Gifted

=**GIFTED STUDENTS**=

Description of Special Need
Until recently the most common indicator of giftedness was a global score of 130 or more on a standard IQ test (Winner, 2000). A high global score on a test such as this typically indicated a general giftedness in most of the sub-areas of the test. The areas that are typically most valued by schools are considered the "academics" and are math and language. High scores in these areas indicate a "notational" giftedness, which is a talent or gift in mastering the two types of notation symbols; language and number. However, this method of determining giftedness has allowed many gifted children to fall through the academic cracks. Recent research suggests that unevenness between mathematic and linguistic ability may be the the rule, rather than the exception. In fact research indicates that the higher the IQ score the larger the discrepancies between the sub-areas. Jagged IQ profiles also often characterize children gifted in music or art. A gift in music or art can exist with children who have average or even sub-average IQ scores. The existence of musical savants clearly shows that a high IQ is not a necessary component of musical giftedness. Children who are considered gifted in the visual arts or athletics tend to be less academically inclined (Winner, 2000).

Gardener has identified eight different types of intelligences: logical mathematical, linguistic, visual-spatial, body-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. Traditional IQ tests and many other standardized tests largely measure the logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligence, and these are the areas that schools have typically concentrated on. Sternberg has developed the "Triarchic" theory of intelligence which suggests that there are three dimensions to intelligence which are Compotential, Experiential and Contextual (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) website). Compotential intelligence consists of the mechanisms for processing information. Experiential intelligence involves dealing with new tasks or situations and the ability to use mental processes automatically. Contextual intelligence refers to the ability to adapt to, select and shape the environment. As the concept of intelligence becomes more fluid and multidimensional the definition of giftedness is also evolving. As a result of this evolution, there is not a list of definitive characteristics that encompasses the gifted student (NWREL website).

Gifted students have different interests, areas of strength, ability levels and temperaments. While there certainly are some gifted students who are high achievers in all areas, many other gifted students have subject specific strengths. Some gifted students may struggle in some subjects or activities, and others may even have learning disabilities (Winner, 1996 in NWRL website). It has also become apparent that the gifted student may not necessarily fit the traditional mold of the good student. It is imperative that teachers be aware that gifted students may display behavior problems. They may be disruptive, and generate off topic discussions. Some gifted students may take longer to complete assignments. This may be either because of a perfectionist approach or that they may race though their work but turn in messy papers with extended ideas but careless mistakes (NWREL website).


 * Incidence:**

Psychologists have tended to give attention and study to the most deviant from the norm and also tend to study negative or problem behavior (Winner, 2000). For example there is a lot more research undertaken regarding depression and fear than happiness and courage. This fact coupled with the evolving definition of intelligence makes it virtually impossible to estimate the number of "gifted" children in a particular group.


 * Causes of Giftedness**

In that it is difficult to define gifted, it follows that it would be difficult to determine a cause. There are however some theories that have been proposed. Ellen Winner argues that gifted children tend to have enhanced right brain hemisphere development and notes that there is a higher incidence of non-righthandedness among gifted children (Winner, 2000). Non-righthandedness is an indication that there is significant bilateral brain involvement. Research also indicates that there is a disproportionate incidence of language related language learning disabilities in individuals who are spatially gifted. There are a disproportionate number of artists, inventors and musicians who have dyslexia (Winner, 2000). Curiously, higher IQ scores are correlated with an increased incidence of auto immune problems (Winner, 2000).

It has been argued unsuccessfully that giftedness arises from hard work, perseverance and practice. The existence of musical, mathematical and artistic savants clearly disputes this claim. In her paper Winner notes that it has been proposed that gifted children may have experienced testosterone induced alterations of their fetal brains. This theory arises from the research that indicates that gifted children are born with "unusual" brains' (Winner, 2000). She further states that research also indicates that it is impossible to "drive" an ordinary child to the kinds of high achievements that are seen in gifted children. She also states that there are no family characteristics seen to play a causal role in giftedness (2000).

