Bibliotherapy as a Tool to Meet the Social and Emotional Needs of Twice-Exceptional Students: A Guide for Teachers

Abstract In this article, we present an innovative programming and instructional practice to foster the social-emotional competence of twice-exceptional students — those who are gifted and have a learning disability. We review the benefits of bibliotherapy, provide an overview of the structure of a developmental bibliotherapy intervention, and identify potential barriers to implementation before providing a guide for teachers. Gifted students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be supported to develop social-emotional wellbeing and competence through developmental bibliotherapy. Due to a gap in the research with this particular population of students, we focused on reviewing research that explored the use of bibliotherapy with gifted students specifically and the wider student population generally. This instructional practice can be utilised by counsellors, teachers, and gifted and talented coordinators to meet the unique needs of this student population in Australian primary schools. A reflection on the implementation of this guide for gifted students is shared from a practitioner’s perspective to conclude the article.