Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Neurotypical Giftedness?

Mine is >99.9% and has dyslexia but behaviorally very typical. I think there are many who have no emotional or behavior problems but who are 2E with dyslexia/dysgraphia, etc. If those issues are not addressed, it can lead to behavior or social problems though which makes it more complex.

Our DD8 was assessed with the RIAS as moderately gifted, and while the test is known to err on the side of underestimating, it seems like an appropriate fit with her. Apart from being highly emotional, she's neurotypical. And because she's so mature and has a desire to please, she bottles up that emotional intensity so well in public that few outside the family would ever expect it.

This! But then again, such a range between "emotional," which is NT, and "highly emotional," which is an OE typical of highly gifted people (and not really AT).

In my son's HGT class (2 grade levels), I think there are 3 PG kids including him. I think my son is sensitive, disorganized, but typical. The other boy is 2E and I think a typical active boy. The 3rd PG child has ODD. He has been a handful for teachers since 1st grade, and a challenge for other students as well. He apparently has friends now, but I know the early grades were tough, as he seemed to purposely do shocking things that landed him in the principal's office several times a week, and expelled 2-3 times a year.

This.

My DD13 is very definitely (functionally) PG, though we've never had her formally evaluated, so of course we don't know that she's >145. Just based on comparisons with family members who range from 135-170, she seems to be at the high end, and a 3-4y skip has presented her with few problems academically (other than residual ennui). KWIM?


I consider her pretty NT. Maybe even super-typical, in some sense. She's kind of an anti-Aspie, though she shares some superficial characteristics that link her behavior to typical Aspie characteristics-- sensory sensitivities, etc. (In the sense of being anti-matter, if that makes sense.)

She's very definitely quirky. But far less so than many of the non-NT PG people I've known.

We've never seen a reason to have her 'evaluated' for anything in particular, though-- so it's entirely possible that she would earn one or more labels. But she seems completely functional to me.

Here are some of the factors I've considered and come to various hypotheses on the significant overlaps:
* A study showing the IQ is a stronger factor to predicting myopia than occurrence of myopia in parents.
* Cortical thickness studies showing one line for NT IQ, another for MG that follows the NT line but overall thicker, and a curve for HG.
* A study showing a reverse bell curve based on minicolumn size and distribution that shows gifted tend towards either smaller clusters in a denser arrangement or larger clusters in a sparse distibution with long connections. Another study showing a very strong correlation between smaller minicolumn size with denser distribution and autism. Can't remember if study included dyslexia or if that was a speculative connection in Eides book showing dyslexia related to the larger minicolumns in the looser distribution.
* Mass anecdotal clusterings between poorer handwriting and giftedness (even a study showing doctor's handwriting failed to be read by automated handwriting readers vs. other medical workers.)
* Massive anecdotal evidence of overexcitabilities (including allergies) for many gifted kids
* And quite a few other random tidbits, education, and personal experience

Amongst all of these you get many "Useful but insufficient" factors that may contribute towards higher IQs. You also get red herrings and false negatives on some factors (e.g. an EG might internalize early and master overexcitables quickly before they are noted.)

So there's the architecture of the cortex as one key physiological piece. There is also some degree of richer experience (overexcitabilities, something dopamine related?)

And then perhaps some X factors, things that make the brain take on a bit different role. Here's where my pet theory comes in. A huge amount of the brain is at primary an optimized sensory processing machine. The forebrain can coordinate and "takeover" other processing areas. Triggers that make a sensory system unreliable and require a forebrain intervention to prevent fullscale system collapse open a door to intentional control of those areas.

If that door opens, then suddenly that processing system is available to much more than automatic sensory processing. Vision issues, oversaturated emotions, ear infections, an oversaturated sense, allergies, muscular control issues, etc.

Doesn't cover all cases, but fits lots of data I've encountered. But many chicken and eggs with this and just as many bunnies running around trying to hide them.

I find your school's perspective interesting. Our district decides whether a student qualifies for GT with testing but also with other factors such as emotional or behavior (perhaps due to prior improper instruction/placement) issues the kids may have due to giftedness. In fact, they have a social worker who comes to the class once a day in the GT class for discussions.

That's really cool.

You've likely considered this, but parents with NT gifted kids who are functioning beautifully aren't so likely to be posting on this board (what is there to post about?)

Only one of my children has been tested, and did not test 145+. She is not NT, IMO. The other one is only 5, and not tested yet, but is more likely to test 99.9, IMO. While he can be quirky, and is not exactly Joe Average emotionally, I do not think he will ever be diagnosed with anything other than giftedness. In other words, I suspect he is a bit more gifted than his sister, but less oddly wired.

This may not be true in your school district, but in our school district "gifted" includes kids who are at the 95th percentile and above, and honestly, I know a lot of kids who meet these qualifciations for "gifted", as well as having gone to a college where I suspect it would have been difficult to be admitted and in turn actually stay in school if a student wasn't at least in the 95th percentile of intellectual ability, and most of the people I've known that meet those qualifications for gifted are completely, totally, absolutely not challenged in any type of neurotypical way, at least not more so than I see in what I would think is the general population of all abilities.

I also suspect you'll find more of the quirky type of personality that is a square peg that won't fit into a round hole as you go higher up in IQ (to the 99th percentile and beyond) but I don't think that's something that can be categorized as "not neurotypical", and I also don't think a vast majority of PG folks are so out-there quirky that you'd recognize them. I've known *one* person like that irl (a person I worked with for a number of years) and although he had his quirks, he still functioned at an absolutely "normal" level in the workplace, had a happy homelife, and was an all around loved and appreciated part of our work team. He was a bit out of sync with the rest of us, but he absolutely was a person who I would define as "neurotypical".

I think you really can't draw conclusions about the occurrence of neurotypical vs not nt from polling parents on a forum such as this - most of the parents of HG+ kids (or any kids) I know irl do not hang out on forums. Parents that seek out places like this are often parents who's children have some type of challenge that brought them here. In the case of 2e parents, it's usually not easy to find other parents who've experienced the same thing with their children - which again, from my perspective, indicates it's not all that common. I can't tell you how many times in working with our schools and the private professionals who've worked with my 2e ds I've heard "We've never seen another kid like him". I suspect based on those comments and based on how difficult it's been to find anyone who's remotely in the same situation as us irl, that most highly capable kids are functioning very happily and are very neurotypical

And I'll be honest, I wouldn't be posting here if I was parenting a neurotypical child - I'd be out running around doing all the things my friends of neurotypical kids are doing with their time (and it's not hanging around on the computer). I found this place while researching how to help my very 2e ds. I stayed on because (I hope) I might be able to help someone else by sharing our experiences. As I stay on, and ds grows, I've run into additional times whee I've had questions and need advice, and I know there are parents here dealing with very similar 2e situations, so I know I can ask for and get advice here - so those are the reasons I hang around. If I need advice for a neurotypical parenting situaiton, it's easy enough just to make a phone call or ask another parent/friend at school or read a book

Best wishes,

polarbear