Gifted children have differently-wired brains that make their experience of adolescents unique compared to their neurotypical age-mates. While most individuals think of giftedness in terms of academics alone, giftedness also applies to a child's social and emotional development.
Gifted brains also appear to be both more active and more efficient on a neuronal level. Research has shown gifted children to have increased cell production that in turn increases synaptic activity, adding up to more intense thought processes.
Giftedness is a form of neurodiversity; the pathways leading to it are enormously variable, and so are children's resulting learning needs.
The findings confirmed that intellectually gifted children had higher working memory capacity than typical children, as well as more effective executive attention. Surprisingly, however, working memory differences between groups were not mediated by differences in executive attention.
Gifted children often struggle socially and emotionally. Social interactions are difficult and they don't always know how to behave or read cues from others.
A gifted child's IQ will fall within these ranges: Mildly gifted: 115 to 130. Moderately gifted: 130 to 145. Highly gifted: 145 to 160.
When the conditions listed above do not exist, gifted adults will also suffer greatly. They will most likely experience high levels of stress, anxiety, agitation, depression and depletion. Major bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts and feelings are also not uncommon.
Ability to see things from a variety of perspectives – Gifted students often find unique ways to view a situation or problem. They use their creativity and abstract thinking skills to find unique perspectives and solutions to problems, even when there is an easier way to go about solving.
Even though gifted people are no more susceptible to mental illness than anyone else, some gifted children and teens struggle with a tendency toward overthinking, worry, or cautious alertness.
Gifted children often are asked “If you're so good at doing that, why can't you do this?” Gifted children with ADHD often show heightened intensity and sensitivity, but they are set up to fail in a system that only recognizes and expects intellectual proclivity without consideration of their emotional needs.
Giftedness can lead to misdiagnosis
Children who are gifted may have behaviors that look like ADHD or autism. “One of the things we know about gifted children almost universally is that they are intense,” says psychologist James T. Webb, who specializes in them.
Both giftedness and autism fall on a spectrum, so while there may be individuals who clearly fit into one box or another, some behaviors might be more ambiguous and require additional information, context, or professional opinions.
Gifted children seem to have a higher volume of grey matter in some regions of the brain that helps them compute information better than their peers. Grey matter comprises the frontal cortex as well as certain structures that affect thinking: Frontal lobes handle complex analysis and decision-making.
At its core, giftedness is a brain-based difference that contributes to our vibrant and neurodiverse world. This neurological difference means that profoundly gifted students experience a different intellectual, academic, and social-emotional development trajectory than neurotypical individuals.
Geniuses have a denser concentration of mini-columns than the rest of the population – it seems that they simply pack more in. Mini-columns are sometimes described as the brain's 'microprocessors', powering the thought process of the brain. Research shows that geniuses have fewer dopamine receptors in the thalamus.
The problems gifted children sometimes face with socializing often stem from their asynchrony and educational setting. Asynchronous development, or uneven development, is often considered a core trait of giftedness. These students may be college age intellectually but still 12 in terms of their social skills.
We know that gifted and creative individuals are more likely than the average population to exhibit what Polish psychiatrist Kazimierz Dabrowski called “overexcitabilities” which are inborn, intense reactions to different types of stimuli.
Muratori goes on to say that, while gifted children are not necessarily more susceptible to low self-esteem than their non-gifted peers, their self-esteem issues are more likely to be overlooked by others or hidden by the child themselves.
Gifted people are usually also highly sensitive and intense. They are more aware of subtleties; their brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply. At their best, they can be exceptionally perceptive, intuitive, and keenly observant of the subtleties of the environment.
Giftedness has an emotional as well as intellectual component. Intellectual complexity goes hand in hand with emotional depth. Just as gifted children's thinking is more complex and has more depth than other children's, so too are their emotions more complex and more intense.
While we like to think everyone is special, some people have extraordinary abilities — intellectual, artistic, social, or athletic. Many experts believe only 3 to 5 percent of the population is gifted, though some estimates reach 20 percent.
Membership requirement
The minimum accepted score on the Stanford–Binet is 132, while for the Cattell it is 148 and 130 in the Wechsler tests (WAIS, WISC).
The development of high ability is influenced both by characteristics of the child (including genetic predispositions and aptitudes) and by environmental factors. Giftedness is therefore always subject to genetic influences, although these influences are not exclusive.