I believe in OEs! Though I don't think they are quantifiable. I think of it more as intensity in certain areas.
Yes--this is what I see too. I don't really have an opinion on the larger theory of positive disintegration, but when I started reading about OEs I immediately recognized both of my children in different ways. This had a very positive impact on my ability to respond to them, because what used to seem much more worrisome to me, I now see as the difficult side of some of their more unique positive traits. While I think that there is cause for concern any time that a trait becomes overwhelming to a child in some kind of persistent way, I also think that we have a tendency to overpathologize differences.
The nice thing about gifted children is that some of them are able to read about these and contextualize their own "more" responses in a way that they might not otherwise be able to do. My son is still too uncomfortable holding a mirror up to his differences, but for my daughter it was a life changing sigh of relief to read about OEs and see them in relationship to her strengths.
