Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How do you all define gifted?

I'm starting a new thread rather than totally hijack another. I have claimed here that I suspect more of us than not define gifted with high IQ/high intelligence/high ability being a requisite. As the parent of one 2e kid, I have some flexibility in my thinking on that especially when dealing with wild variation w/in scores that drag down the total #. However, I define gifted something like Mensa defines a member: an intelligence score around the 98th percentile or so.

It seems that those in the field of gifted education/advocacy use a lot of different definitions though and Jim Delisle is one of the few in that field who I've seen advocating a more narrow definition. See here for instance.

Being a bit of a sucker for quantifiable information, I have a hard time using things like behavioral rating scales as well, I'll admit. So, what is an absolute necessity, if anything, in order to call someone gifted to you all?

Disclaimer: I really am not trying to be elitist or rude here and apologize if this comes across as such.

For me I think it's the speed and/or depth of learning. So the iq is then the indicator of being able to do it, not whether you do it, but whether you could. So for me the 2e isn't a factor because it's whether you could with an accommodation. The accommodation assists you do the work you are able to do - so a HG kid with accommodations would do more than a kid who also needs the accommodation but is not HG. So I don't have a problem with number cut offs of iq but then I also think that achievement tests are worthy symbols of giftedness in that I don't think it matters if you could get a perfect score on an achievement test by hard work or less hard work buttressed by inate understanding. Where I do disagree is with exposure - while I don't doubt that exposure matters I think it works in concert with ability. We never spoke baby talk to our DS and didn't really dumb down our vocabulary at 3 he was asking what the words he didn't know meant whereas ND kids we met did not do that. So DS was exposed but it was his inante interest, drive, hunger for knowledge that had him run with it. So I think exposure would yield more gifted but not because they are making more gifted through exposure but because exsposure feeds the inate ability.

DeHe

Hey I dig playing with statistics as much as the next guy, but operationally, my favorite is Renzulli's 3 Ring Concept.

I avoid using the word at all, precisely because there are so many different definitions.

[ETA: well, I suppose I have implicitly used it here, in that I'm sure I've described DS as "HG+" a few times (often, but probably not always, with the rider "untested but seems"). Here what I mean is "he seems as remarkable as the other children who get described as HG+" I suppose :-) ]

lol! I hope that I'm not going around throwing "gifted" into my day to day conversations re dds either unless I'm not thinking at all. I guess that I'm thinking in relation to what draws us here. What is it about our kids that makes them seem different enough from age peers that we need to discuss here; what is it about them that is "gifted" whereas another child is ND? Do we see them as different due to social differences, academic achievement, IQ, or something else? Would we still call them gifted if one of those things was lacking? i.e. -- is there some specific thing that must be in place in order for an individual to be gifted?

Every kid is different. Gifted kids are more different--even from each other.

The University of Georgia has an entire graduate level, semester course called "Characteristics of Gifted Children and Youth". It's pretty much the prerequisite for all the other classes in the Gifted and Creative Education program.

We like to focus on IQ because it is (theoretically, kind of) a constant. But few schools give cognitive assessments to every student, and teachers are not particularly good at recognizing when a student's cognitive ability is beyond what is expected of them in the classroom. That's partly because teachers are very good at training kids to keep their heads down and not make a fuss. Certain personality types are more likely to complain if the work they are given does not match their ability, and gender certainly plays a role.

Some parents do advocate for the children, but many parents do not realize that their child is gifted, and many assume that the schools know what's best for their children. Some schools provide a good array of services for gifted students. Some entire districts do not.

I think gifted = smart. (?)

I grew up thinking other people were very talented at acting like they didn't understand very much.  I like the theory that gifted people understand more better.  If you explain yourself, and maybe re explain yourself I can understand what you said.  My whole life I've seen so many people say, "I don't understand," even when someone rephrases it and whatever.  I really used to think they were faking it.

Your other story (I forgot which thread it was on) about a school gifted program calling a high iq "not a sign of giftedness because the kid didn't meet the checklist of common gifted traits" is silly and sad.  

Is more education for academically gifted students truly beneficial.  If it is truly beneficial then wouldn't non-gifted students benefit?  Yes, but not as much.  Well even some is better than none.  Can we add more education to the regular classroom? Yes, but that would be harder on struggling learners.  

Many people would be happy to no longer mention gifted if the public schools could just freely educate all children at a beneficially challenging level and support every child with any learning struggles.  
(not me. I'd probably still say it if a situation fitted it it. I like speaking plainly.)

Ah, I'm with you :-) Well, then:

- I, personally, am here because DS's academic achievement makes him difficult to cater for in a school environment and I value the BTDT I read here. He also has the typical intensity and I value the BTDTs for that too, but I think if he had this without the academic achievement, I'd be happy talking about it in any congenial parenting forum.

- However, it doesn't surprise me, far less bother me, if other people find it useful to be here for other reasons! I think if someone finds their child has a lot in common with other children discussed here, so that this feels like the most useful place to discuss their child, why not?

- I do think it would be likely to lead to confusion if someone said that their child was definitely gifted who didn't have either high academic achievement or high IQ test scores, though.

