How much do you know about Gifted Children

To A Gifted child:

A touch is a blow,

A sound is a noise,

A misfortune is a

tragedy

A joy is an ecstasy,

A friend is a lover,

A lover is a God,

And failure is death.

Pearl Buck

What is giftedness ? what does the word "gifted" mean? And how people view gifted people? Do they feel comfortable with them? Or Is it something makes people uncomfortable? All these questions and more will be discussed in this research about gifted children.

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A Brief History of Giftedness:

-"In the past, people used to celebrate the exceptional abilities across the ages. But in the recent years, they start using the word "gifted" with relation to educational purposes.

- Francis Galton :in 1869 he was the first who used the term gifted children ,He referred to adults who demonstrated exceptional talent in some area.

-Lewis terman:used it for gifted children with high IQ.

-In the early 1900s, he began his a long-term study of gifted children, whom he defined as children with IQs of 140 or more.

The term “Gifted Children”

Giftedness is 'asynchronous development' in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm.

GIFTEDNESS

Gifted Children : means children and youth who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities.

Gifted Children

General behavior characteristics of gifted children:

The behavior of gifted children differs from others who are in the same age in the following ways:

• Many of the gifted children are able to read early before entering the school. And they have better comprehension to the language nuances.

• Their way of reading is often quickly, widely, and contains large vocabularies.

• They are interested in learning new things, have the desire to examine the unusual, and are highly inquisitive (curious).

• In their earlier age, they are able to work independently, and to concentrate for long periods.

• Their common attitude is to say “I’d rather to do it my self’. They are often very persistent, and have an intrinsic motivation to explore, learn, and to find out.

Gifted children prefer reading books and magazines which are written for children who are older than them. They like to read by their own.

They often exhibit a questioning attitude and seek information for their own sake.

They are able to understand the cause-effect relationships readily.

They have well-developed powers of conceptualization, abstraction, and synthesis.

In intellectual activities, they often take great pleasure.

They may have keen powers of observation, and they can recognize important details.

Learning characteristics of gifted

Gifted children are extremely curious about events, situations, objects, or ideas.

They are often attracted to aesthetic values, and so sensitive to beauty.

They are fluent thinkers; they also have the ability to generate possibilities, consequences, or related ideas.

They are complicated thinkers especially when they producing new steps, responses, ideas, or other embellishments to a basic idea, problem, or situation.

They are original (creative) thinkers, seeking new and unusual combinations or associations among information items.

They often like to imagine, fantasize, and display intellectual playfulness

Creative characteristics of gifted children

They often achieve high scores in the IQ tests which are scored individually (above 140 IQ range). Other children can be perfect in specific areas such as science, Language, math, or other arts. However, gifted children can score above 170 in the IQ tests. But we have to differentiate for example between a child of 160+ from a child of 130, or a child of average ability.

Who are highly gifted children

The following schedule shows the IQ scores of some individuals:

Signs of gifted children:

Their advanced development. Early intellectual talent. A thirst of knowledge. High level of activity. Cautionary. Sensitivity Uneven development. Can distinguish between reality and fantasy early. Early insight into social and moral issues. Greater reasoning power and manipulation. Individuality. Knowing the importance of adults’ guidance.

What are the ways to identify gifted children?

Gifted children can be identified by the following sources:

The teacher observations Parental observations Evidence from pupil’s book Evidence from out-of-school activities National curriculum tests Tests( cognitive ability tests) Pupil’s own interests Peer-group nomination

This has been a debatable question and there was many researches carried out

to find a precise and persuasive answer. Studies after studies have shown

various findings. Nowadays, they believe that Nature (genetics) relates to the

genetic heritage of an individual and Nurture (environment) relates to the

environmental influences on the individual both play an important role in the

development if special skills in children. They suggested that 62% of the general

cognitive ability is inherited while rest of it is acquired through the environment

the ones grows in. Therefore, we can say that both are necessary for the

development of the cognitive ability in gifted children.

What causes a child to be gifted: Their environment, their genes or both?

•The teacher observations•Parental observations•Evidence from pupil’s book•Evidence from out-of-school activities•National curriculum tests•Tests( cognitive ability tests)•Pupil’s own interests•Peer-group nomination

What are the ways to identify gifted children?Gifted children can be identified by the following sources:

Examples of famous gifted people:

Einstein couldn’t speak till he became four years old, and he couldn’t read before seven.

Walt Disney fired by a newspaper editor because he had no good or new ideas.

Thomas Edison teachers told him that he was too stupid to learn anything when he was a boy.

The music teacher of Caruso told him “you can’t sing, you have no voice at all.”

Why not place a gifted child in regular classes?

In normal classes, the teacher usually repeats the concept more than once to help the normal students understand properly. For a gifted child this repetition is boring and dull because he is able to grasp the meaning easily.

the gifted child will feel bored, angry and will misbehave in the class.

gifted children in normal classes tend to ignore their teachers and day dream.

keeping gifted children in regular classes, their mental potential is not reached they may lose all desire to learn.

When the child should be admitted to the school’s gifted

classes ?

First, a child must be nominated by a teacher.

Then, the child screened or given a preliminary test. If he pass there more tests are administered.

Finally, having passed all three tests, the parent has the options of placing the child in academically gifted classes.

Here is some schools in different states for gifted children:

Talent School in Switzerland

Beach high school in California

Pine View School in Florida

Elements for evaluating school of gifted children:

Philosophy and Goals Acceleration and Enrichment Multiple Options Student Learning Expectations Challenging Curriculum Flexibility Sound Identification Process Staff Development Plan Guidance Component Honoring Academic Talent

Boys Vs Girls

gifted boys success is associated with their ability and their failure always associated with external factors. Thus, boys usually keep their confidence even with failure

success is always associated with hard work and good luck while failure is associated with lack of ability. As a result, with every failure they lose confidence and feel eroded

Boys Girls

Talent

Social life

Friends

looking too smart is not smart !

Have all the attention-Most popular-Funny

Have least attention and perceived as

sad or depressed

Different views:

Boys

Girls

Joey loved nature more than anything else. As a 4-year-old, he knew more facts about climate zones, geography, and geology than most high school students. And yet, Joey's socialization skills did not match his highly developed abilities.

Twice-Exceptional

• Joey's parents put him in a private school with behavioral consultation services

1.

• enroll him in a research study with a centre works with autism spectrum disorder.2.

• the focus mainly was on his social and emotional difficulties

3.

• decided to put him in a public school to find balance between his strengths and concerns

4.

• provided school personnel with article on gifted children with Asperger's Disorder as well as other resources

5.

• Awareness, understanding, and acceptance of Joey’s giftedness made the difference in how his teachers viewed him and what educational interventions he received6.

Facts about Gifted Children

1

•Parents are excellent identifiers of giftedness in their children

2

•Giftedness can be observed in the first three years by rapid progression through the developmental milestones.

3

• Gifted children have better social adjustment in classes with children like themselves

4

•Gifted children may have hidden learning disabilities

5

•Gifted/learning-disabled children and visual-spatial learners usually have at least one parent with the same learning pattern

6

•Giftedness is not elitist.  It cuts across all socio-economic, ethnic and national groups

To conclude the topic:-Gifted children have higher abilities.-They are fast in learning and independent..-The Giftedness happens by nature and the environment would develop it..

Conclusion

-There are thousands of gifted children who are still undiscovered…

-Parents can easily notice and judge if their child gifted or not..

-Without proper identification and programming, gifted children may begin regress..

Prepared by:

Khulood AL-Otaibi Eman Ajabnoor Nadiah AlAttas Hessah ALMalki Dua’a Osama