I just ordered & rec'd a booklet entitled "understanding the gifted child with attention deficit" from the folks who publish the 2e newsletter. (BTW, they have free shipping on all of their spotlight on 2e booklets through early November at this link:
http://www.2enewsletter.com/Spotlight_on_2e_spcl_offer_nonsubrs_9-11.htm)
In any case, as I was starting to look @ the beginning of it, I see that they are defining gifted as 10-15% of the general population. A recent thread re being "partially gifted" brought a similar train of thought up for me b/c, if we include people with large strengths in one area, but who have composite IQs that are not in the range that would be considered "very superior" (2+ SDs above the mean), we are obviously going to have a much larger pool of people who are considered gifted.
On one hand, you have broader definitions like that. On the other hand, you have arguments like Jim Deslile's here:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/31/27delisle_ep.h29.htmlwhere he argues that,
When giftedness is a quality shared by the masses, not just a few, we look uniquely silly as advocates
and that we return to a more narrow definition of gifted.
Since most of us here probably have kids who fit the more narrow definition of gifted (1-2 percent of the population), I am particularly interested in the thoughts of parents who have 'narrowly defined' gifted kids who are advocates of the broader definition of gifted.
The part of me that rankles against the broader definition is the part that sees the more narrowly defined kids not getting their needs as well met when they are lumped together with 10-15% of the population.
