Creative Out-of-School Activities in Intellectually Gifted Adolescents as Predictors of Their Life Accomplishment in Young Adults: A Longitudinal Study

Career interests and abilities were examined in 130 young adults who, as adolescents, had received exceptionally high scores (top 5% of the entire country) on the test of general intelligence developed by the Israel Defense Force and used each year for selection and placement of recruits. The interests and abilities of the majority of the intellectually gifted research participants were found to be focused and not the opposite, as has been widely assumed among educators of the gifted. In 45% of the research participants, we found a strong relation between the focus of adolescents' out-of-school activities and the field of their adult vocation. Moreover, participants whose adolescent out-of-school activities matched their adult occupation had a higher level of work accomplishment than participants for whom such a match was absent. Our findings indicate that measures of out-of-school activities may provide an appropriate tool for counselors to use in career counseling with adolescents. Finally, young adults who were recognized as intellectually gifted in their adolescence perceived their family climate very positively. They described their families us highly cohesive and said that family members helped and supported one another.