I do however feel there is a need for labels to identify how best to deal with a child's special needs. But I do see how some people would find the term gifted as offensive as it seems to only be applied to a subset of gifted talents. Plus I feel it is far too broad a term for even this subset of talents.
A more descriptive term than "gifted" could be "intellectually gifted" or "highly intelligent", but I think the people offended by the "gifted" label would not be more accepting of those labels.
Agreed, 'highly intelligent', 'highly able', etc. all sort of fall into the same bucket with 'smarter than you or your kid'. Unless you take a roundabout paragraphic route to describing a child every time you need to refer to their intellectual differences, you are going to come up (way) short of really describing them, end up offending somebody.
A label should only be viewed as short-hand, but it is simpler to get side tracked by the label itself and because it can have unintended connotations, condemn it.
I am pleased to see the flurry of really smart comments on the Title ix board, very impressive, possibly wonderful information for other parents who might be perusing it. Just very good stuff.