I'm always trying to be radical about things, but I would say that intellectually gifted means "having a mind which natively prefers clear, deep thought, nearly all the time." I find I have a sence about someone really, really, really fast, and I'm unlikely to shift much after that, though it does happen. Numbers certainly would not make me think of changing my opinion.

I am becomming actively annoyed with the "academic precocity" definition of giftedness. Partly this is because of my pre-existing biases, but a lot of it is from watching my 3 yr old drool (ok, a little too literally) on anatomy posters _while_ a relative complains to me that I'm not teaching him kindergarden material. He cares about what an "ulna" is, he's not ready to care how to spell "ulna," and, frankly, I think that's partly _because_ he's smart enough to know his own mind in a rather literal sence. Oh, and partly becasue precocity vanishes, and I think giftedness is pretty fundamental to the self.

Anyway, why I define it that way:
1) A mind that NATIVELY prefers... Because some people cultivate the preference for clear, deep thought, but when they tire, they get less interested in it. Those people might well be smart, and I like 'em and they're "my people," but people I think of as _gifted_ are the ones who get nore deep and clearheaded when they get a little drunk or a little tired. I'm reminded of a young prof who, in a crisis of faith about academics, grilled some poor guy at the museum about an unrelated field, the poor prof just couldn't help but think about SOMETHING when he was that frustrated and miserable, and geologist boy was in just... handy. This may be a literalistic interpretation.

2) A mind that... PREFERS deep... This is the real core of it, I think. That the person would rather be thinking deeply and clearly than not. That it's a strait preference and not related to a feeling of duty or whatever. I guess I think I'm "gifted" partly because I'd rather be on here scouring my definition of gifted than... uh... well, I could be SLEEPING, eating my icecream, or drinking my wine right now

3) Deep and Clear thought... Because I think depth and clarity are what sets intellegent thought appart from garden variety "man it's cold in here" kinda thought. I'm reminded of DS taking his first look at a gorilla skeleton, and imediately noticing differences between it and human ones. There's depth: he had thought about human bones enough to spot differences from memory; and there's clarity: that differences in bones lead to differences in motion just made sence to him, he didn't need to be told that. Clarity is also something I think of when DH(mathematician) cuts though the fog of number in my head, and nails "no, that's definitly more, not necessarily much more, but more, becasue things just moved around over here, and you added something here." or "the Jack is the same as the king, because the Queen is gone"

4) Most of the time... Because I think pretty much everyone feels this way sometimes, and deeply gifted people have moments when they really are wanting something else out of life. But I think for gifites, deep and clear thought is the priority, well, most of the time. I'm not sure I have a good example for this one. It's a bit too fuzzy. Damn that "clear" thing I said up there... does 3/4's clear count as "most of the time???

-Mich (I'm gonna stop typing now.)

I just brought up the educational because the first post was a spinoff from a school denying entry to their gifted pullout at a public school because they said hitting the top 99.9% on an iq test doesn't make you gifted unless you also have these common gifted characteristics.  (she said it on another thread- this one's a spin off).   

I agree with a few of your underlying premis.  The "it doesn't shut off when you're not told to perform ".  The "preference to have your mind to stay turned up most of the time.  Some others like it but only for short periods because they tire of it quickly.". Those were awesome!

I'm pretty sure your angst is with the local ladies telling you "why don't you make your kid color inside the lines of the giant letter A instead of comparing saliva to stomach juice.   Um, Just guessing because anatomy charts seem like they kind of are academics.

Just for clarity sake, I suspect that the major reason our school system was refusing to take IQ scores for GT admission b/c dd is 2e and her achievement scores were wildly erratic. Constant high achievement is really what they are looking for coupled with teacher recommendation. 90th - 95th percentile consistently on tests like SRI Lexile and NCLB annual tests would be much more likely to get you ided than 99th today and 55th tomorrow. They do also use behavioral rating scales but that usually happens when the ability scores come in too low.

We did get them to take the IQ scores eventually but not for the "general intellectual ability" id that her sister has despite lower IQ scores. They said that they could only use them for a language arts GT id b/c there is no math ability, social studies ability, or science ability test on the WISC.

So this is what I think happens, we mentally gather together all the people who make the cut off with an IQ test, and ask ourselves, who else 'fits' more with this group than with the default group? Then we ask, who else, if give thoughtful accommodations, would also fit better with this group in one domain, or in multiple domains?

My favorite example is algebra - it's hard for a 7 year olds chubby hands to do algebra, but given a work around for that, the gifted 7 year olds would enjoy it, (at least once the emotional block from enforced underachievement have been overcome)while regular 7 year olds would have neither the interest nor the ability.

So my favorite way to identify gifted kids would be to offer kids chances to participate in meaningful learning opportunities well above what is expected for their age level and see who thrives. Quantifiable? Perhaps we could have kids fill out a form after the experiences noting their level of interest and happiness.

My son thought for a while that the best way would be to ask kids, under lie detector situations, if school was too hard or too easy and which grade they belonged in.

It's also been studied just asking kids in the classroom - who is the smartest boy? who is the smartest girl? Or - which children here need more chances to learn hard stuff? It works quite well. There is an 'it' which IQ tests measure quite well (although far from perfectly) and as humans we know it when we see it in our peers. Except our really quiet or buttoned-up peers perhaps. We gravitate towards people who get our jokes, which depends on shared context, some of that context is all about intelligence.