Winner notes that there is no basis for a distinction between the terms talented and gifted. She states that both (which are the same) should be "recognized, celebrated and cultivated" (2000). Winner argues that nurturance and stimulation are the most important factors in sustaining the levels of high achievement in gifted students. She also notes that in the United States that the expectations placed on all students are too low. She argues that the even the moderately gifted students are bored (Winner, 2000).


 * Issues**

One of the main issues regarding the teaching of gifted children is to present them with appropriate challenges. If these students are not presented with learning experiences that are appropriate for their abilities, learning will not take place and they will likely lose motivation for school and learning. Brain research indicates that children will not maintain their level of mental/brain development if they are not challenged. This leads into the issue of appropriate classroom placement. While gifted students tend to be more introverted but they do desire like-minded peers (Winner, 2000). She notes that ability grouping helps students academically and does not harm them socially (2000).

Winner notes that gifted children possess what she calls the "rage to master". She states that it is this intrinsic motivation to practice and work at their talent that accompanies the inborn giftedness of these students. Parents of these children may feel compelled to force these children to become more "well rounded" by involving them in other "normal" activities which in turn may stifle their drive and cause them to lose their motivation (Winner, 2000). Winner suggests that all teachers would be more successful if they found out what motivates individuals in their classroom and then harnessed that drive toward learning (Winner, 2000).

Extreme levels of giftedness leads to isolation, thus gifted middle years students may attempt to hide their abilities to become more popular. This is more common in gifted girls than boys (Winner, 2000). Gifted female students face many unique challenges and problems that tend to undermine their abilities and potential. Gifted girls do not achieve at expected levels, especially in middle school and high school, and they often do not pursue careers appropriate to their abilities (Badolato, 1998 cited in the NWREL website). Researchers have identified a number of reasons for female students' underachievement: gender stereotypes pervasive in society, lack of role models, declining confidence in their abilities, mixed messages and conflicting expectations from teachers and parents, and peer pressure to hide their abilities and intelligence (Smutny & Blocksom, 1990 cited in the NWREL website).

More specifically, teachers often have less tolerance for girls who call out answers in class, ask numerous questions, and are confident in their opinions and willing to argue-behaviors that are likely to be accepted as evidence of giftedness in boys (Kerr, 1994 cited in the NWREL website). Often girls are socialized in school and at home to be attractive, obedient, caring, agreeable, and submissive. As a result, girls have a tendency to hide their intelligence and downplay their abilities in order to conform to the socially accepted stereotypes of femininity.

Davis & Rimm (1994) and Smutny (1998) as cited in the NWRL website, suggest the following strategies for assisting gifted girls maintain high achievement: > and fears.
 * Communicate with parents about their daughter's abilities and the importance of mathematics and science for higher education and careers. Encourage them to identify and address sources of gender bias.
 * Organize peer support groups for girls. Mathematics and science clubs encourage girls to develop their skills and abilities and help connect them to other girls who share their interests.
 * Avoid praising girls for their neatness or behavior. Point out specific examples of their excellent work and achievements. Actively correct them if they attribute their accomplishments exclusively to luck or hard work.
 * Provide opportunities for girls to use their leadership abilities.
 * Expose students to women in nontraditional careers. Help them to identify and connect with role models and mentors.
 * Openly discuss gender stereotypes and the mixed messages that society broadcasts about femininity, intelligence, and achievement.
 * Provide a safe environment for girls to share their confusion
 * Actively recruit girls to participate in advanced courses and extracurricular activities related to mathematics, science, and technology.
 * Encourage students to research and report on female contributions to mathematics and science.


 * Connection to Learning - Impact on Development & Learning**

Gifted children are on a developmentally different schedule from infancy onward. The same development stages occur as those of normal children, but they occur at a younger age. Gifted students are asynchronous learners. This means that learning isn’t synchronous; they’re out of sync, both internally and externally. Gifted students have unique learning styles that define them and that can lead to complex behaviors. Some behavior changes that might occur for gifted students include: becoming argumentative, apathetic, socially withdrawn, out of control, and becoming clinically depressed. For these students, programs that anticipate lower powers of concentration and break complicated subjects into simpler pieces for children to understand may stress gifted children. This is why gifted children sometimes act out in class. A behavior that may seem immature and inappropriate, but one that is normal.

