Many gifted children may exceed the academic ability of their peers, but lack other basic skills. For instance, a student may be able to multiply, divide, and tell time early on, but struggle to tie their shoes, ride a bike, or remember to bring their backpack to school.
When researchers compared a control group of gifted students who didn't skip a grade to those who did, the grade-skippers were 60% more likely to earn patents and doctorates and more than twice as likely to get a Ph. D.
Multipotentiality is a fancy way of saying “good at many things.” It's a defining trait of gifted kids, and you've probably seen it in action. A student writes beautifully, masters a musical instrument, excels in math, and gets picked first in PE.
Most gifted kids can learn and process information faster than kids their age and comprehend material several grade levels above their peers. But they are not always well-behaved, high-achieving students. In fact, neuroscience experts say that giftedness looks different in each child.
Gifted students learn differently than their peers. They master new material and remember it more easily, understand relationships between abstract and concrete concepts, and tend to be more focused and passionate about topics of interest.
Negative Characteristics of a Gifted Child
Neglects some of their responsibilities: They may become overly focused on their current desires and ignore their seemingly simple responsibilities. Bullyrags or plays cruel jokes: They can quickly say anything that seems witty to them and make offensive jokes about people.
Giftedness can create problems and conflicts; being a gifted child can also mean difficulty socializing with age peers, thinking styles that don't always mesh well with the demands from the environment, even children who see themselves as little adults, challenging teachers and parents.
Children who are highly or exceptionally gifted do things even earlier and faster. Although there are no standard IQ levels of intellectual giftedness, some experts suggest the following IQ ranges: Mildly gifted: 115 to 129. Moderately gifted: 130 to 144.
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.
Many gifted children are strong-willed and, as gifted children perceive the world very differently than their parents, it often leads to confrontations.
Gifted people have the intellectual ability to perform at higher levels than other people of the same age, grade, experience, etc. People with extraordinary intellectual abilities, or exceptionally gifted people, make up approximately 5% of the population, so they are rare.
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.
Kids designated as gifted have long been thought to be more at risk of emotional issues, and to carry some of them into adult life, because of various factors: the National Association for Gifted Children, for instance, identifies "heightened awareness, anxiety, perfectionism, stress, issues with peer relationships, ...
Giftedness is often defined as an intellectual ability linked to an IQ score of 130 or more. However, not all gifted children excel in an academic area. Signs of a gifted child also include a high creative, artistic, musical and/or leadership ability relative to same-age peers.
Both bright and gifted kids are smart above average
The main distinction between them is how they get their knowledge. According to Psychology Today a bright child knows the answers, but a gifted child asks more questions. And it's not because gifted children don't know the answers, it's because they need to know more.
Gifts become talents when they're developed and nurtured.
Many things influence whether a gifted child's natural ability becomes a talent. These things include family values, educational opportunities, personality and motivation, health and chance opportunities.
While giftedness and autism are two types of neurodivergent groups that are often confused, a child can absolutely be gifted and on the autism spectrum.
Gifted children can be argumentative and/or manipulative. Even though a child might be able to present a logical or convincing argument, they still need boundaries and discipline around their behaviour else they learn that these undesirable behaviours get them what they want.
Gifted children often set very high standards for themselves and get frustrated when they can't meet them. This can sometimes result in tantrums and other difficult behaviour. It's great for your child to work towards high standards. But your child needs to understand that they can't have high standards for everything.
Gifted students may be at a higher risk for anxiety than their non-gifted peers in general (7). It is reported that they are among the risk group and likely to be vulnerable to anxiety (8). Their cognitive maturity and increased awareness were said to promote existential questions and associated anticipatory anxiety.
Gifted kids often have advanced intellectual skills that allow them to perform at high levels and solve complex problems. But this intelligence is not always accompanied by high social and emotional skills. Socially and emotionally, gifted kids often develop at the same rate or even slower than their peers.
Often society including the educational sector, and sometimes even family and close friends, have difficulties to understand this diagnosis. We also should remember that giftedness does not diminish with age and 'does not go away', it is part of the individual and will manifest throughout all ages.
Gifted children can often lack age appropriate social skills; sometimes their interests are different from those of their peers; they may either feel themselves to be different or be made to feel different.