Intellectual Giftedness

11 Key excerpts on "Intellectual Giftedness"

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  21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook

  • Stephen F. Davis, William Buskist, Stephen F. Davis, William F. Buskist(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Only three of these refer to skills that would likely be assessed by intelligence tests. The field of gifted-ness has largely concerned itself with intellectual gifted-ness. Why the particular interest in Intellectual Giftedness? A major reason is likely because this is the pool from which come scientists, inventors, academicians, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, politicians, and business leaders. A secondary reason may be because there is the possibil-ity of measuring Intellectual Giftedness in a standardized way and at a relatively early age. The emphasis on giftedness as being a characteristic of the intellect is also shown by the frequent use of the alterna-tive label “talented” when referring to those who are gifted in such areas as art, music, or other special skills. Although making some occasional reference to other areas, this chapter will focus upon the findings and issues associated with Intellectual Giftedness, found in the children who in everyday language are often referred to as “smart.” DEFINITION What is giftedness? One thing that experts in the field of gifted education agree on is that there is no universally accepted definition. This is true both for educators and for those involved in describing legally what is met by the term “gifted.” Congressional reports or educational acts have provided several definitions of gifted, and these have Giftedness • 57 then often been used later by states. Karnes and Marquardt (000) report on these definitions and further state, “All of the definitions note that gifted children need educational programs and/or services beyond the ordinary school cur-riculum” (p. 4). It is generally the case that gifted and tal-ented students are described as those who have capability and who have demonstrated high achievement in multiple areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields.

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  Introduction to Educational Psychology, An

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • The English Press

    (Publisher)

  ________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ________________________ Chapter-5 Intellectual Giftedness Intellectual Giftedness is an intellectual ability significantly higher than average. It is different from a skill, in that skills are learned or acquired behaviors. Like a talent, Intellectual Giftedness is usually believed to be an innate, personal aptitude for intellectual activities that cannot be acquired through personal effort. Various ideas about the definition, development, and best ways of identifying Intellectual Giftedness have been put forward. Intellectual Giftedness may be general or specific. For example, an intellectually gifted person may have a striking talent for mathematics, but not have equally strong language skills. Intellectual Giftedness is not the only form of talent. Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences proposes several kinds of non-intellectual intelligences, such as bodily-kinesthetic intelligence and interpersonal intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a broad term for one type of non-intellectual intelligence. When combined with an adequately challenging curriculum and the diligence necessary to acquire and execute many learned skills, Intellectual Giftedness often produces academic success. There is also artistic or creative giftedness, which may or may not be combined with Intellectual Giftedness. Developmental theory Gifted children may develop asynchronously: their minds are often ahead of their physical growth, and specific cognitive and emotional functions are often developed differently (or to differing extents) at different stages of development. One frequently cited example of asynchronicity in early cognitive development is Albert Einstein, who did not speak until the age of two, but whose later fluency and accomplishments belied this initial delay.

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  History of Special Education

  • Anthony F. Rotatori, Festus E. Obiakor, Jeffrey P. Bakken, Anthony F. Rotatori(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  Lastly, Clark (1983) stressed that the definition of giftedness include biological factors (i.e., brain function and activity). Yet, none have been universally accepted as a standard definitional criterion to describe the extraordinary gifts, remarkable talents, and outstandingly high level of abilities and potentialities of children and youth. The problems associated with the definition of giftedness stems from multiple sources, including the differing theoretical views on giftedness; the wide range of characteristics associated with children having extraordinary skills, abilities, aptitudes, and talents; the varying definitions of giftedness (e.g., MICHELLE J. MCCOLLIN 296 psychometric definitions, trait definitions, educationally oriented definitions); the variance across cultures as to what is considered giftedness; the various terminologies used; and ongoing research in the field ( Daniels, 2003 ). Although interpretations of the word ‘‘gifted’’ seem limitless, there are a handful of foundational definitions that may be categorized from conserva-tive (related to demonstrated high IQ) to liberal (a broadened conception that includes multiple criteria that might not be measured through an IQ test). The first federal definition of giftedness was introduced in the 1972 Marland Report . This report identified six categories of giftedness, encouraged schools to define giftedness broadly (i.e., to extend beyond intellectual ability), and provided the catalyst for the development of a U.S. Office of Gifted and Talented. The report also served as the foundation upon which gifted educational programs are built. According to the Marland Report : Gifted and talented children are defined as those identified by professionally qualified persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities, are capable of high performance.