Many gifted students appear to be troublemakers or unmotivated in the classroom. They can be disruptive, restless and inattentive. This could be due to not being challenged enough and that the tasks are too simple. Gifted students can also challenge authority figures by questioning the classroom rules. Their behavior can be confused with those students who have ADHD. When gifted students become bored in the classroom, they often become disruptive and develop negative patterns. These negative patterns can include: daydreaming, doodling, excessive talking and failing grades. Gifted children portray different abilities in the developmental stages compared to those their own age.

**These different abilities include:**
(from "Gifted Canada")
 * Good memory
 * Subtle sense of humor
 * Wider knowledge base
 * advanced vocabulary
 * collect items
 * enjoy difficult puzzles
 * imaginative
 * high energy level
 * prefer to work alone
 * prefer older adults to children

Many gifted children can teach themselves to read at a very young age and can read at amazingly fast speeds. They sound out letters, read signs, and read accurately both silent and aloud. (from "Gifted Canada") For gifted children, there are many strengths/admired traits that show them farther developmentally along than those their own age, but that also carry with them numerous issues and/or concerns. These traits and problems are indicated below.

**Strengths & Admired Traits:**

 * verbal skills
 * long attention span
 * acquire and retain information easily
 * creativity and inventiveness
 * independent
 * critical thinking
 * preference for complexity
 * versatility
 * sensitivity and empathize for others

**Possible issues for teachers to be aware of:**
"Gifted students expect people to keep their word, act ethically at all times and see the long term consequences of their decisions as they do themselves. Forgiveness is an essential learning for them." (from "Advanced Moral Development") They know how to forgive, but also carry around another character trait. They can be fearful of failure if not encouraged by their teacher. In late primary school, gifted children make their own decisions based on their ethical principles and learn to make the most of adult contact.
 * very talkative
 * tunnel vision, stubbornness
 * inaccuracy, impatient with others
 * escapes into fantasy
 * inability to accept help from peers, reliant on self
 * critical of others
 * resistant to simple solutions
 * may appear disorganized, frustrated over lack of time on projects
 * sensitive to criticism/peer rejection

At a very early age, gifted children show evidence of moral sensitivity. They care about others, want to relieve pain and suffering of those around them and can think of abstract ideas such as justice and fairness. Gifted children are cognitively advanced. They view themselves as “different” at a very early age and develop strong leadership abilities early. With their social development being advanced they tend to manage well with older individuals. If not challenged in the class they may act out due to frustration because the learning is taking too long.

Emotionally, gifted children feel differently than their peers. They have an emotional intensity stronger than those around them. This intensity can be "expressed through a wide range of feelings, attachments, compassion, a heightened sense of responsibility, and scrupulous self-examination." (from "Children") Over excitability is a result of this emotional intensity. For gifted children, over excitability can result in creative endeavors as well as advanced emotional and ethical development in adulthood. Over excitabilities are a positive force for gifted children. There are five main over excitabilities that gifted children express:


 * 1. Psychomotor**: Need for physical expression, movement, energy, and dance.
 * 2. Sensual**: Highly sensory, touch, texture, color, taste, light and sound.
 * 3. Imaginational**: Dreamers, space cadets, visual thinkers, and often think in metaphors.
 * 4. Intellectual**: Strong signs of analysis and synthesis. Stimulated by intellectual challenges and problems.
 * 5. Emotional**: Broad range of emotional intensity, happier, sadder, more depressed than age peers, extreme empathy, and compassion.

Throughout the development stages, gifted children face many trials and tribulations. They often have unrealistic expectations for their performance all the time in everything. Gifted children sometimes feel powerless to act in certain situations which this sense of helplessness leads to despair and being critical of themselves as they feel a responsibility for these situations. They can overwhelm a new mother and father. For gifted children, they have a complex cognitive and emotional development, which leads to perfectionism, sensitivity, and intensity; three personality traits that are associated with their giftedness.

