Gift/Talent - does achievement require giftedness?

The thread I started a while ago about genetics got me thinking about my own family history. And lead me to wonder about my father and one of his brothers in particular. I have no idea whether my father ever did an IQ test, and he's passed away so I can't ask him. But I do know that he topped the state in high school, which from the number of children born the year he was puts him somewhere around 1/17000 for achievement. He was offered a full scholarship to an overseas university (which he did not take).

This was 40 years ago, as a child of parents who may not have finished high school and certainly did not attend universtiy, no tutors and no tiger mums pushing :-). I am wondering what the likelihood is in this context that there is a fairly direct relationship between achievement and giftedness? One of his brothers took a very different path, but I would describe as having equal or greater depth of thinking and equal or greater exceptionality in his achievement (all be it in a direction that many/most people may not go looking for the "gifted").

Reading the title of your thread, my initial thought was that high achievement does not require giftedness. However, in the context and at the level you describe, I'd be inclined to say that it is a reasonable indicator of giftedness.

Where I am not sure that achievement means giftedness would be somewhere like this:

- my kid reads above grade level, therefore he is gifted; or
- my 5th grader is testing in the 96th percentile on a grade level math test, so he must be gifted; or
- my child is a straight A student, therefore he is gifted, etc.

When you start getting to the point where a person is well above the 99th percentile across the board on achievement tests or is such a stand out student that he gets massive attention beyond his school, the likelihood is good that he is gifted.

Yes I would agree, you don't need to be gifted to do very well, and in some respects it may even be easier to do very well at school. But I am thinking there does seem to be a point at which it must be more than being quite bright. And I wonder what that level is. Of course there will never be any answers to this particular question.

Depend on what level of achievement

Straight A, probably not
Top in the class of normal school, No need
Two grade level ahead, probably not

BUT:

At least 3 years ahead in before middle primary
TOP in GT class, state, national or any comepetition

Abusolutely YES!!

Originally Posted by Mathboy

At least 3 years ahead in before middle primary
...Absolutely YES!!

I'm such a nitpicker

but can I ask for further clarification? Three years ahead in what? One subject? Everything?

The reason I ask is b/c so many parents seem to focus so much on kids being ahead in reading in early elementary and so many kids seem to be a few years ahead in reading in early elementary. Would you call all 2nd graders who read at a 5th grade level, for instance, gifted? Some of those kids do seem to level off later in reading.

It's the ones who are, say, reading 10th grade books with good comprehension in 2nd grade who often don't. Of course, some of those kids reading 5th grade books do turn out to be gifted and will continue to move further ahead as the years go on.

isn't the hard cut off for American Mesa 132 or higher on an IQ? Once you're above that... isn't what type of gifted you are?

On one subject. My son is only 2 years ahead in reading, but 5/6 years ahead in Math, without doubt he is gifted, even he is normal in reading.

Smeone used to think 3 years ahead in young age should consider HG.

In my point of view, Normal kids can not be taught reach that high level,children can be pushed ahead 1 or 2 years but they need certain ability to learn fast.

To be honest, it is not that "hard" to be gifted, depends on which school you kids are. Most of my friends kids could be gifted, because most of my friends has high education degree, that make my son "less" gifted or normal(in reading)

Renzulli addresses this question when he talks about a three-ring concept of giftedness:

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

Originally Posted by Beckee

Renzulli addresses this question when he talks about a three-ring concept of giftedness:

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

That was an interesting article. Thank you for posting it

!

This is going to get a bit off topic from the original post, but one thing that Renzulli discussed was interesting to me. He mentioned a combo of well above average ability, task commitment, and creativity synthesizing to make an individual gifted. His discussion of what "well above average ability" means was enlightening and helped me understand my general disagreement with the way gifted is defined in most school settings. He states that high ability can be defined one of two ways:

Quote

Well above average ability can be defined in two ways#&151;general ability and specific abilities.

General ability consists of the capacity to process information, to integrate experiences that result in appropriate and adaptive responses in new situations, and the capacity to engage in abstract thinking. Examples of general ability are verbal and numerical reasoning, spatial relations, memory, and word fluency. These abilities are usually measured by tests of general aptitude or intelligence, and are broadly applicable to a variety of traditional learning situations.

Specific abilities consist of the capacity to acquire knowledge, skill, or the ability to perform in one or more activities of a specialized kind and within a restricted range. These abilities are defined in a manner that represents the ways in which human beings express themselves in real-life (i.e., nontest) situations. Examples of specific abilities are chemistry, ballet, mathematics, musical composition, sculpture, and photography. Each specific ability can be further subdivided into even more specific areas (e.g., portrait photography, astrophotography, photo journalism). Specific abilities in certain areas such as mathematics and chemistry have a strong relationship with general ability and, therefore, some indication of potential in these areas can be determined from tests of general aptitude and intelligence. They can also be measured by achievement tests and tests of specific aptitude. Many specific abilities, however, cannot be easily measured by tests, and, therefore, areas such as the arts must be evaluated through one or more performance-based assessment techniques.

Within this model the term above average ability will be used to describe both general and specific abilities. Above average should also be interpreted to mean the upper range of potential within any given area. Although it is difficult to assign numerical values to many specific areas of ability, when I refer to "well above average ability" I clearly have in mind persons who are capable of performance or the potential for performance that is representative of the top 15-20% of any given area of human endeavor.

I realize that it isn't only the numbers being used (more than the top 2 percent or so) that I have disagreed with, but the fact that schools identify high ability in terms of specific ability not general ability.

I do see the value in using specific ability and Renzulli makes valid points for doing so, but I also wonder if one can fairly say that pairing children with strength in "specific ability" with children who are strong in "general ability" for education purposes is placing apples with apples.

If child A's specific ability is language arts and say that he's in the 98th percentile in the verbal realm, does he have similar enough needs to a child who is in the 98th percentile in general ability to say that we can educate them together for language arts? My general feel is 'no,' b/c the child with the overall high ability is still going to process and learn differently enough due to his other extreme strengths that child A does not share that his needs will still be significantly different from child A even if they have the same verbal ability score.

Thoughts?

I understand your point about combining different educational needs in the same program, but if I taught a class that combined those two groups, it would be so much better for those groups of students than the almost completely heterogenous classes I currently teach.

Some distinct advantages I can see: '
work habits and goals of the highly motivated rubbing off on underachievers (positive peer pressure)
a group whose combination of characteristics lets them take similar leaps in achievement
larger group of peers in the ballpark of intellectual compatibility

As a PG underachiever, I would not have wanted to be cut off from the creative types or the high-task-commitment types, even if I did have a significant need for acceleration. The emotional and social need for peers would have trumped the intellectual challenge as far as I was concerned in middle school and now, in hindsight.

Of course, I am not a parent, focused on the needs of an individual student. I am about to start teaching 134 new students ranging from mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed to...who knows? My district doesn't really test for giftedness, though some criterion-referenced testing results suggest several students might qualify.

Quote

f child A's specific ability is language arts and say that he's in the 98th percentile in the verbal realm, does he have similar enough needs to a child who is in the 98th percentile in general ability to say that we can educate them together for language arts?

My abilities are very uneven. I am extremely strong verbally, high average in math, and below average in some spatial and nonverbal skills. It would have been an enormous mistake to separate me out from the more globally gifted kids for language arts.

Now, would a gifted-only school have been a good idea for me? I don't think so. But I absolutely needed instruction at my level in language arts, and the other more globally gifted kids were certainly the right group to place me with.