Study on Successful Gifted Child Personality Type

Exploring Different Types of Giftedness and their Development

by Sunita Kumari*, Dr. Prem Mehta,

- Published in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education, E-ISSN: 2230-7540

Volume 4, Issue No. 8, Oct 2012, Pages 0 - 0 (0)

Published by: Ignited Minds Journals


ABSTRACT

Giftednessis frequently not evenly distributed throughout all intellectual spheres; anindividual may excel in solving logic problems and yet be a poor speller;another gifted individual may be able to read and write at a far above averagelevel and yet have trouble with mathematics. It is possible there are differenttypes of giftedness with their own unique features, just as there are differenttypes of developmental delay. Giftedness may become noticeable in individuals atdifferent points of development. While early development (i.e. speaking orreading at a very young age) usually comes with giftedness, it is not adeterminant of giftedness. The preschool years are when most gifted childrenbegin to show the distinctive characteristics mentioned above. As the child becomesolder, classes that are 'too easy' and emotional issues may slow or obstructthe rate of intellectual development.

KEYWORD

giftedness, individuals, personality type, intellectual spheres, logic problems, spelling, reading, writing, mathematics, developmental delay

---------------------------♦----------------------------- INTRODUCTION

These children are usually successful academically, and identified as gifted at school. They are high achievers and perfectionists who seek for other people’s approval. The problem, however, is that with time they often get bored and devote minimum effort to achieving. At home these gifted children need independence and freedom of choice, as well as time for personal interests, and risk taking experiences. This personality type includes very creative, but often frustrated or bored, gifted children. They question the systems around them and are often rebellious because their abilities are unrecognized. Impatient, direct, and competitive, such children have low self-esteem. They need acceptance, understanding, and advocacy from the parents. Family activities and positive examples of behavior are what the family should provide for such gifted children. These gifted children are angry and depressed because the school system does not recognize their abilities, and does not address their special educational needs. That is why they resist the system by refusing to complete school assignments or to attend school. Being considered average or below average, they have poor self-esteem, are defensive and self abusive. Professional counseling is recommended for such children. This type of gifted child is often unrecognized because these children have a physical, emotional or learning disability. Adults fail to notice giftedness due to being focused on the areas where the child is less able. Parents of such children should provide them with recognition of their abilities, risk-taking opportunities, advocacy, and family activities to challenge the child. Family counseling may also be a good option. These are self-confident and independent children that are successful academically, motivated, goal-oriented, and responsible. At home, such gifted children need family support, advocacy, family activities and opportunities related to their interests. They should be allowed to have friends of all ages, and have no time or space restrictions. Each subtype of giftedness can be strongly pronounced in one personality. At the same time, combinations are possible since the subtypes are not mutually exclusive. So, a gifted or talented child may possess the characteristics of more than one type of giftedness. The personality type may change with time as the child grows and develops. Therefore, the parents should be attentive to their gifted children in order to provide timely support and advocacy. Autonomous and successful personality types of a gifted child are usually easy to recognize and deal with. The achievements of these children cannot be unnoticed. Challenging, underground, double-labeled and dropout personalities of gifted children require special attention. They should be recognized as early as possible for the parents to know what measures

2

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.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Multiple intelligences have been associated with giftedness or overachievement of some developmental areas (Colangelo, 2003).Multiple intelligences has been described as an attitude towards learning, instead of techniques or strategies (Cason, 2001). There are said to be eight Intelligences, or different areas in which people assimilate or learn about the world around them: interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalistic, and spatial-visual. If the Theory of Multiple Intelligences is applied to educational curriculum, by providing lesson plans, themes, and programs in a way that all students are encouraged to develop their stronger area, and at the same time educators provide opportunities to enhance the learning process in the less strong areas, academic success may be attainable for all children in a school system. Howard Gardner proposed in Frames of Mind (Gardner 1983/1994) that intellectual giftedness may be present in areas other than the typical intellectual realm. The concept of multiple intelligences (MI) makes the field aware of additional potential strengths and proposes a variety of curricular methods. Gardner suggests MI in the following areas: Linguistic, logico-mathematical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and existential. Identification of gifted students with MI is a challenge since there is no simple test to give to determine giftedness of MI. Assessing by observation is potentially most accurate, but potentially highly subjective. MI theory can be applied to not only gifted students, but it can be a lens through which all students can be assessed. This more global perspective may lead to more child-centered instruction and meet the needs of a greater number of children (Colangelo, 2003).