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  Essentials of Gifted Assessment

  • Steven I. Pfeiffer, Alan S. Kaufman, Nadeen L. Kaufman(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  specific, that the expression of giftedness occurs within a particular domain (Mayer, 2005). I agree with this viewpoint, at least when we consider students of high ability beginning around the 3rd or 4th grade (Pfeiffer, 2013b). In preschool and in the early grades, one could make a compelling argument, in my opinion, that giftedness—or rather the prediction of academic giftedness—is not yet necessarily specific to one particular domain but rather more a reflection of general intellectual ability and potential to excel. For example, most would agree that a 3-year-old child who is reading at a 2nd-grade level is gifted.

  Rapid Reference 2.2 Julian Stanley's Talent Search Model

  • Based on above-level assessment (also known as out-of-level assessment).
  • Incorporates academically challenging and fast-paced educational programs.
  • Regional talent search programs exist at Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Northwestern Universities.

  Caution

  No one theory or model of giftedness is correct!

  Traditional Psychometric View

  Most readers are probably familiar with the traditional psychometric view of giftedness, which in large part conceptualizes high intellectual ability as the hallmark and defining feature of giftedness. This view is almost always presented in graduate school courses on IQ testing. In essence, this perspective views high tested intelligence and giftedness as synonymous (Pfeiffer, 2002, 2012, 2013b). Many of the earliest researchers in the gifted field investigated the scientific basis of giftedness from a domain-general perspective, using the terms gifted, genius, and talented interchangeably. Francis Galton's book Hereditary Genius (1869) introduced the notion of intellectual genius to the public. Galton analyzed the family lineage of distinguished men and found that genius ran in families and concluded that genius must be genetically inherited. His estimations of genius were subjective, not based on psychometric measures, but nonetheless his work set the stage for the scientific study of giftedness (Ackerman, 2013; S. B. Kaufman & Sternberg, 2008).

  Galton's work was followed by Charles Spearman's (1904) investigations. Spearman used the newly developed statistical technique of factor analysis to determine that there was a significant amount of shared variance across a great many cognitive tests. He called this ubiquitous shared ability g, or general intelligence (recently labeled psychometric g). The factor analyses that he ran on the set of cognitive tests he had obtained also uncovered specific abilities unique to one or two of the tests, and he labeled each of these specific abilities s. At around the same time as Spearman was using factor analysis to discover the ubiquitous g

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  Human Exceptionality

  School, Community, and Family

  • Michael Hardman, M. Winston Egan, Clifford Drew, , Michael Hardman, M. Winston Egan, Clifford Drew(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  Inquisitive, asks questions Greater metacognition (understanding own thinking) Excellent sense of humor Advanced interests Imaginative, creative, solves problems Needs for logic and accuracy Preference for novelty Reflectiveness Good self-concept SOURCE: Adapted from Davis, G. A., & Rimm, S. B. (2004). Education of the Gifted and Talented , 5th ed. (p. 33). San Francisco: Allyn and Bacon. creating things (artistic, mechanical, etc.). Table 15.3 lists characteristics often evident in students described as creative. No student who is identified as gifted will exhibit all of the characteristics described in this section. However, parents, teachers, coaches, and mentors have an opportunity, as well as an obligation, to encourage these traits, behaviors, proclivities, and dispositions. Studies of the lives of prominent gifted and talented individuals reveal that mentoring, special activities, and the efforts of parents have had more impact on success than have school activities (Olszewski-Kubilius & Lee, 2004). Standard 1 Learner Development and Individual Learning Differences Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. CHAPTER 15 GIF TED, CREATIVE, AND TALENTED 406 15-4 Causes Associated with People Who Are Gifted, Creative, and Talented Scientists have long been interested in identifying the origins of intelligence. Conclusions have varied greatly. For years, many scientists adhered to a hereditary explanation of in-telligence: that people inherit their intellectual capacity at conception.

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  The Psychology and Education of Gifted Children (Psychology Revivals)

  • Philip E. Vernon, Georgina Adamson, Dorothy F. Vernon(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  2   Giftedness and intelligence

  No two gifted children are the same in their abilities, talents and personalities. Nevertheless, a very large proportion are distinguished from average children by virtue of superior general intelligence; and this can be measured fairly reliably by an individual test as the Stanford-Binet or Terman-Merrill scales, or by one of the Wechsler scales (WPPSI, WISC or WAIS1 ). We will comment later on the use and interpretation of intelligence quotients obtained from these or other tests. Some gifted children, however, are characterized more by specialized abilities or talents, for example in mathematics, science, mechanical construction, art or music and so forth (cf. chapter 4 ) than by very high general intelligence, though this also will usually be well above average. Giftedness then is a good deal broader and more varied than just IQ. But intelligence is such a crucial quality, and so much is known about its origins and development, that this chapter and the next one will be devoted mainly to it.