One thing, I find interesting about 2E is that as the ansynchrony gets larger, it shades into 2E. If a child is ready to discuss college level books at age 9, what are the odds that they are also ready to write 30 page papers about them? Which part of the child do we address, which their mind is craving for, or what their organizational skills allow? And it isn't that discussing books is easier than writing about them. There are plenty of kids who can churn out the long papers efficiently but with superficial levels of thought, but can't follow that deeper level of thought in the discussion. And can you actually teach that kid to write 3 paragraph essays on Dick and Jane books? Maybe, Maybe not.

Shrugs and More Shrugs,
Grinity

I see giftedness as the insatiable desire to acquire knowledge and analyze everything and express this knowledge articulately so that other people notice the difference, the quick ability to notice things that most people don't, outside the box thinking when solving problems, inability to tolerate boredom or accept the status quo and always thinking of ways things could be changed for the better, in addition to creativity.

It's very interesting reading your posts. My children's school seems quite different in that it does use very narrow criteria to identify kids for the gifted program. Each year about 5 kids out of 125 are selected for the G/T program (which is really not intensive, just a one hour weekly pull-out).

My own child did not make the cut off because her score was too low.

But the reason I consider her "gifted" and what brings me to this message board is simply that she is driven to learn all the time. She is insatiably curious and picks up knowledge very easily. That innate desire to learn is not found in all people and is definitely something to be nurtured.

In our limited experience, gifted means having certain intellectual, emotional, sensory, or imaginative overexcitabilities to such a degree that intervention is required. We found the existence of these as well as high scores on aptitude tests did not correlate at all to achievement or interest/drive, at least in our child.

On the other hand, I find the concept of a caged cheetah compelling, and wonder whether certain gifted children--girls in particular--are wired in such a way and so adept at fitting in and meeting expectations that they fool us.

If I were more gifted, these answers might come easier.

I like this and could totally get on board with this.

The only problem I see in implementation (b/c this happens a lot locally to me) is that, if the majority of the kids who show up/enroll are not gifted, the programming morphs to "looking at bugs" like another mom posted about in her thread about summer camps. Rather than weeding out the kids who aren't a match for the program, the program morphs to be a match for who showed up and becomes less and less of a fit for kids who need and want the meaningful, advanced, deep learning opportunities.

But, that is a different thread -- lol!

For me, this is a very interesting question. When I was in grade 2, Ms. Daffin asked me if I spoke English at home (my parents were eastern European in a very WASP (95%) community. The following year, Ms. Daffin had to accept my accerlation through 4th grade after an IQ test. And suddenly I was her second favorite.

DH is an amazing guy who got into Harvard from a small town in PA. A very literal thinking, focused, who probably has a fact file that rivals Britannica. I cannot remember a name unless I visualize it and heard it 3 times. Though I could remember the person's phone number.

Now we have DD, high energy, highly extrovert, other people have commented to me on her brilliance though her first SBV (modified) showed EG, not PG, though she had high math ability since 2, just coming out with stuff and then she had that piano prodigy stuff that comes with mathematical ability. Her next IQ test was up 10 points.

I think there is a range of giftedness and defining a kid is hard. I have had brilliant PhD's in physics commenting on my type of thinking as being serious genius yet I look at them and wonder if they are doing serious drugs. I have done strategy for most of the top investment banks and exchanges in the world and when I was doing it, I thought it was simple work.

Yet, I could never program a super computer or think to create an Iphone.

So my point, is that giftedness is a whole range of things. My kid does the math and the piano like something out of movie, but she also does dance choreography since 18 months. This is what struck me most. Watching her create different dances, and remember them for each song on some CD that helped counting 1-10. There was something determined in her to make this dances specific. Something I noticed that was unusual. At a jazz festival of 100, 000 people she was mentioned and photographed for city of 4MM newspaper because of her dancing for one of the bands.

People have come up to me after a ballet recital and mentioned her, even when in a class of older kids, because she was advanced.

So yes, her IQ is way up there, yes, she is much advanced in math and now 3 years ahead in reading (just from school) and the piano stuff, but then there is the dance stuff and I would say she is gifted in dance. I cannot really define it other than what I said, and she is doing a preprofessional program that many other kids are doing. But you see something.

I was in the store checking out and this really little kid, maybe 3, was asking his mother was comes after 80. She told him 81, then he asked what comes after, 82, then 83, then she asked him what comes next, he thought and said 84. He was gifted. How did I come up with that? Just watching him, seeing him ask, figure it out at 3. I didn't have a check list. I, myself are just brilliant

Ren

I agree that this is probably what actually happens in real life, unless that adults involved are 100% committed to making education work for gifted and unusually gifted kids. That's why I like moving the child to the place where other kids match their ready-to-learn level, instead of trying to modify the existing program to keep a kid with agemates. But then we get our dear 2E kids who would need tons of accommodation to keep up with the kids who share their ready-to-learn level. And would the pace match? No wonder it is a mess!

Ah! There's the rub!

