Vulnerabilities of Academically Gifted Students

Abstract

It is often assumed that gifted students enjoy relatively good social and emotional adjustment, vibrant mental health, and overall well being. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and a significant number of gifted students experience painful, troubling and often debilitating psychological problems. Gifted children and youth possess a set of personality characteristics that make them uniquely vulnerable. School personnel and parents need to be cognizant of these risk factors so that they can provide coordinated and comprehensive educational and social opportunities to foster resilience and, when needed, provide preventive and therapeutic mental health interventions for those gifted students with actual psychological problems.     

Perceptions de la douance chez les élèves doués dans un centre de services scolaires québécois

This study aims to explore the perceptions of giftedness among 24 gifted students aged 6 to 11 from a Quebec School Board. Subject to an exploratory lexical analysis (using ALCESTE software) and a thematic analysis (using NVivo software), the results highlight the inherent plurality of perceptions of giftedness within a group of gifted students. In addition, the intellectual and socioaffective dimensions are at the heart of how these students perceive their status as gifted children/students. Questioning the perceptions of giftedness with this population allows us to consider the reality of these young people in all its diversity but also highlights their particular needs.     

Identifying Gifted and Talented Students

ABSTRACT

This article offers a set of recommended best practices in the identification of students who are gifted and talented. The article recommends that school psychologists gain familiarity with gifted children and their families, recognize the multiple manifestations of giftedness and the developmental nature of talent development, link identification to intervention, employ multiple assessment measures, include the assessment of motivation, consider social and emotional needs, and monitor the recommended interventions. The article also reviews recurring issues that adversely impact upon the provision of gifted services in the public schools. These issues include society not viewing the gifted as a high-priority special needs group, definitions of giftedness that vary across states, differing expert opinions on what giftedness represents, uncertainty about prevalence rates, under-representation of certain groups of gifted students, the role of creativity, and whether gifted education should be a part of special education.     

The Flynn effect puzzle: A 30-year examination from the right tail of the ability distribution provides some missing pieces

The Flynn effect is the rise in IQ scores across the last eighty or more years documented in the general distribution of both industrialized and developing nations primarily on tests that require problem solving and non-verbal reasoning. However, whether the effect extends to the right tail (i.e., the top 5% of ability) remains unknown. The present study uses roughly 1.7 million scores of 7th-grade students on the SAT and ACT as well as scores of 5th- and 6th-grade students on the EXPLORE from 1981 to 2010 to investigate whether the effect operates in the right tail. The effect was found in the top 5% at a rate similar to the general distribution, providing evidence for the first time that the entire curve is likely increasing at a constant rate. The effect was also found for females as well as males, appears to still be continuing, is primarily concentrated on the mathematics subtests of the SAT, ACT, and EXPLORE, and operates similarly for both 5th and 6th as well as 7th graders in the right tail. These findings help clarify the nature of the effect and may suggest ways that potential causes can now be more meaningfully offered and evaluated.     

Parental perceptions of mathematical talent

Parents often become frustrated when their perception of their child’s talent in mathematics differs from that held by the school. Yet for the young child, research suggests parents have a much deeper insight into the interests and talents of their child. Failure to recognize talent can result in lost opportunities for the child as well as a loss to society. This article evaluates the development of an instrument designed to assess parent perceptions of mathematical talent. Parental perceptions and family demographics were collected for third grade students participating in Project M³: Mentoring Mathematical Minds, a research program conducted collaboratively by the University of Connecticut, Northern Kentucky University and Boston University, and for second grade students under consideration for the program. The data were correlated with other identification tools used for the identification of talented second graders for Project M³ to explore a research-based means of parent identification of mathematical talent.

