Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Hi!

I found this forum discussion while searching for gifted informations. I am student and maybe someone could help me? I would to know what means the "precocious children" notion. Is there difference with the "gifted childre" notion? and what difference? Could you explain me? thank you!

Sure,
Welcome Isabelle (What a nice name!)

I think of precocious as doing stuff earlier than expected.
as in: Precocious little Joey was reading Harry Potter in Kindergarden.

I don't think it implies that Joey will end up to be a better reader than kids who read Harry Potter at the regular age, just that Joey reached that landmark sooner.

Gifted is a word that has many different meanings, but I list it as 'having learning needs that are different enough from their agemates that they are unlikey to have their learning needs met in an unmodified regular classroom.' Gifted kids are often ready to learn material that is usually given to older kids, and they may be capable of learning it more quickly, or with more abstract depth than the older kids.

Dr. Deb Ruf has studies 200 families to tease out the connection between precocious and gifted, and reports on her finding in 'Losing our Minds, Gifted Children left behind.' What I have seen is that, as preschoolers, some gifted children are precosious in talking, reading, math and abstract thought, and some gifted children are not. At some point a gifted child would have to be preforming at the level one would expect of an older child or adult, or you wouldn't know that they were gifted, yes?

This leaves out musically gifted, or artistically gifted.

Hi Izzy!

Adults like to label things and put them in categories much more than young adults do! As Grinity mentioned different people have different ideas about what those words really mean.

Has someone referred to you as precocious or gifted?

Or are you researching this for an assignment?

There are a lot of nice people here who can give you general information on this topic. Feel free to ask anything you are curious about.

thank you very much,
yes, gifted is a word not easy to define. In fact, I'm student in psychology and I feel a high interest about children in difficulties at school and principally precocious children. So I prepare a talk about this. But, it was difficult to find documents about precocity and it is not often use. that's why I try to understand the difference between this 2 words.

There is few years ago, I red an article which explained that preocious children are more curious and more sensitive. They have not necessarily a gift for math,music, but is it true? Thank you grinity for this study of Dr. Deb Ruf. This 2 notions remains connected.

furthermore, I believe there is an evolution. Nowadays, we say more and more a "high potential intellectual child". So is not easy.

in fact, I'm interesting about precocious children and their difficulties at school.

Thank you for your messages

The way you are describing precocious, it almost sounds like a child who is more creatively "gifted" vs. academically "gifted".

Is this what you mean?

Yes, I'm with 'Neato and Grin. I don't hear much about "precocious" at all in discussions/books about giftedness. I think Grinity's definition is the one I would use, but only after really thinking about it. Precocious just isn't a word I see often and isn't a word I would use in any discussion of GT kids.

I don't think precociousness is necessarily related to GTness, nor would I use it in that context. If you mean GT, I think you say GT.

to incogneato, you understand what I mean, but I just to find a document which explain ther is several modifications to current conception of giftedness and precocity is the preffered term to describe these children.
So, maybe the "precocity" word is more behavioral or maybe precocious and gifted are completely different or precocious is a new conception to describe these children or maybe not .

Hi Isabelle,
Try this link on for size:

http://nswagtc.org.au/info/definitions/gagnemodel.html

Although 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?

I am late to the discussion, but thought I would give my take on the difference between precocious and gifted.

I think kids that are precocious (as toddler/preschoolers) are persistant in their pursuit of something they are interested in. A precocious child may conquer something as a "splinter skill" but not progress with the depth and sometimes speed and accuracy of a gifted child.

A gifted child is precocious in that they are relentless in the pursuit of something they are interested in, but they go beyond a specified skill to a broader, deeper more accurate understanding often at a rapid pace.

Let me cite an example: A precocious "climber" learns that he can climb and tries a variety of climbing opportunities. A gifted climber may begin precocious but will likely analize what they are climbing: perhaps the risk involved, what would make the climb easier or more challenging,maybe it will lead into learning about muscles, anatomy, etc.

In my musings, I think that a gifted child may likely be/have been precocious, but not all precocious children are gifted.

Just some random type thoughts...

Isabelle, I have a hunch that English is not your first language. That may influence our definitions, and how we use the words.