Article: Highly Gifted Children in the Early Years

[queriquita]

I have been so busy offline, lately, I've missed you all so much!  Of course, now that I'm back again, I want to share something that I found quite interesting.
I am pasting part of it here (too long to paste all), but it comes from: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10124.aspx.  Enjoy.


Small poppies: Highly gifted children in the early years
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Gross, M.
Roeper Review
Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 207-214
1999

This article by Miraca Gross is a classic on the development and needs of profoundly gifted children in infancy, toddlerhood and the preschool years. It discusses some of the hallmarks of extreme precocity in the very young. Other topics include identification and accommodation of these children.

Summary: Highly gifted children are frequently placed at risk in the early years of school through misidentification, inappropriate grade-placement and a seriously inadequate curriculum. Additional factors are their own early awareness, that they differ from their age-peers, and their consequent attempts to conceal their ability for peer acceptance. Teachers who have had no training or inservice in gifted education, and who are reluctant to use standardized tests of ability and achievement, may rely only on gifted behaviors to identify extremely high abilities in young children. This may compound the problem by ignoring early indicators of demotivation and underachievement. The very early development of speech, movement and reading in many highly gifted young children serves as a powerful predictor of unusually high intellectual ability. Parents of the highly gifted become aware of their children's developmental differences at an early age; yet parent nomination is under-utilized by primary and elementary schools, and information provided by parents regarding early literacy and numeracy in their children is often disregarded or actively disbelieved.


Let me share with you one of my earliest memories. The place is Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, where I was born and grew up. I am three, perhaps four, years old. It is a morning in early summer, and my mother and I are walking, as we often do, in Princes Street Gardens, set in a valley between the austere beauty of Edinburgh Castle, high on its rock, and the Georgian elegance of Princes Street itself. There is so much to see and to experience. The sea winds setting the flags streaming, the soaring plumes of the Ross Fountain, and the almost overpowering perfume of the flowers; roses, carnations, pansies, anemones and lupins in serried ranks, bank upon bank of them, terrace upon terrace, leading the eyes upward to the broad street with its trees and hedges fringing the pavement.
A man is working in the gardens and I am intrigued by what he is doing. There is a bed of tulips, golden like sunlight, lifting their heads to the high Edinburgh sky and the man is tidying the bed, weeding between the plants, removing leaves that have blight. I feel a sense of pride that I understand this; my mother has explained it. But he is doing something else that I can't understand. Some of the tulips have grown faster than their peers so that they are taller their golden heads stand higher than the others and the man is cutting off these heads so that the stalks stand bare, denuded, but now the same size as the other plants in the bed. I ask my mother, in puzzlement, why he is cutting down the tall tulips, and when she answers there is a trace of sadness in her voice. "He wants to make them all the same size, darling, so that they'll look tidier. But I don't think that's what gardening is all about, do you?"


Well, I agreed with my mother. I certainly didn't think that is what gardening was all about! But it made me take more notice of the flowers in the public gardens, and over the next few weeks I noticed something strange. The gardener couldn't do much to impose uniformity on bushes, or on flowers that grew in clumps; the roses and the crocuses were all different sizes. But flowers that grew on single stalks - flowers that stood alone - had been lopped if they threatened to disturb the symmetry of the bed they grew in.
As a teacher and academic working in gifted education, I have become sadly familiar with the cutting down to size of children who develop at a faster pace or attain higher levels of achievement than their age-peers. Perhaps these children offend our egalitarian principles and our sense of what is fit. Perhaps they threaten us as teachers; few of us encounter, with perfect equanimity, a young child whose capacity to learn is considerably greater than our own. Perhaps they are what we would wish to be, and are not. Perhaps they merely irritate us; gardening would be so much easier if all children progressed at the same rate. For whatever reason, intellectually gifted children are, more often than not, held back in their learning to conform to the pace of other children in their class. In Australia the practice is so explicitly recognized that It even has a special name: "cutting down the tall poppies".


