npr:

Educators refer to teens like Alex as “twice exceptional.”

“I have a large degree of skill in almost every subject of learning,” says Alex, who is 16. “But I also have autistic spectrum disorder.”

For Alex, this dual identity has meant both opportunity and frustration.

He has skipped two grades so far, and began taking college math courses last year, when he was still 15. But when he was younger, Alex’s underdeveloped social skills caused him a lot of grief.

“I was constantly getting into fights and normally losing them,” he says.

At the end of each school year, Alex didn’t know what to do. “I was always that one kid who was unhappy whenever summer vacation came around,” he says.

That changed when Alex’s parents learned about the the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa’s College of Education.

Belin-Blank’s mission is to identify and nurture young people who excel at math and science and the arts. And they have made a point of reaching out to, and accommodating, twice-exceptional kids.

Gifted Students With Autism Find An Intellectual Oasis In Iowa

Illustration: Jeremy Leung for NPR