What is Giftedness?
Gifted
Gifted students show high capability in academic and non-academic areas, such as leadership capacity, artistic ability, creativity, or specific fields of study.
While those students whose abilities (or skills) and knowledge are outstanding mastery in at least one area of human activity are considered talented. Their ability is among 10 percent of their peers who have been active in that field(s).
Gifted and talented students require academic services and activities that meet their emotional, educational, and physical needs to flourish and perform at their potential fully. They also need differentiation in learning to address the asynchronous development in their intellectual, emotional, and physical development.
Gifted and talented students display common characteristics, such as excellent memory, idealism, and sense of justice at an early age, putting ideas or things together that are not typical, learning basic skills quickly and with little practice, enjoying problem-solving, highly developed curiosity, etc. These criteria are observed through their interactions with their surroundings and reactions to everything that comes in their way.
(Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act of 1988 (Title IV-H.R. 5)
Talented
Students, children who show evidence of outstanding mastery of systematically developed abilities (or skills) and knowledge in at least one field of human activity, to a degree that places the individual amongst the top 10 percent of his/her peers who are or have been active in that field or fields.
(The (Gagne, 2005, p. 99)
From Gifts to talents: The DMGT as a developmental model.
R.J. Sternberg & J.E. Davidson (Eds).
Conception of Giftedness (2nd ed.) (pp.98-119). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Problems Encountered by Gifted and Talented Students
- Gifted students in regular schools are at risk because their emotional, academic, and physical needs are not met, thus putting them in danger of underachieving or dropping out.
- Many gifted students, especially highly gifted, have asynchronous development in their intellectual, emotional, and physical development that require differentiation in learning.
- Misconception and misdiagnoses of giftedness as disorders such as ADHD, Autism, Bipolar, ODD, OCD, LD prevent gifted students from achieving their optimum capacities.
Common Characteristics of Gifted and Talented Students
- Unusual alertness, even in infancy
- Rapid learner; puts thoughts together quickly
- Excellent memory
- Unusually large vocabulary and complex sentence structure
- Advanced comprehension of word nuances, metaphors, and abstract ideas
- Enjoys solving problems, especially with numbers and puzzles
- Often self-taught reading and writing skills as preschooler
- Deep, intense feelings and reactions
- Highly sensitive
- Thinking is abstract, complex, logical, and insightful
- Idealism and sense of justice at early ages
- Concerned with social and political issues and injustices
- Longer attention span and intense concentration
- Preoccupied with own thoughts—daydreamer
- Learn basic skills quickly and with little practice
- Asks probing questions
- Wide range of interests (or extreme focus in one area)
- Highly developed curiosity
- Interested in experimenting and doing things differently
- Puts idea or things together that are not typical
- Keen and/or unusual sense of humor
- Desire to organize people/things through games or complex schemas
- Vivid imaginations (and imaginary playmates when in preschool)