Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research The inconvenience of being verbally gifted

New Blog entry at The More Child. http://themorechild.com/2010/07/20/being-inconvenient/

Interesting article. For someone who has two boys, one very strong in Math and the other in Language, it made me me question myself. I do tend to worry about 'the nerd' much more. I think one reason for this is that my gifted Verbally guy seems to have a sixth sense in language. He knows when to speak up and when to 'dumb down' in conversation. He can charm any adult with his questioning, vocabulary and humor, but cuts his language right down naturally when talking with his age peers. He's not even making an effort 'not to sound so smart', it all just seems so natural. I think this is part of his verbal gift - being audience appropriate, and makes his social life a relative 'walk in the park'.
On the other hand, I do know that he finds it personally frustrating that gifted Math kids get further accelerated in an obvious way, and there is a lot to be said for Verbal precocity not being appreciated by society.
Thanks for the article.

Oh my goodness, that is my daughter!!! This particularly struck a chord: "an uncanny grasp of cause and effect."

I agree with the blogger, it takes a lot for me to say "wow" anymore, but this is a wow.

"verbally* gifted kids (and by extension I guess, adults) have it harder vis a vis their artistically and mathematically/science gifted peers."

Well, first I'd have to say that all gifted kids can have a hard time of things, just in different ways. But -- and doubtless there are powerful exceptions to this -- I don't believe verbally gifted adults have a harder time of things. As we know, what applies in the school setting does not necessarily translate to the "real world". And in my experience, strong oratory skills, persuasive abilities, technical writing expertise, sharp sense of humor, etc., etc., are very much in demand and very much appreciated, particularly if they are coupled with -- as lulu mentioned -- the ability to modulate one's language to fit the audience.

Doubtless, a math/science precocity mixed with verbal skills is a potent match, but I think being too skewed in the math (and, to a lesser extent, science) direction can be alienating throughout life.

I don't know if I have had a 'wow' moment, but I haven't read the entire article she references, so perhaps I should refrain from saying too much. But I do agree with Clay in that I don't see that the verbal child has it any harder than the others.

From personal experience: I am a cause and effect 'gifted' and have found myself in numerous situations where people would become infuriated by my predictions coming true and accusing me of having privileged information when it was just my observation of the situation. Did this cause distress? Yes, but nothing I couldn't handle. And enough times of my observations and predictions; people started to accept that I had the same information they had, but was able to see the pattern and potential outcome.

It's always potentially problematic and divisive when you start to say one group has it worse than another. But some of what she says rings true in my family. I think it can be easier, depending on the school, to accelerate a kid gifted in math. However, a kid whose verbally gifted, wants to discuss history and philosophy when in 2nd grade, won't be accelerated to middle school where he would be able to discuss those topics. And once you get to that level, output becomes a problem as much of the discussion is in the form of written work. I've had this discussion many times about kids that are in logic stage but still have grammar stage skills, to use the trivium terminology. It's just not easy to accelerate those kids. Everyone kept saying "Just wait until he gets to middle school or high school" but emotionally, intellectually, my son was dying, he would not have made it. Ironically, however, math is what my son complained most about and what ruined school and learning for him, by not being challenged.

I agree. My son inherited his verbal gifts from his dad who works as a supervisor for a university. My husband is not a professor, like his geology professor sister, but he is much more fun to be around. My husband's verbal gifts and "acting ability" were very useful when he worked in military intelligence years ago. His verbal abilities made him very versatile and he has never had trouble finding a job. He has retired twice and was at an age when a lot of people have trouble finding a job and he not only found one right away but they are trying to talk him out of retiring in a few years.

I think that verbally gifted adults who are also performance oriented/charismatic may be in demand, but being a verbally gifted member of a larger group can be very frustrating for an adult.

The ideas posted on the blog really resonated with me. I think that one part of the issue is that being verbally gifted and seeing long term cause/effect relationships is less product based than a lot of other types of gifts. There's less to look at/objectively evaluate than an arts based gift, or even a STEM based gift.

I think that another part of the issue is that it is a gift that usually requires interaction with others. If those others don't happen to share that skill set, there is often resentment (and sometimes outright hostility) when we challenge ideas, or insist on delving beyond the surface of something that has been presented. Many of us have stories about one of our children being verbally slapped down for challenging a teacher. I don't think that happens just because it is child to adult. I think it happens because too many adults can't stand the idea of being "wrong". Too many adults are bothered by ambiguity or the possibility that multiple perspectives might be reasonable. Even in the face of glaring evidence to the contrary, there are adults who are completely unable or unwilling to allow anyone to challenge their point of view (reading the discussion boards responding to some of the articles about Ms. Sherrod was...wow...).

