I'm not sure why they use the term "verbally" there, rather than talking about gifted children in general. Traditionally, the holistic learning style has been more closely associated with individuals who favor visual/spatial processing, rather than verbal.
DD9 is very holistic, and we had a conflict about multiplication tables just as the article describes. One of the ways we got her past it is I demonstrated their utility by solving a multi-digit problem for her.
It doesn't describe her perfectly, though, because DD has yet to encounter an external reward too useless for her to want to earn it.