  Growth of intelligence

  First let us ask, how early in life can superior intelligence be recognized? It is very natural that fond parents should observe their baby’s development intently, and often seize on each new activity or growth as a sign of exceptional ability. But in fact there are scarcely any trustworthy signs of later ability during the first year, and not much that can be relied on in the second and third years. The first couple of years, according to Piaget, constitute the sensory-motor stage during which the child is growing physically, learning to coordinate his senses and movements, learning to recognize and react to objects, people, sounds and words. It is essentially a practical stage in which be becomes remarkably competent in handling concrete everyday situations, e.g. manipulating things and moving around, and in beginning to use speech as a means of communication. But although children vary very considerably in the rate at which these capacities mature, they give virtually no indication of later intelligence. During the second year it is obvious that children are beginning to remember things, and anticipate through some kind of mental imagery; also they can form concepts such as pleasant v

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  Positive Psychology

  The Science of Wellbeing and Human Strengths

  • Alan Carr(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  146 Those who argue for domain specificity propose that a creative person’s unique talents, abilities, aptitudes, personality, and motivation, along with their developmental history, extensive specific training, and social context, subserve their creativity in a specific domain, and that this creativity would not be transferable to another domain. Evidence from case studies of eminent creative giants such as Darwin and Freud support this viewpoint. On the other hand, those who propose that creativity is a general trait applicable across multiple domains are supported by research which shows that creative people from a range of fields have similar profiles in that they score high on psychometric tests of divergent thinking and also obtain high scores on personality traits such as openness to experience. It may be that creativity requires some degree of shared or general characteristics, but also some domain-specific talent and training. It may also be that big C creativity and pro c creativity are domain-specific, whereas little c and mini c creativities are general.

  In the field of wisdom research, the main controversy is over whether wisdom is a final stage of personality development or an expert knowledge system.147

  Summary

  Giftedness in childhood, creativity in adulthood, and wisdom in later life are three processes involving outstanding achievement across the lifespan that have been studied by psychologists. Creativity and wisdom are included in the VIA classification of character strengths mentioned in Chapter 2.

  Early studies of giftedness equated it with high IQ. The finding that some children with high IQs did not excel, and some highly creative people did not have high IQs inspired the development of more complex theories of giftedness. Renzulli proposed that giftedness requires outstanding general ability, creativity in a specific domain of high ability, and a high level of motivation to develop skills in this domain. Gardner argued that there is not one but many different forms of intelligence, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily kinaesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Giftedness usually involves excellence in one of these. Sternberg’s view is that a synthesis of wisdom, intelligence, and creativity are essential for the development of giftedness. Research on giftedness has found that genetic factors play an important role in the development of giftedness, and so too does extensive practice, which further enhances performance. Gifted children usually grow up in child-centred families where parents model hard work and high achievement, provide an intellectually and artistically stimulating environment, and offer their children a high level of autonomy, but expect a high level of excellence from them. Gifted young people have lower levels of anxiety compared with their non-gifted peers and do not differ from their non-gifted peers in rates of depression or suicidal ideation. Gifted people may have brains that have developed, either owing to genetic factors or frequent practice, in ways that facilitate expert performance, and, during such performance, their brains function more efficiently than the brains of their non-gifted counterparts. Most gifted children grow up to become well-adjusted, successful experts in their fields, but not creative geniuses.

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  Counseling Gifted and Talented Children

  A Guide for Teachers, Counselors, and Parents

  • Roberta M. Milgram(Author)
  • 1991(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  A child with an IQ in the 160 range may be as different from other gifted children as he/she is from those children not identified as gifted. Rather than saying, "Your child is a gifted child," we need to explain the meaning and influence of the particular abilities identified. In the current chapter, the emphasis is for the most part on working with parents of intellectually gifted learners. However, it is clear from the discussion above that it is advisable for counselors and teachers to be aware of the broad multidimensional definitions that have been 100 MECKSTROTH adopted by most states in the United States to guide their programs of special education for gifted children. For a thorough discussion of the categories and levels of gifted behavior as we now understand them, readers are referred to the presentation of Milgram's 4 X 4 Structure of Giftedness model in an earlier chapter of this book. What do parents of gifted children want for their children? 1,039 surveyed parents (Gogel et al., 1985) responded in three categories: In school they want appropriate education by creative and flexible teachers, leading to a productive, fulfilling career; on the personal level, they want their children to achieve self-acceptance, that is to have a positive self-image on the one hand, and to be accepted by their peers, on the other; from the community they want adequate funding for gifted programs and public acceptance of the need for these programs. Most counselors and teachers share these goals and objectives. When regular parent conferences provide the opportunity for parents, teachers, and counselors to share their goals and to cooperate in realizing them through school programming, gifted learners benefit greatly. PARENT DISCUSSION GROUPS Success at school will be greatly facilitated if parents are understanding and encouraging with their children at home (Sanborn, 1979). Parents are a primary influence in the development of their children.

