged students. However, they still use the cultural view of the mainstream to design tools that can identify the qualification of gifted. By this way, these identifiable tools are not fair and there will have a lot of disadvantaged students who have excellent potency but are ignored. And they will be placed in disadvantageous placement. Therefore, it’s necessary to study how to interfere and find out gifted with disadvantaged students in early, and increase opportunities for they enjoy the resources of gifted education. To make more special students acquiring suitable placement is the final goal of the special education.
References      
1. English reference
Yewchuk, C.＆ Lupark, J. (1993). Gifted handicapped: A desultory duality .In K.A. Heller, F. J. Monks, & A .H. Passow (Eds.). International handbook of research and developmen o giednesand talent. Oxford, New York：Pergamon Press.

2. Chinese references

Chang, S. P. (1999). Discussing the factors of excellent people with hearing impairments get success. Gifted Education Quarterly, 73, 20-28.
Huang, W. H. (2002). Discussing the characters of dual exceptional (2E) students. Gifted Education Quarterly, 83, 10-20.
Huang, R. C. (1987). The gifted students with hearing impairments. Gifted Education Quarterly. 22, 16-19.
Lu, T. H. (1995). The study of developing characters in the gifted handicapped. Bulletin of Special Education, 7, 203-219.
Wu, K. S. (1999). A study of educational status and issues in the gifted handicapped. Bulletin of Special Education and Rehabilitation, 7, 1-32.
Wu, K. S. (2001). Family-centered Ecological System of the Gifted with Disabilities. Journal of Gifted Education, 1, 85-110.
Wu, K. S. (2004). Family-centered Ecological System of the Gifted with Disabilities. Bulletin of Special Education and Rehabilitation, 12, 81-97.