The anatomy stiff (too funny a typo to correct) isn't really academic, because the way DS is approaching it isn't. There is a real difference of quality between an anthropology student learning compairative anatomy, and my son putting together a mental model of motion and body movement. He's just doing regular 3 yr old dig with the toy backhoe stuff, only he desires to do it with more complex systems, and with more abstract ways of approaching the info (a chart rather than an articulated toy). He percieves that bodies must contain mechanical motion-producing parts, and wants to generalize beyond the typical range of a 3yr old's motion study. He only cares what an ulna is called because he wants to be able to communicate with me about it right now, not because he sees a long-term benefit of knowing about ulnas tied to some future anthropological research. Otherwise he'd want to spell it.

And if his relative (male, incidentally) asked him what that bone was called, he'd say he didn't know, just like he did when asked if he knew what an sparrow was. He doesn't want to demonstrate knowing, he wants to hear what the relative is going to say to explain what an sparrow is. He even got mad at me for flashing his hand and telling that he really did know. If his interest were academic, he'd want to demonstrate knowing as well as wanting to learn more/hear a new perspective.

It's totally not precocious, it's just deeper and clearer interest in age-normal preoccupations. The more I remind myself of that the more I manage to give the answers he was looking for, and not bore him with side-tracks... and the more he keeps asking untill he breaks my head... but I kinda like that

I'm enjoying this train of thought becasue it really does help me understand my kid better, y'know. Keep makin' me think folks! This kicks a$$,

Oh, me too, me too!

More and more I'm thinking that we've got it all wrong when we think of "gifted" or "intelligent" as being on the same railroad track as everyone else, just moving along it faster. A gifted 4-year-old is not the equivalent of a NT 8-year-old. And I'm not just talking about asynchronies, I mean that the intellectual process is fundamentally different.

(Like you, I'm alert to this issue because of my kid. Hanni didn't talk early and shows no signs of being an early reader, but she offered her first causal explanation when she was still in the two-word stage. She doesn't fit the stereotype of a gifted kid, but there is so clearly something astonishing about the way her mind works.)

I think that when we test kids early, we are inevitably measuring the wrong thing. What we want to know is whether the kid will grow up to be a person who is capable of complex and sophisticated thought. What we are able to measure is whether the kid is ahead of the curve on mastering the basics. There is some correlation between these, but they are not the same thing.

The science of understanding giftedness is still in its infancy. We need to know a lot more about what is going on in gifted brains, and what signs of that can be detected early on, before we'll really have a handle on this. (I'm thinking along the lines of how it's now possible to identify kids at risk for autism very early on, just by watching videos of the kid and knowing what to watch for. But a lot of basic science had to happen to get to that point.)

Back to my own experience, what I see in my kid is a skill at constructing mental models of a situation and playing around with hypotheses about how it works or how it might work under different conditions. This is a skill that is lacking in some of the grad students in my department's PhD program, and I can pretty much predict who will bomb out of the program based on it. It is absolutely essential for playing in the big leagues, and it cannot be taught. And I can see it in my 4-year-old, but I'm damned if I could figure out how to test for it.

Mine too.

To me the definition of gifted in this forum;s context means the ability of a an individual to learn and master a field of study or endeavor without effort and at a rate of pace that is magnitudes quicker than the average of the general population

*Yes*. Exactly. I too see PhD students who can't do this, when my own child has been able to do it for years. Weird, isn't it?

I think that is not true of all highly intelligent people.

There is different types of thinking. I think visual spatial types are more likely to mentally test hypostheses, or more easily than other types of thinkers but because they are different doesn't mean each is not gifted.

I think the early natural ability is "gifted". Now exceptionally gifted, or profoundly gifted. I think the PG label is too easily thrown about these days.

Having a 2e child, I'm not so sure on this one. I'll admit to not studying Renzulli's concept in any detail, but what Jim Delisle wrote in his Parenting Gifted Kids Book and in this excerpt here has left me with significant concern about that conceptualization of giftedness,

Renzulli says,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In our identification model (Renzulli, Reis, & Smith, 1981), we have used above average ability as the major criterion for identifying a group of students who are referred to as the Talent Pool. This group generally consists of the top 15-20% of the general school population. Test scores, teacher ratings, and other forms of status information" (i.e., information that can be gathered and analyzed at a fixed point in time) are of practical value in making certain kinds of first-level decisions about accessibility to some of the general services that should be provided by a special program.

This procedure guarantees admission to those students who earn the highest scores on cognitive ability tests. Primary among the services provided to Talent Pool students are procedures for making appropriate modifications in the regular curriculum in areas where advanced levels of ability can be clearly documented. It is nothing short of common sense to adjust the curriculum in those areas where high levels of proficiency are shown. Indeed, advanced coverage of traditional material and accelerated courses should be the "regular curriculum" for youngsters with high ability in one or more school subjects.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semart13.html

He also says that it is important to have these decisions made by human beings, not a formula. Does that mean somebody with an ax to grind might apply Renzulli's criteria in the way that Delisle describes? Sure it does! When you give a team of human beings the authority to make an educational decision on their own best judgment, anything might happen. But that doesn't mean what Delisle describes is the way Renzulli intended the model to be used.