MATERIAL AND METHOD

According to DMGT theory, "one cannot become talented without first being gifted, or almost so". There are six components that can interact in countless and unique ways that fosters the process of moving from These components consist of the gift (G) itself, chance (C), environmental catalyst (EC), intrapersonal catalyst (IC), learning/practice (LP) and the outcome of talent (T). It is important to know that (C), (IC), and (EC) can facilitate but, can also hinder the learning and training of becoming talented. The learning/practice is the moderator. It is through the interactions, both environmental and intrapersonal that influence the process of learning and practice along with/without chance that natural abilities are transformed into talents. In Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide, Susan K. Johnsen explains that gifted children all exhibit the potential for high performance in the areas included in the United States' federal definition of gifted and talented students: The term "gifted and talented" when used in respect to students, children, or youth means students, children, or youth who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities." (P.L. 103–382, Title XIV, p. 388) This definition has been adopted partially or completely by the majority of the states in the United States. The majority of them have some definition similar to that used in the State of Texas, whose definition states “[The phrase] "gifted and talented student" means a child or youth who performs at or shows the potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment when compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment, and who

  • exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area;
  • possesses an unusual capacity for leadership; or”

The major characteristics of these definitions are (a) the diversity of areas in which performance may be exhibited (e.g., intellectual, creativity, artistic, leadership, academically), (b) the comparison with other groups (e.g., those in general education classrooms or of the same age, experience, or environment), and (c) the use of terms that imply a need for development of the gift (e.g., capability and potential). IQ scores can vary for the same person, so a person does not always belong to the same IQ score range each time the person is tested. (IQ score table data

Sunita Kumari1 Dr. Prem Mehta2

Many schools use a variety of assessments of students' capability and potential when identifying gifted children. These may include portfolios of student work, classroom observations, achievement tests, and IQ test scores. Most educational professionals accept that no single criterion can be used in isolation to accurately identify a gifted child. One of the criteria used in identification may be an IQ test score. Until the late 1960s, when “giftedness” was defined by an IQ score, a school district simply set an arbitrary score (usually in the 130 range) and a student either did or did not “make the cut”. It is no longer accepted today in academic circles; however, it's still used by many school districts because it is simple and not entirely without merit. Although a high IQ may have fallen out of favor as a measure to define giftedness, the fact remains that, if a student has a very high IQ, it is a significant indicator of a student’s academic potential (Gross, 2004). Correspondingly, if a student scores highly on an IQ test, but performs at an average or below average level academically, this warrants further investigation.

CONCLUSION

Generally, gifted individuals learn more quickly, deeply, and broadly than their peers. Gifted children may learn to read early and operate at the same level as normal children who are significantly older. The gifted tend to demonstrate high reasoning ability,

emotionally sensitive, perfectionistic, and may frequently question authority. Some have trouble relating to or communicating with their peers because of disparities in vocabulary size (especially in the early years), personality, interests, and motivation. As children, they may prefer the company of older children or adults.

Giftedness is frequently not evenly distributed throughout all intellectual spheres; an individual may excel in solving logic problems and yet be a poor speller; another gifted individual may be able to read and write at a far above average level and yet have trouble with mathematics. It is possible there are different types of giftedness with their own unique features, just as there are different types of developmental delay. Giftedness may become noticeable in individuals at different points of development. While early development (i.e. speaking or reading at a very young age) usually comes with giftedness, it is not a determinant of giftedness. The preschool years are when most gifted children begin to show the distinctive characteristics mentioned above. As the child becomes older, classes that are 'too easy' and emotional issues may slow or obstruct the rate of intellectual development. Many gifted individuals experience various types of heightened awareness and may seem overly sensitive. These sensitivities may be to physical senses such as sight, sound, smell, movement and touch. For example, they may be extremely uncomfortable when they have a wrinkle in their sock, or unable to concentrate because of the sound of a clock ticking on the other side of the room. Sensitivities of the gifted are often to mental and emotional over-awareness. For example, picking up on the feelings of someone close to them, having extreme sensitivity to their own internal emotions, and taking in external information at a significantly higher rate than those around them. These various kinds of sensitivities often mean that the more gifted an individual is, the more input and awareness they experience, leading to the contradiction of them needing more time to process than others who are not gifted. Hypersensitivity to external or internal stimuli can resemble a proneness to "sensory overload", which can cause such persons to avoid highly stimulating, chaotic or crowded environments. This kind of highly sensitive nature has also been called "overexcitability" by Kazimierz Dabrowski. Some are able to tune out such unwanted stimulation as they focus on their chosen task or on their own thoughts. In many cases, awareness may fluctuate between

4

These conditions may appear to be very similar to symptoms of hyperactivity, bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism-spectrum conditions, and other psychological disorders, but are often explained by gifted education professionals by reference to Kazimierz Dabrowskis theory of Positive Disintegration. Some researchers focus on the study of overexcitabilities. Overexcitabilities refer to ways people, both children and adults, understand and experience the world around them (Gross 2008). The more channels of overexcitabilities that are open to receive the information or stimulus, the stronger or more intense the experience is. According to Gross (2008), an individual response to a stimulus is determined by his/her dominant overexcitability. Overexcitabilities are expressed in five dimensions: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional. These dominant channels of acquiring information differ by quantity in some individuals.