How did the term originate? One story tells of a general who had conquered a new territory, and was unsure of how he should deal with the leaders of the vanquished tribes. Should he make use of their knowledge of the land, and their wealth of experience, or should he imprison them for fear that, if allowed to remain free, they would lead their peoples in an uprising? He asked the advice of his father, a veteran of many campaigns. The old man led him into a field of poppies, and then wordlessly walked through the field, expertly lopping, with his cane, the heads of the poppies which stood tallest. The young man returned home and put the vanquished leaders to the sword.
Our gifted children - our small poppies - are at risk in our schools, and the group at greatest risk are the highly gifted. This article explores two issues: first, that teachers' lack of awareness of the characteristics and needs of the highly gifted, coupled with the children's own attempts to conceal their ability for peer acceptance, can result in significant underachievement among this group; secondly, that an effective combination of nomination by trained or inserviced teachers, parent nomination, and standardized tests of ability and achievement, can form an effective matrix of identification procedures for young, highly gifted children.


Levels of Giftedness
Two major causes of the difficulties experienced in school by highly gifted students are the virtual absence of coursework in gifted education from most teacher training programs, and the lack of awareness, even among teachers with a genuine interest in gifted children, of the different levels of giftedness within the gifted population. Many teachers work on the assumption that gifted children comprise a relatively homogeneous group - and this misconception places the highly gifted at risk through misidentification, seriously inadequate curriculum provision, and inappropriate grade placement (Gross, 1992a, 1993).


Gifted pre-school children are at particular risk. Few gifted programs exist for children in this age-group; consequently pre-school teachers are likely to have had neither training on how to recognize these children, nor the opportunity of seeing the level they can work at when they are presented with appropriate learning experiences.


Steven, aged 4, marched into trouble with his pre-school teacher when she asked him to assist in picking up the plastic cups which the children had used for fruit juice. "Steven," she called, "can you pass that cup, please?" Steven paused a moment. Then he placed the cup deliberately in the center of the floor, clasped his hands behind his back, and, with an expression of solemn concentration, proceeded to pace back and forward in front of it. When his busy teacher rebuked him for not assisting in the clean-up, he explained with mock seriousness that he was not able to; she herself had given him a different task which, indeed, he had performed: he had now passed the cup from several different directions! For Steven's teacher, this was the last straw - or latest eccentricity - from a child who seemed quite incapable of conforming to four-year-old behavioral norms. She told him he was a rude and disobedient boy, and sent him to stand in a corner.


Cathy, meanwhile, was moving quietly around the room, collecting the other children's cups. For several days this had been her self-appointed role and she took keen pleasure in it. She stacked the cups carefully inside each other and carried the stack over to the teacher. "Look, Ms Marks," she said proudly, "I have 14 today. Yesterday I had 12. That's two more than yesterday." And she smiled with pleasure as Ms Marks gave her a grateful hug and told her what a clever, thoughtful class member she was.
Gifted girls learn teacher-pleasing behaviors far more quickly than boys (Silverman, 1989a). However, the differences in Cathy and Steven's behaviors, and Ms Marks' reactions to them, did not arise only from issues of gender and personality. They also arose from significant differences in the two children's levels of cognitive ability.


Cathy is a moderately gifted 4-year old with a visible talent for math. She has an IQ of 135 and although this has the potential to set her apart from the other children - children of this level of ability appear in the population at a ratio of only 1 in 100 - she is not so very different as to have noticeable social difficulties. Hollingworth (1926) defined the IQ range 125-155 "socially optimal intelligence" and observed that, in general, children scoring within this range were well-balanced, self-confident and out-going individuals who were able to win the confidence and friendship of age-peers. Cathy is quick witted, responsive, and eager to help. She is a delight to teach and Ms Marks enjoys her membership in the class.


Steven, however, is highly gifted with an IQ of 158 (approximately I in 10,000). This falls outside Hollingworth's range of socially optimal intelligence. He taught himself to read before his 3rd birthday and now has the reading skills of a 7-year-old. This is frustrating for him as there are no books challenging enough in Ms Marks' classroom. Indeed, very little that happens at pre-school provides him with either intellectual stimulation or social companionship. He adores puns and wordplay, and he has already found, to his regret, that the other children don't seem to understand the things he says; they just look at him in bewilderment. But what he can't understand is why Ms Marks herself doesn't appreciate his jokes. He really tries to please her. At home his plays on words are greeted with laughter and affectionate approval. He had genuinely meant to hand in his cup but he had suddenly been struck by the two meanings of the word "pass" - and, besides, everyone knew that collecting cups was Cathy's self-appointed task, in which she took great pleasure. He was going to give his cup to her when he was finished. Why had Ms Marks called him rude and disobedient?