I considered going to graduate school at UConn (where Renzulli works), but then I saw the 80s clipart in some of the presentations that department had on the web. Call me overexcitable, but I just would not be able to handle it. Those would get under my skin.

I think Hunter Elementary uses the 3 ring concept. They definitely want demonstrated commitment to task.

I want to ask, though, is it any task?

Will the gifted student that is obsessed with how a radio works, going to be the same about how to build a chair?

So, is he saying that 15-20% of the school population would be considered or would be guaranteed admission (sorry I didn't read the whole article beyond what you linked)? Not to make Delisle the ultimate authority on giftedness, but I happen to like him ... in any case, I know the he has expressed concern in other places that using above average ability not superior ability isn't a good way to create programs the meet the needs of the gifted.

eta: so I've gone back and quickly perused the article and it appears to me that he is using the top 15-20% as the group who would be considered based on "above average ability." Once you've got that piece, you also have to exhibit task commitment and creativity to be gifted. Since he does seem to focus a lot on gifted behaviors over innate differences that make one a gifted individual, I do see as how this could be implemented the way pps have seen in their school where a child who is ided is bumped out of GT based on lack of task commitment.

Where I'm at, I see some of that too. You never lose your GT identification but you are not guaranteed services/placement in advanced or GT classes unless you show

Most conversations about giftedness are pretty school based .because. the intervention or community response to giftedness only makes sense in an educational setting.  It doesn't require physical treatment.  It's not a medical condition.  It's a thinking condition.  That's under the school's jurisdiction.  In other words they're the only ones that are interested at all about identifying giftedness for the purpose of doing anything about it (which varies by state).   

There is funding for the arts and science and businesses that recruit talented adult people.  But they're not looking to define giftedness as a whole or offer services to gifted people carte blanc, they're looking for a specific thing that fits into their project or purpose.  Maybe marketers also research for customers for nerdy items.  Hey- maybe that's who should identify gifted kids early.  Radio Shack & Barnes and Nobles have already salaried market research teams to define their targets.

What about a child makes a parent hang out on a giftedness forum?  I have kids.  I am  interested in education.

That's a good question. 
I also feel a little fellowship.  Fellowship is strange.  Critics say it feels good to hang out with like-minded people but it makes you dull because you all know the same things.  Those who participate in fellowship disagree, since nobody often sees eye to eye and how can you hash out the finer points except in the fellowship of interested parties.  And anyway, we don't know the same things.  What is unique to the Internet is that every word is recorded over time.  That's cool because it makes it more like an interactive book / fellowship mash up.   

I still think looking at charts is academic.  And I'm glad you are able to facilitate his learning (I reworded "teach him" just for you.  <3).  I'm really glad he gets to have more time where he's thriving instead of being stuck where he wasn't.
It's Still studying Books.

I had a friend long ago who had small children who said, "somebody should make a picture book encyclopedia set with all the knoweledge in the world for little babies to "read".  I think they made it but it's called You Tube.  

Fascinating thread and very educational for me as I am new to this community. What draws me here and thus led me to define myself as a mom of a gifted child? I see that my son is in a neverending investigative process of his experience. And he seems to have an uncanny ability to recall, build, compare and integrate the knowledge he acquires. It is mentally exhausting and awe-inspiring to get to parent such a child.

On playing vs. teaching learning, my thoughts (however unsolicated): playing is a child's work of recreating, understanding, and integrating their world. My son's play has never had the rich, creative expression that I experienced as a child, which disturbed me for quite some time. But I have come to believe that my son's "play" is within the language of concepts. Wondering about numbers, anatomy, geography, chemistry, etc. and activities associated with these provides him escape and a great sense of pleasure.

There's a lot I'd like to discuss in this bit here, but my mind is going in about three different directions. Let's see if I can get this sorted out.

First, let me situate myself. I am a[n allegedly] grown-up PG kid who became a public school teacher after a few careers. Although I have had many gifted kids in my classroom, I have never worked in a school that has a formal, functioning gifted program.

The quirk of my career is that I have much more experience dealing with students who have disabilities, but also working with school to meet the needs of students who do not have IEPs or Modification Plans. My district has allegedly implemented a Comprehensive Student Support System, and when there was funding for it, that was allegedly my job.

With that background, I have to say that the notion that you can only provide services to a certain number of kids, or that kids must compete for slots in a program, is alien to me--unless we're talking about some pretty intensive services that involve agencies outside the school district.

Under IDEA, the question is not "What can we provide with the resources and the staffing that we have in place?" The question is asked, again and again, "How do we meet the needs of the individual student?" If the student has a demonstrated need, the school finds a way, or they find themselves in a world of hurt, paperwork, due process, civil rights complaints, and/or federal consent decrees. However, gifted education is not funded and regulated the way IDEA is in the USA. Even when there are laws on the state books about gifted education, those laws are often just ignored.

When my sister and I were in middle school, the school district got a gifted program [huzzah!], went around testing all these kids by teacher recommendation, yadayadayada. When all was said and done, I made the cutoff, and my older sister did not. OK, fast forward 30 odd years, and I'm a teacher. My older, better-focused sister is a medical doctor, making, perhaps, 12 or 20 times as much money as I am. What Renzulli's 3-Ring concept means to me is that both of us should have been in the gifted program, and that seems right to me.