To me, fully vetting an idea is common sense and time saving in the long run, but I've come to realize that there are a distressing number of people out there who can't separate idea from ego. When those people are your supervisors, those reactions are every bit as devestating as they are from a classroom teacher who runs down a gifted child for speaking up in class. I was chastised (and retaliated against) by one supervisor for asking follow-up questions rather than accepting whatever incomplete responses I was offered in response to my questions (and this in the context of a "staff development" aimed at "constructing" a "shared understanding"). I was told by another supervisor that I "intimidate" others--not because of my interaction style, tone or word choice (all of which are acknowledged to be polite and respectful)--but because I "think too deeply" and (supposedly) my colleagues can't keep up (which even at the time I considered to be a gross lack of respect for my colleagues).

I used to take these criticisms painfully to heart. Fortunately, most of my colleagues are not the insecure people that my supervisors make them out to be, and it eventually became clear (long stories...)that it was my supervisors who were threatened. So for me? Being verbally gifted in the workplace means waging a constant internal battle between speaking up and risking a personal attack from my supervisor, or staying silent out of pure self-preservation and feeling like part of the problem. Sometimes I think it's like watching a horror movie. You've watched these movies, you know the pattern, you can't believe that the characters are going to split up and look for their friend, but apparently they haven't noticed the pattern because they are going to DO IT ANYWAY! And at some point (even if all of the gore/violence/etc didn't turn you away), you just can't keep watching these movies because you can't stand to watch the same stupid pattern repeat itself over and over and over again.

Or sometimes I think it's like being Cassandra and seeing outcomes no one else (with power) will look at. I've always found that story painful--the injustice of it sends me right over the edge!

I'm sure that if I chose to be an administrator, this experience would be lessened, but darn it--I don't WANT to be an administrator. I find it exciting to lead, but not to manage, and I'd rather problem solve at the front lines level than at the behind the scenes "all powerful" level. So...I foresee more time spent beating my head against the wall in the future, but perhaps less often since I am now better able to judge when a request for input really....isn't. I have had some good supervisors over the years. Maybe another one is right around the corner? Oh well....a gal can dream.....

Just want to say I'm absolutely not into the "who has it harder" game. What resonated with me is that we have at least some societal recognition of what a math nerd is. We don't really have the same recognition for . . . I don't even know quite what to call it.

"Verbally gifted" doesn't quite capture Persson's description of "persuasive argument . . . and the precocious ability to question, analyse and think critically about philosophical, ethical, moral, sociological, political and historical issues."

It's harder to quantify, and it doesn't have a convenient readily-understood label. I think it's also talked about less even in the gifted community, because it's not something we know how to test for (although it probably correlates somewhat with tests of "verbal" ability).

And I think there are unique difficulties that go with being such a person. Other people do tend to see them as obnoxious know-it-alls, if not outright control-freaks who think they have to be right all the time.

But suffering isn't a contest. I don't think it's meaningful to talk about it being worse to be this or that type of gifted. I just think it's valuable to recognize that the different types exist, and this is one that I think is under-recognized, and it was thrilling for me to see it described. I think my daughter is going to be like that. My father, who I admire very much, is also like that.

WAAAA-HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I cannot stop laughing!!!!

MegMeg -- Good points. I guess what I was trying to say is not who has it worse, but that verbally gifted adults can have it better than verbally gifted kids.

Taminy -- I'm so sorry to hear about your experiences. For a variety of reasons, I've been spared the bad boss so far, but I've seen it happen to both my parents in rather drastic ways and to dh to a lesser extent. I think it has less to do with a certain type of giftedness than it does with being extremely competent and having an insecure boss.

Would you consider doing a *stint* of admin? I didn't want to do it either until I accidently found myself in a hugely admin position... and discovered, hey, it wasn't half bad, I was good at it, and you get to play a lot of mental chess/do a lot of strategy, solve and avoid problems, etc., etc. There are some front line aspects you miss, but then there's all this new stuff that you get to do... it kind of evens out, especially if you know it's not forever.

Ditto on the idea that there isn't much point in arguing over which group "has it worse". Not being mathematically or artistically gifted myself (in fact, artistically competent would be a stretch ), I can't speak that directly to the difficulties of the mathematically or artistically gifted. When I responded, I didn't mean to imply that the differences are "more" or "less" problematic in a global sense--only that I think that those are among the differences that create challenges for the verbally gifted. And I use the term verbally gifted simply because it was used in the blog, not because I necessarily am sure that it is the term. It was the description of the skills/experiences, not the label, that felt familiar to me.

I think that the intersection between the analytical/big picture strengths and the verbal strengths is the need for less time to process new information before responding to it. In other words, strong analytical skills are certainly not the monopoly of the "verbally gifted", but being able to hear, synthesize and respond verbally in a very short time frame, MAY be. It may also be what trips the negative reactions, since the person who presented the initial information may not have the same skill and therefore feels put on the spot or attacked when questioned. I don't know...just a guess based on some experiences I've had.

