Oh, well, as you know, there is no standard, agreed upon definition of the word 'gifted.'
So I wrote 'top 10%' defintion as a shorthand to say, that there are many speakers and writers who write about gifted kids and use the definition 'top 10%' of the population academically-speaking. Not that we can every really know exactly who these kids are, becuause IQ tests are perfect, and 2E issues, and everyone can have a bad day, but - for example - Mattews writes that she isn't a fan of gradeskips for gifted kids, and in a tiny footnote backs up and says, well, of course, if you are truely unusually gifted, the rare kind, then yes, one or more gradeskips is exactly whats needed. If one wants to sell books, then writing for the top half of a percent might be percieved to limit the audience for those books, yes?
I'm not a fan of gradeskiping kids who have an accurate IQ of 123 either, so I don't disagree with what she is saying, but I don't happen to share her definition of giftedness.
HTH,
Grinity