REFERENCES

1. ^ Steven Pinker. "His Brain Measured Up". http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1999_06_24_newyorktimes.html. Retrieved 12/4/06. 2. ^ Colangelo, N., & Davis, G.(2003).Handbook of Gifted Education. Boston: Pearson education, Inc. 3. ^ a b 4. http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/gats/assets/pdf/poldmgt2000rtcl.pdf 5. ^ a b Colangelo, N. & Davis, G. (2003). Handbook of Gifted Education. 6. ^ Cason, K. (2001). Evaluation of a Preschool Nutrition Education Program Based on the Theory of multiple Intelligences [Electronic version]. Journal of Nutrition Education, 33, 161-166. 7. ^ a b Johnsen, S. K. (2004). Identifying Gifted Students: A Practical Guide." Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc. 8. ^ Kaufman, Alan S. (2009). IQ Testing 101. New York: Springer Publishing. pp. 151–153. ISBN 978-0-8261-0629-2. 9. ^ GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS. A Resource Guide for Teachers. Educational Services Division (Anglophone) Revised 2007 Department of Education, Government of New Brunswick, Canada. 10. ^ Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mönks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In 08-043796-5. "norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples." 11. ^ Freides, D. (1972). "Review of Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Third Revision". In Oscar Buros (Ed.). Seventh Mental Measurements Yearbook. Highland Park (NJ): Gryphon Press. pp. 772–773. "The Binet scales have been around for a long time and their faults are well known. . . . Requiescat in pace" 12. ^ Waddell, Deborah D. (1980). "The Stanford-Binet: An Evaluation of the Technical Data Available since the 1972 Restandardization". Journal of School Psychology 18 (3): 203–209. DOI:10.1016/0022-4405(80)90060-6. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ233903&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ233903. Retrieved 29 June 2010. 13. ^ Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mönks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mönks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J. et al.. International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Pergamon. p. 302. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5. "a gifted sample gathered using IQ > 132 using the old SB L-M in 1985 does not contain the top 2% of the population but the best 10%." 14. ^ Feldman, David (1984). "A Follow-up of Subjects Scoring above 180 IQ in Terman's Genetic Studies of Genius". Exceptional Children 50 (6): 518–523. http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10192.aspx. Retrieved 8 July 2010. "Put into the context of the psychometric movement as a whole, it is clear that the positive extreme of the IQ distribution is not as different from other IQ levels as might have been expected." 15. ^ "Characteristics of Gifted/Creative Children". http://www.nfgcc.org/character.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-03. 16. ^ Lovecky, Deirdre V.. Different Minds: Gifted Children with Ad/Hd, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits. Jessica Kingsly Publishers. pp. 20–24. ISBN 1-85302-964-5. 17. ^ "Experience and Processing: The Funnel and Cylinder Analogy of Giftedness by Shulamit Widawsky". http://www.shulamit.info/funnel.htm. 18. ^ "SENG: Articles & Resources - Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration: Some implications for teachers of gifted students".

Sunita Kumari1 Dr. Prem Mehta2

19. ^ Gross, C., Rinn, A., & Jamieson, K. (2008). Gifted Adolescents’ Overexcitabilities and Self-Concepts. Journal of Gifted Education. 29, 4. 20. ^ a b Taylor, Lorraine S. and Catharine R. Whittaker. Bridging Multiple Worlds: Case Studies of Diverse Educational Communities. Allyn and Bacon, 2003. 21. ^ Ford, Donna and Tarek Grantham. "Providing Access for Culturally Diverse Gifted Students: From Deficit to Dynamic Thinking." Theory Into Practice. 42.3. 2003. 22. ^ Olszewski-Kubilius, et al "Addressing the Achievement Gap Between Minority and Nonminority Children by Increasing Access to Gifted Programs” Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 28.2 2004. 23. ^ Frasier, Garcia & Passow. A Review of Assessment Issues in Gifted Education and Their Implications for Identifying Gifted Minority Students. The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented Feb. 1995 24. ^ Lee, Seon-Young, Olszewski-Kubilius, Peternel. “Follow-Up with students after 6 years of participation in project EXCITE.” The Gifted Child Quarterly. Cincinnati: 2009. 53.2. p 137 25. ^ a b Lee, Seon-Young, Olszewski-Kubilius, Peternel. “Follow-Up with students after 6 years of participation in project EXCITE.” The Gifted Child Quarterly. Cincinnati: 2009. 53.2. 26. ^ Coleman, M. R., Harradine, C., & King, E. W. (2005). Meeting the needs of students who are twice exceptional. Teaching Exceptional Children, 38(1), 5-6.