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  Conceptions of Giftedness

  Socio-Cultural Perspectives

  • Shane N. Phillipson, Maria McCann(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Childhood giftedness and adulthood giftedness are judged by a different set of criteria. Context is the key to this distinction. Childhood giftedness is associated with high performance relative to other students of the same age. This performance can take the form of either a test of potential at a young age or a test measuring acquired knowledge in the classroom at a later school age. Adulthood giftedness is often judged by universal standards in a field. Once an individual leaves school, a high score on a standardized intelligence test or the ability to learn at a faster rate may increase an individual’s chances of achieving eminence in a particular field, but it is not enough in itself to achieve adulthood giftedness status. For the child in a school context, however, it is enough to be classified as a gifted child.

  The field needs a few things to improve our understanding of both types of giftedness and how one develops into the other. First, researchers should be clearer about what type of giftedness they are referring to. Second, researchers should be clearer as to what type of achievement they are referring to. Not all achievement is alike. In school, achievement is more closely associated with students’ demonstrating their high expertise base in reference to a particular subject. In the real world, achievement is more closely associated with adults applying their expertise base in novel ways that are useful to society (a term that also requires a more precise definition!). Both types of giftedness are important. However, it will be beneficial to the field if it is acknowledged that initially demonstrated potential can take the form of high performance on a standardized measure of intelligence or a school achievement test. Both are important, but at the same time both are fundamentally different from what is often thought of as adult accomplishment.

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  Developing Talent Across the Lifespan

  • Peter Heymans, Cornelis F.M. Van Leishout, Peter Heymans, Cornelis F.M. Van Leishout, PETER HEYMANS, CORNELIS F M VAN LIESHOUT, Cornelis F. M. Van Lieshout, Cornelis F.M. Van Lieshout, PETER HEYMANS, CORNELIS F M VAN LIESHOUT(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  Chapter Three Successful Intelligence: A Unified View of Giftedness Robert J. Sternberg

  Yale University, USA

   

  Every society wants to identify its gifted—those who potentially have the most to contribute to that society, and in many ways, may demand the least from it in terms of resources. For this reason, societies devise a variety of ways to identify their gifted. What would happen if a society devised means of identifying the gifted that identified only a small proportion of those who were really gifted, or worse, identified the wrong people? We would then have a society that, at best, failed to utilise its human resources in an optimal way, and worse, misutilised these resources to the detriment of the society, as well as to the individuals who constitute that society.

  To the extent that societies rely heavily on conventional tests of intelligence in the tradition of Binet and Simon (1916), whatever particular tests they may be, I will argue in this chapter that they are committing—in the language of signal-detection theory—serious “misses” as well as “false alarms”. In other words, they are missing large proportions of their talent, and are identifying as gifted some who will probably turn out to be relatively undistinguished in any significant way with regard either to the goals of the society or even to the goals of these individuals. The basis of this argument will be a theory of successful intelligence (Sternberg, 1996).

  In this chapter, I will first describe what successful intelligence is and why it is important. Next I will describe the elements of successful intelligence. Finally, I will discuss the interaction of these elements.

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  Finding John Galt

  • Elizabeth Romey(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Information Age Publishing

    (Publisher)

  This is accomplished through concept-based teaching (rather than fact-based), allowing students to see intercorrelations between the parts and the whole, as well as through al- lowing the brain to learn best when it “does” rather than when it merely “absorbs” (Tomlinson & Kalbfleisch, 1998, p. 54)—a call for more experi- ence-based learning tasks. A Glimpse Into the Not-Too-Distant Future What if we were to take all the people who we think might be talented and allow them to use strategies we have discovered from brain research to con- tinue growing in such a way that they could become more effective learners or even become gifted. The idea of actually allowing human beings regardless of culture to develop intelligence at a high level seems much more important than thinking that giftedness comes somehow when you are born. I wish we were focusing on establishing the conditions for intelligence to develop. (Bar- bara Clark, as cited in Henshon, 2007, p. 229) Indeed there is a great deal to be learned regarding the cognitive neu- ral correlates of giftedness and its interaction with one’s environment and one’s cultural background. Levels of inquiry would include how the brain is organized to obtain the best results and what educators can do to facilitate and support such organization (Clark, as cited in Henshon, 2007). Future educational research projects might likewise move into determining par- ticular brain strengths and applying a more visual hands-on approach for students who have more tissue in fusiform visual integration regions and a more classic auditory-verbal approach for individuals with more brain tissue in the Wernicke’s language areas (Haier & Jung, 2008).

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