Clay, thanks for the nice thoughts I mostly really like my job. I've had jobs that were more administrative, and while I like the brainstorming/problem solving aspects of it, I really dislike other parts of it. I'm definitely a boots on the ground kind of person. I want to try it and implement it myself, rather than be in charge of other people trying it and implementing it, if you know what I mean. And, as I said, I have had some good supervisors. When I'm stuck with a supervisor who feels threatened by rigorous discussions of an idea, I try to work around it. Mostly I've just found ways to orient my attention and energy into the parts of the job that are less impacted by peoples' egos. And, while it was a bit of a painful journey, I have reached a place where I no longer believe every little thing a person tells me, so when I do jump in with both feet, I'm better able to live with the outcomes--It was a good day when I finally realized that: "...and I'm not the only one who thinks so..." is really just another version of "...I have a friend who has this problem..." Offering to listen to the concerns of the supposed "others" started leading to a lot of backpedaling. Just wish I'd figured that out sooner--it would have saved me a lot of angst along the way!

Interesting read... I'm not sure if I agree with everything, though. I'm fairly globally gifted and actually kept going back and forth between majoring in English or some sort of science. I ended up going the science route since I thought it'd be easier to get a job in the long run (oh, how naive I was, I had no clue what academia is really like...). But I've always fluctuated between the two. I almost dropped everything to become a lawyer in college and even to this day I still dream of writing books or going back to law school even though I do like what I do.

I say that all because I actually really didn't have a problem with the verbal part in school. Granted, I went to a pretty decent school (especially HS). I was able to take multiple foreign language classes (very much a love of mine), we had a strong debate team, and we had all AP/honor English classes where we did a lot of essay writing, so it was something you could do to your ability. If anything math/science was more of a drudgery for me because you had to get tracked into certain classes and since I came to the school system late I was stuck into some lower classes that bored me to death (well, and even some of the AP science classes had teachers that had no clue what they were doing!!).

In elementary it was similar, we always did a lot of projects for language type of things so it wasn't restrictive but for math I remember doing A LOT of worksheets and being bored out of my mind. I have specific memories about wanting to learn more complex things and being told I was too young and had to wait until we go to that grade level. It also helped that my parents fed my need for books at home and even in elementary they never restricted my choice of adult books. The one big exception was grammar. I HATED grammar worksheets...

ETA: I'm not trying to say it's easier one way or another. Probably in my experience I was more fulfilled in the language arts side growing up than the math side but, again, that had a lot to do with my family (lots of very verbally gifted adults e.g. my grandma whose idea of a good time was to read the newspaper to look for grammar mistakes and then send them to my dad in the mail :D).

Thank you for posting the link, Dazed&Confuzed. I think the challenges of the verbally gifted (as defined in relation to the link) are greater in adulthood perhaps than childhood. I come from a proud tradition of "whistle blowers" who could see problems others missed or ignored, and the penalties to those who stand up (or stand out) in those ways are harsh indeed. There is no question that is a kind of giftedness, seeing what others don't and acting on it.

I don't think anyone cares about any "contest" relating to who has it harder (among the gifted). I would not waste time worrying about that.

Thanks again Dazed&Confuzed.

I agree!

Me too. I'm not convinced that being verbally gifted is more difficult, but it was interesting to some challenges they may face being highlighted.

When I was younger, I lived in NJ. They treated math & English (particularly grammar) acceleration equally. I excelled in both (though I believe I have now lost both as an adult - ha). I moved to GA, and they did not recognize my advanced English as a reason to subject accelerate me, again, at least in grammar. So I feel your verbal son's frustration, especially since I actually enjoyed English more. Of course, I won't go into my math frustrations being a GIRL and accelerating.


This struck out to me, as it is my worry too for DS6. I had/have the ability to "dumb down", and I really hope he does too. It's sad, but it helps relieve a lot of issues with peers, especially during the middle school years!

Wow, and here I thought I was the only one! I'm not sure, for me, if it's me being verbally gifted (as some of you put any thought of me being verbally gifted to shame with your posts - though that could be my ADD), or just gifted in general. But I have had this SAME issue.


I absolutely LOVE this analogy.

Thanks for posting this and I love the horror movie analogy too.
I see the gifted encountering this type of situation more often with verbal issues than math.

Another post at The More Child regarding verbal giftedness profiled in a book. Sounds like an interesting read.

http://themorechild.com/2010/08/03/wisenheimer-a-story-of-a-verbal-giftedness/

This is what got me.

I so clearly recall telling my mother that I was depressed in 5th grade and her responding that, "you don't know what it feels like to be depressed." I'm sure that she meant no harm and truly believed that at the time.

I do think that it is common for adults to believe that children's emotions differ from adult emotions in the degree of depth. I'd have to say that they probably do not differ in that manner and children are probably even less equipt to deal with the depth of those emotions because they lack the perspective that comes with more life experience.

Well said Cricket!

I think those of us who lived it can understand that "Yes, it can be that bad." I often find myself trying to convince others that when DS says he hates school and himself it is not something that all kids say/feel. It is about a profound sense of being different and loneliness.

Breakaway

What a provocative read (and also the Wisenheimer piece - I was a teenager in CT in the '80s too).

I wince when I read the term verbally gifted, though. I prefer "social acumen" to verbal giftedness because the gift is more about having social insight and communication judgment than it is about words. Master use of ideas, not use of words. DD has this, for sure.