However, an ideal gifted program would--like a special ed. program--have an array of services for a variety of needs. In SpEd, most students are in general ed classes most of the time. In my general ed class, I provide some differentiation for students with disabilities as well as some challenge assignments for students who can do a little bit more. A tiny percentage of SpEd students have such intensive needs that they end up with home-based instruction, in special schools, or in residential placements.

It's this array of services that we do not generally have for gifted students, even when there is A Gifted Program in the school.

As far as bumping a kid out because they're slacking off, that's a separate issue that I'll call motivation leverage. People whose brains have been fully matured by hard experience are trying to influence the behavior of a brain that is not fully mature in order to make things easier for the immature brain in the long term. That's what parenting and teaching are all about, right?

Well, when you are trying to get motivation leverage on the issue of decent grades, you are very interested in finding positive and negative consequences that actually mean something significant to the child. For a gifted student, participation in the gifted program may be a carrot. To me, that's what the work habits clause is about. Your mileage may vary.

But motivation, executive function, social and emotional concerns are all educational needs that would ideally be addressed in an array of services for gifted students.

OMG! I think I finally ran out of things to say!

This could easily move into one of my other pet peeves: lack of differentiation within gifted programs for HG-PG kids. However, to avoid going off on that rant, I'll try to rein myself back to Renzulli.

I do see the benefit of casting a broader net and I really do think that the ability measures used by schools are poor measures for some gifted kids (and can overestimate the ability of some more average kids as well) which makes that even more important since they may be missing some who are more able than they appear on those measures.

On the hand, if the kids we are talking about are truly right around top 15-20% of intelligence (say 80th percentile kids), I don't actually think that they are gifted no matter how motivated and creative they may be. They are possibly talented, but not gifted in the way I define gifted, which as usual may be a poor definition depending on who you are asking .

I wonder if your school had used a better identifying instrument, if your sister would indeed have been identifying without resorting to Renzulli's 3-Ring concept.

I also question your idea that gifted 'should' in any way result in 'able to make more money.' I think that giftedness is a way of interacting with the world, and for some highly or profoundly gifted folks, that way makes them less likely to find their way to a high paying job. I think character attributes are very important in life, but sort of tangential to giftedness. I've also heard the idea that if identification instruments are any good, they should be able to target and predict who will win a Nobel Prize. I disagree, I think that testing, IQ and achievement are good at helping to design educational experiences for kids, and that is all. I agree that the rest of the traits are important for life, but I think an underachieving gifted kid deserves a subject acceleration, independent of their behavior, just based on their current level of knowledge or someone's suspicion, the same way no one says 'You haven't earned the right to use your hearing aid today.'

I wish that all school adopted Renzulli's methods of enriching the whole talent pool. But I more wish that Renzulli's casual 'of course we place the child where at their current ability level' was uiversally seen as normal. But we live in a world were 1st grade teachers may not even have access to 3rd grade level reading assesments, and see nothing wrong with stopping a reading assesment when the child reaches grade level.

It's almost as if we are concerned with two seperate topics - 1) some kids are intellectually ready for work that is usually only able to be done by older kids (although they many need accomidation for their handwriting, stamina, etc.)
2) the school experience itself doesn't offer enough to the bright child. Children are individuals who have individual interests, and learn more when they have freedom to combine their interests with with learning. Seriously this to me has very little to do with my definition of giftedness and just sounds like a very good idea. I'd be quite suprised if it didn't work well with every student.

Hope that helps,
Grinity

As a PG public school teacher, I would, of course, have to agree with you! Salary, GPA, GRE scores, golf handicaps, fair market value of home and/or stock portfolio are all numerical measures of success for some people that, I, personally reject. Yet, I know few people who would look at me in my little one bedroom attached rental unit, compare me to my sister and her houses, and conclude that I was more successful, and that it must be because I have a higher IQ!

We are not just concerned with two separate topics here, we are concerned with multiple separate topics. It is my opinion that, if you are going to pull highly capable students out of the general ed classroom for instruction that is more in line with their abilities, the students with high cognitive ability and the students with above average ability and task commitment will benefit from being in each other's presence. In many cases, this will be more beneficial than either instructing the students of high ability in very small groups (perhaps a group of one) or leaving them in a heterogenous group for all of their classes.

While I am dreaming of an array of services, such an array would, of course, include both acceleration and enrichment, so that some students would be in classes that did not match their calendar age. I have a fantasy, for example, about a three-year middle school, where students could elect to compact and accelerate a couple of core classes a year, and finish middle school in two years, with a small cohort of capable and motivated students. If they decided they did not want to accelerate any more after the first, second or third semester, they could step out of the program and fill in their schedule with electives.

Other classes could be set up as a tutorial, where students could spend most of the class in the library or computer lab, working on a project that interests them, and checking in with a teacher once a week.

{sigh} Maybe I need to start a new thread: Fantasy Gifted Programs.

Since the topic of making money has been brought up, I think the creativity factor of Renzuilli is at question.

I think you can make serious money at anything, as long as you apply creativity to the model. Whether you are Gates, Bloomberg or Sam Zell. Even on a much smaller model, being a plumber and having a franchise like Rotorooter.

