Hi Isabelle,
Try this link on for size:
http://nswagtc.org.au/info/definitions/gagnemodel.htmlAlthough he doesn't use the word 'precocious' I think he lays out the area you are trying to think about.
The basic thing about 'these children' is that they vary so much that it's perhaps not useful to try and classify them as a group. Afterall, we using the Disease Model here, and it's bound to fall apart a bit.
ex: If a child has a pain in this particular part of the belly and these finding on blood test, they have appendicitis and should be operated on now.
Works pretty well for diseases, but what I'm going for is a change in the basic way we think about ALL children so that we have a logical framework to think about the needs of individual gifted kids.
ex: All children have basic needs, and experience them in varying intensities. All need sleep, food, clean air, safety, affection, a chance to explore their environment and a drive to make sense of what they experience, later they have the need to learn how to learn challenging material. Just as some kids fall apart when they get too little sleep, and some get by ok, some kids fall apart when they get too little to chance to their thinking and exploring mentally. KWIM?