La sociabilité et l’attrait pour la solitude des adultes à haut potentiel intellectuel (HPI)

There is evidence that gifted children tend to score above average on most measures of social adjustment (Zettergren & Bergman, 2014) of which sociability is a part. They are also considered more independent and autonomous (French et al., 2011). However, few data are available for adults. The goal of this study was therefore to assess the levels of gifted adults’ autonomy and desire for solitude, as well as their levels of sociotropy, defined as the motivation to engage in positive interchange with others. An experimental group of 106 gifted adults [55 women; m_age = 37.45 (± 8.50) years; m_IQ = 139.90 (± 6.46)] and as many control adults [52 women; m_age = 35.88 (± 10.57) years] completed the Sociotropy and Autonomy Scale (Beck, Epstein, Harrison, & Emery, 1983). Results showed that gifted adults score higher on the Sociotropy scale, suggesting that they are more sociable. They would have a greater social sensitivity including a lesser need for social affiliation, a superior fear of criticism and rejection and a greater desire to please others. Compared to the control group, gifted adults depicted themselves as being more autonomous and goal oriented. They also reported a greater need for solitude, associated with a greater appreciation of their freedom of action and movement. This study was the first to investigate both sociability and desire for solitude in gifted adults. It suggests that gifted adults are highly motivated to engage in positive interactions with others, although they do not express the same needs as their peers regarding the frequency, quantity and quality of these interactions.     

A mechanism of implicit lexicalized phonological recoding used concurrently with underdeveloped explicit letter-sound skills in both precocious and normal reading development

These are findings of theoretical interest from: (i) follow-up of a case study of a precocious reader; and (ii) normally developing readers who served as comparison groups. The precocious reader was first reported when 2–3 years of age (Cognition 74 (2000) 177). From 3 to 7 years of age her precocious reading development continued, her word reading accuracy increasing from the 8- to the 16-year-level, although her phonemic awareness skills remained underdeveloped relative to word reading. Nonword reading continued to develop rapidly. Her word reading, however, was more than phonological recoding. At 5 years of age, in comparison with reading-level matched normal 11-year-olds she exhibited strong effects of semantic characteristics of words and evidence of well-specified lexical orthographic representations. In common with normal comparison 11-year-olds, who had not received instruction in explicit phonics, her explicit letter-sound skills were underdeveloped but she possessed high speed and accuracy in nonword reading, a result most theories of the acquisition of reading fail to explain. Her responses to irregularly spelt nonwords indicated higher proficiency than the 11-year-olds in acquiring lexical orthographic representations not predictable from prior phonological recoding knowledge. It is considered that this proficiency contributes to an explanation of her precocious reading development. A mechanism of implicit lexicalized phonological recoding is involved which explains the dissociation of skills in both the precocious reader and normally developing readers.     

Paradigms in the study of creativity: Introducing the perspective of cultural psychology

This article identifies three paradigms in creativity theory and research in psychology. The He-paradigm, focused on the solitary genius, has been followed, mainly after the 1950s, by the I-paradigm, equally individualistic in nature but attributing creativity to each and every individual. Extending this view, the We-paradigm incorporates what became known as the social psychology of creativity. The cultural psychology of creativity builds upon this last theoretical approach while being critical of some of its assumptions. This relatively new perspective, using the conceptual and methodological framework of cultural psychology, investigates the sociocultural roots and dynamics of all our creative acts and employs a tetradic framework of self - community - new artifact - existing artifacts in its conceptualization of creativity. The theoretical basis of the cultural psychology approach is analyzed as well as some of its main implications for both the understanding and study of creativity.     

Valoración de un programa de habilidades interpersonales en niños superdotados

Certain research studies report that a number of gifted children show social adaptation issues, as well as problems with social and interpersonal skills, while others consider that this does not occur. In this regard, Neihart, Reis, Robinson and Moon (2002) speaks of a resilience approach versus a risk approach. From the risk viewpoint, this paper presents the benefits of applying training programs in interpersonal skills as to prevent potential problems in gifted children. For this reason, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of a training program for solving interpersonal problems in this population. Participants include 40 gifted children aged 7 to 13, divided into a treatment group and a control – waitlisted – group. Program application results show significant differences in direct assessment measurements in the treatment group. An increase in effect sizes between the treatment group and the control group is also detected, in favor of the former, and a relationship between the children's learning potential and the benefits obtained is also confirmed. In short, the training program proves effective in interpersonal problem-solving skill improvement in children with high intellectual capacity.