**Connection to Learning - Strategies for Teachers**

 * Multilevel Teaching Strategies for Higher-Level Learning**

It can seem like a daunting task to have gifted students in your classroom that finish their assignments and tests long before the others students in the classroom and need constant re-direction. In order to avoid this, there are a number of teaching strategies that teachers can adopt to suit the need of the gifted child and give them more challenging experiences:


 * Familiarize yourself with the characteristics of the students in your classroom//://** The gifted student may not always get straight A's and can can come from any gender and ethnic group so it is important to forget common stereotypes. Gifted students demonstrate characteristics such as the ability to think abstractly, an extreme need for constant mental stimulation; an ability to learn and process complex information very rapidly; and a need to explore subjects in depth. Students who demonstrate these characteristics learn differently. Thus, they have unique academic needs that the teacher must be aware of. If teachers know the characteristics of gifted students they can spot the signals presented. (GT Cybersource Website).




 * Let go of what you feel is normal:** offer all students the opportunity to grow from where they are, not from where your teacher training courses say they should be. Allow gifted students the option to complete more advanced work. An example of this would be to tier your lesson plans, assignments, and projects and to ask open-ended and not finite questions in order to allow the gifted student the ability to do more complex work . If we do not give them these choices they may choose to be successful or they may choose to rebel.


 * Pre-assess students before beginning a unit:** (Peterson & Hittie, 2003) Teachers can give an end of the unit test prior to starting the unit and observing where students are in their knowledge of the topic. Gifted students may show that they already possess a vast knowledge on the topic and can then be given assignments such as research projects and the use of technology, or other scaffolds, to allow them to dig deeper in their understanding of the unit and topic being covered. Many gifted students may be in Piaget's formal operations stage while their peers are in the pre-operational or concrete operations stage. Assignments need to allow students to utilize higher level thinking skills like analysis, synthesis and evaluation, as defined by Bloom's taxonomy.


 * Use parents as a resource**//:// Teachers are encouraged to collaborate with parents instead of resisting them. The parents can look for curriculum options that they feel would be beneficial to their child and make the parent aware that you are willing to be flexible in your accommodations for the different students in your class.


 * Pursue distance learning opportunities//://** If parents and the child are looking for more learning opportunities outside of normal school hours teachers can look for options that are available in the area.


 * Use the gifted student as a resource to the other students**. If worded appropriately by the teacher the gifted and a struggling student(s) can work together to allow them to succeed. You must be careful to not put the gifted child on a pedestal but to word it in a way that both feel they will be able to gain from the experience.


 * Explore the topic of acceleration**: teachers may wish to advance a student if the knowledge they possess in a given subject area is past their current grade level.


 * Use outside resources that are available to you as their teacher**//:// Use the links below to find online and book resources that you as the teacher, the student, and the parents can use effectively to foster deeper learning. Talk to other teachers and professionals that have experience with gifted students and take ideas from their experiences. It isn't necessary to turn your world upside down to be an effective teacher of gifted students, what you need is to be flexible, knowledgeable, and willing to try new things.

//Online Resources for Teachers, Students and Teachers://
[|National Association for Gifted Children] [|Gifted Canada Index: Canadian Information Concerning Bright and Gifted Children] [|Calgary - Centre for Gifted Education] [|Kidsource - Challenging Gifted Students in Regular Classrooms] [|Mixed Ability Classrooms - Curriculum Differentiation] [|Edmonton Catholic Schools - Gifted and Talented Education for Students, Teachers and Parents] [|Teach-nology - Gifted Youth Information for Teachers] [|Gateway to Gifted Resources - Tips for Teachers]

//Resource Books for Teachers, Students and Teachers (linked to online order and brief summary of the book)://
[|Lessons from the Middle: High End Learning for Middle School Students] [|Distinguishing Characteristics of Gifted Students with Disabilities (Parents and Teachers)] [|Designing and Developing Programs for Gifted Students (Teachers)] [|Identifying Gifted Students: A Practical Guide] [|Reaching New Horizons: Gifted and Talented Education For Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students] [|Curriculum for Gifted and Talented Students] [|Motivating Gifted Students] [|And Still We Rise]