2/18/2023 0 Comments Gifted studentTeachers, who play an integral role in hundreds or even thousands of children’s lives over the course of their careers, often provide critical insight not only with helping to identify gifted children, but in sharing strategies that enhance their development both academically and social-emotionally. Foremost, most parents don’t expect to have a gifted child - with only a one in 50 chance of being blessed with this, parents often require support in helping them to modify how they engage with their child and also to learn more about what it means to be gifted beyond the stereotypes of fact and award collecting. It’s a tough combination that often makes gifted children feel ostracized and their parents frustrated.įor these reasons, raising a gifted child really does take a team, most often between the parents, the school, and some outside resources. Again, the notion of asynchronous development means that we are dealing with young adults trapped inside the biological body of a child. So many times, gifted children are frustrated, often to the point of emotional meltdown, due to either feeling unheard or not understanding why the rules either apply to them or are even “fair” in the first place. These are the many types of questions faced by parents and teachers of the gifted and they deserve to be answered. “Why am I defined by grades instead of my effort and creativity?” “Why should I have to do this assignment if I already know the material?” “Why should I have to do math homework if I want to be a dancer?” Issues such as perfectionism, struggles with authority, difficulty maintaining relationships with same-age peers, and struggles with motivation are often fueled by feelings of misunderstanding, boredom from rote or previously mastered curriculum, and frustration with a lack of context or application to the child’s own goals, passions, and interests. The social-emotional aspect of giftedness often equals or exceeds the intellectual factors, especially in younger children. The more gifted the child, the greater the asynchrony. These cognitive and social-emotional factors result in what is called asynchronous development, meaning that the child’s mental age exceeds his or her physical age. Parents and teachers often become aware of a child’s potential giftedness through an elevated use of verbal language, high vocabulary, faster processing speed, emotional sensitivity, and/or a high sense of personal justice. However, while this may be the most common quantitative benchmark used for identification, there are many other factors that come into play, including: creativity, grit, leadership, or specific talent in the arts or music. In general, 2% of the population are considered gifted, most often measured by a score of 130 or above on a personal intelligence test, such as the WISC-V or Stanford Binet.
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