So is the plumber that applied his creativity and was task oriented that created a multi-million dollar franchise system, more gifted than the 150 IQ that trudged through a PhD in biology without thinking anything new.

But we don't have a live specimen of the latter. Or a Henry Kissinger who applies his knowledge of the world to become a gun runner with an old Hong Kong family. Now I digress.

I think the topic is too varied to have one answer. It is like economics. Not pure science.

Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.
     - Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955

Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.
     - Cesare Lombroso, 1835 - 1909

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
     - Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900

Talent is that which is in a man's power. Genius is that in whose power a man is.
     - James Russell Lowell, 1819 - 1891

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
     - E. B. White, 1899 - 1985

Man is a genius when he is dreaming.
     - Akiro Kurosawa, 1910 - 1998

Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is inexplicable.
     - Margot Fonteyn, 1919 - 1991

I'm very late to this party, but I just had to comment on this one-- AB.SO.LUTE.LY insightful and probably exactly (no, really) what I'd have said if I were more succinct about these things.

I should probably just leave it at that, but y'all know me...

I think that precosity is just one of the things which is most notable earliest in many gifted persons. That may be why there is a consensus (er-- or a sort of consensus) that it matters and is a useful benchmark for identification.

The earliest signs of giftedness in my own experience?

Keen observation and recall, often from.... well, birth-- and often with it, a complete upending of ND milestones, which seem to not even apply at all to HG+ kiddos. Not only keen observation and recall, but a way of experiencing reality which is deeply constructivist by its very nature. Not all of them communicate with others about this, and not all of them demonstrate any particular skill very precociously... but there is an understanding of things which is so stunningly EFFICIENT that it is a little awe-inspiring. These are not children that make the same mistake twice (unless they are unvestigating what a higher N does to things BTDT ), and many of them learn to think many steps ahead in cause-and-effect long, long, long before they are hypothetically (via ND milestones) 'capable' of that sort of thing.

But that very precosity of intellectual development (as opposed to precocious knowledge/understanding, which I'm pretty sure isn't the case) can produce an entirely different trajectory, I'd say-- so no, it's definitely not like a bullet train on the same tracks as the freight locomotives. It's fundamentally different to have experienced "I don't want to use that object to pull myself up to a standing position, because-- well, THEN WHAT? I'd be stuck. I should consider how to move about better. Or at least how to sit back safely on the floor. I'll think on that."

A ND child is never going to "catch up" to that particular moment. The moment is simply radically different between a gifted infant and one that is neurotypical.

I also detest the focus on precosity because it comes with a LOT of baggage for gifted children who happen to be unusual enough for adults to praise/remark upon it. Because at some point, particular skills will no longer be extraordinary-- then what? Is the child no longer "extraordinary?" That's as obviously ridiculous as praising a person for being an early adopter of a particular technology; being an iPhone owner seven years ago would have been quite noteworthy...now? not-so-much.

Ooooooo you can READ!! Impressive enough at three. Not so much at twenty-three. (I hope.)



So in short, my definition of what it is to be 'gifted' is partly about pacing (sort of) but also about a fundamentally different way in which the hardware works.

It's about having a more efficient processor, basically. Other bits of hardware may get in the way (2e) of demonstrating that processor speed, and there's no way to observe the difference whe TYPICAL tasks are presented without being open-ended enough to allow for divergent methods to be obvious.

I agree completely with MegMeg regarding how blazingly obvious this difference is in some settings that favor the more efficient processor, too. There are some things which cannot be taught. That instinctive grasp of cause-and-effect is one of them. It leads to precosity only in that it makes learning inevitable, instinctive, efficient, and continuous.


I also love Grinity's observations about providing what all students need removing the need for the label in the first place.

And no, I could care less what it's called. You could call it 'double-secret-probationary-school' and as long as it was appropriate, I'd be thrilled to have my kid in that program.

Asynchrony arises in my own understanding of this model primarily because of physical development which lags cognitive development, but also cognitive development which varies from typical (again, resulting in turning the milestones and sequence of "ND" on its head). My DD was quite happy to talk Shakespeare and evolutionary theory at seven. Not so happy to write a paragraph about her neighborhood (or anything else, for that matter).



Great, thought-provoking discussion.

Yes and yes! It is hard to measure, but easy to recognize and I happen to know a lot of kids who score quite highly on achievement tests and some on group ability tests who really don't fit this definition. I don't know as many who've taken IQ tests, but of those I do I've seen more false negatives than false positives although the false negatives tend to have some major scatter that makes it evident that there may be something else going on.

I guess that's why I tend to fall back to my default of requiring high IQ b/c, while the IQ test itself may not be exactly measuring the difference, it seems to correlate well enough with whatever it is that makes gifted individuals different.

On a different topic, I hadn't seen LaTexican's post and liked the EB White quote:
So, I read it to dds and dd11 gets into a discussion of "crack" and "pot" and drug analogies e.g. Lewis Carroll. Lord, I have to worry about this girl!

Oh thankyou! THIS is my children. None of whom are particularly academically precocious. But my EG/PG child in particularly, was observably different in the way you are describing from birth. The number of "wow" / "only she would do that" comments she had as a baby were constant.

I know this isn't the technical definition from any official standpoint, but I personally define gifted as a minimum of 99th percentile on a standardized test. Beyond that, there is a certain internal spark or drive that is also needed.

It is really a matter of perspective. In a university town where most the kids are very bright and have parents with phDs, it isn't unusual to have an entire 1st grade class scoring at LEAST 90th percentile on a (nationally) standardized test. So from that point of view, 99th percentile as the bare minimum to be considered gifted makes sense. Compared to a broader population, most of these kids might seem gifted, but within this little academic nerd world bubble they just seem average.

So, are you talking about an achievement test here? To play devil's advocate:

Would any kid who, say, hit the 99th percentile once on any achievement test be gifted? How about if he is in the 99th percentile locally but the local area is very low performing? What if he was in the 99th percentile once and then generally tracked around the 90th or 95th or even the 75th most of the time? What if he legitimately had a high average IQ (let's say 115), but was a hard worker and/or higher performer than that?

How about the opposite: What if he legitimately had a sky high IQ but was 2e and rarely or never achieved at the 99th percentile? Would that kid still be gifted?

Well, keep in mind that this is just my totally made-up and pretty arbitrary definition of gifted. I was answering the original question as asked.

Fortunately, it isn't my job to determine who is gifted or not so I don't really have to wrestle with the difficult questions. My "quick and dirty" answer is 99th percentile or above on a standardized test (including an IQ test). I would expect MOST truly gifted kids to have the 99th percentile in both academic tests AND IQ tests. But, I personally think the IQ tests are more important in determining giftedness than academic tests. As you say, a kid could just be an eager achiever and do well on academic tests but only have an average or above average IQ. I wouldn't consider them gifted.

2E kids are a totally different bag of chips, and not an area I'd even dare have an opinion on. I simply don't know enough about it. I would say, though, that the 99th percentile rule of thumb would still apply, but what kind of tests would be used is beyond me. Certainly, any kids that had an IQ that is above 99th percentile even if they scored poorly on academic tests I would consider gifted. Like I said, I think the IQ test is far more significant to telling us their intelligence than any academic achievement test. (If it was switched the the academic achievement test was high but the IQ was average I wouldn't say they were gifted.)

But, honestly, I gave the 99th percentile answer because it is an easy rule of thumb and one that I tend to have in the back of my mind. It isn't "real". It's just my not-too-well-formed opinion. I have no authority or even business in determining if any given child is gifted or not.

In truth, the definition of giftedness might be more like the definition of pornography... you know it when you see it. There are many intangible qualities that tests cannot capture adequately. And I personally think academic achievement means very little compared to IQ tests. Many PG kids struggle with school for a variety of reasons.

Oh, this reminded me of my son as a baby/toddler and I had to laugh! I never suspected he was anything other than normal, but I was always entertained by him. He was so alert and monitoring everything from the moment he could open his eyes. He attempted crawling once or twice, then like a week later could magically crawl with perfection.. same thing with walking.. he pulled himself up and edged along a table once or twice, then went back to crawling. About a month later, bam, he was walking like he'd been doing it for months. He was this way with puzzles, and legos and learning to read... you'd seem him try/struggle/attempt a few times, then nothing, then, like magic, he would master it in a single attempt.

(The specific thing that made me laugh was remembering when he decided he could walk - it was at airport security while I was attempting to put my shoes back on! Stinker let go of the table, and just walked off. The security people were giving me looks like "duh, watch your kid" and I was completely dumbfounded thinking "WTF! Since when can you walk kid??")

epoh, that's funny! Nice timing on his part, of course.

I also love the observation about pornography, and this was absolutely one of the first things that (admittedly snarkily) went through my head with this topic...

when you see it, you just know.

It's like defining "charisma" or "star power." You just know-- it's unmistakable once you've seen it firsthand.

This is interesting and probably true. I wonder, then, why educators and parents who have seen "gifted" still call a lot of other things gifted as well. For instance, I know dd13 and a few of her cohort are truly HG+ and they are very, very evidently quite different from the large majority of the GT ided kids with whom they attend school. On the other hand, I still know parents of a lot of other kids who differ dramatically from this cohort as well as educators who still call these dramatically different kids gifted as well.

Then again, I have had educators who are quite bright themselves be pretty upfront with me and tell me that the majority of the GT ided kids are high achievers, not gifted so maybe the ability to recognize the difference requires the individual to be very intelligent him/herself.

"Other classes could be set up as a tutorial, where students could spend most of the class in the library or computer lab, working on a project that interests them, and checking in with a teacher once a week."

Beckee,

Your description above reminded me of a student I once worked with while I was in school. It is like the Oxford tutorial system.
When I was in college I worked a summer with a student from Singapore. She said that she went to high school using the Oxford tutorial system. I always thought that would be just great. She did however mention the stress that most of your grade was based on finale exams, and the work that you did was for learning the material and not grading. I often have thought about it. and yes, this does sound nice.

I wanted to mention this example to suggest that maybe your described model of learning is not so impossible. Maybe it could be implemented on some very small scale at first (sort of a school within a school approach).

anyway just though I would mention this