If Ms Marks had been trained or even had inserviced on the characteristics of gifted preschoolers, she might have known that highly gifted students often enter school already reading (Gross, 1993), and she might have had a few more challenging books ready - just in case! She might also have recognized, in Steven's delight in wordplay, the unusually mature sense of humor that is characteristic of these children (Silverman, 1989b). But she had no training, no inservice and no previous experience with a child such as Steven.
Silverman (1989b, p. 71) defines the highly gifted as "those whose advancement is significantly beyond the norm of the gifted", and suggests that any child who scores three standard deviations above the mean on a test of cognitive ability should be termed highly gifted: that is, children of IQ 145 or above. Such children appear in the population at a ratio of approximately 1 in 1000. It is important to note, however, that by "advancement" Silverman is referring to intellectual ability or potential, rather than in-class performance; over the last 70 years, research on the school performance of highly gifted children reveals that, like Steven, the majority of these children are required to work at levels several years below their tested achievement (Hollingworth, 1942; Silverman, 1989b; Gross, 1993).


As can be seen, highly gifted children appear only rarely in the school population. This rarity is yet another factor in teachers' lack of awareness of the cognitive and affective characteristics of this group. If they are to fulfil their remarkable intellectual potential, these children require an educational program which differs significantly in structure, pace and content from that which might be offered to the moderately gifted. Yet highly gifted young children are often at risk from teachers who are unaware of the extent of their difference or who wrongly attribute their academic advancement to parental hothousing.


Developmental Differences in Highly Gifted Children
Research on intellectually gifted children, and particularly the highly gifted, reveals that even in early childhood they display significant differences from the developmental patterns observable in age-peers of average ability. The precocious development of speech, movement and reading are powerful indicators of possible giftedness. Of course, not every child who speaks, walks or reads early is even moderately gifted (Jackson, 1992), but when these skills appear at extremely early ages, and particularly when they appear in tandem, they are generally linked to unusually advanced intellectual development.


Early Development of Speech
Numerous researchers have noted the early development of speech and movement which is typical of moderately gifted children. Whereas the average age at which a child can be expected to utter her first meaningful word is around 12 months (Staines and Mitchell, 1982), the gifted child begins to speak, on average, some two months earlier. Furthermore, the stages of speech acquisition are passed through earlier and with greater rapidity than in the child of average ability. By 18 months the average child has a vocabulary of 3-50 words, but little attempt is made to link them into short phrases until the age of 2; however, in gifted children, linking words into phrases can commence as early as 12 months. Jersild (1960) noted that, at the age of 18 months, children of average ability were uttering a mean number of 1.2 words per "remark", whereas their gifted age-peers were uttering 3.7 words per "remark". By the age of 4-1/2 the difference was even more remarkable; the mean number of words per "remark" for average children was 4.6 words, while for the gifted it was 9.5.
Studies of highly gifted children record instances of linguistic precocity far beyond even that of the moderately gifted. The mean age at which 52 children of IQ 160+, studied by Gross (see Gross, 1993) uttered their first word was 9.1 months, with a standard deviation of 3.48. If two outliers are removed from this statistic (two brothers who spoke at 18 and 21 months respectively) the mean drops to 8.63 months with a much narrower standard deviation of 2.64. Eleven of these children spoke their first meaningful word (other than "mamma-dadda" babble) by the age of 6 months. Barbe (1964) studying children of IQ 148+, noted that the average age by which these children were speaking in sentences was 16 months.


The speech of some highly gifted children demonstrates quite remarkable fluency and complexity. Adam, one of Gross's subjects of IQ 160+, uttered his first word at 5 months and by two months later was talking in 3 and 4 word sentences. His mother recalls the astonishment of supermarket assistants as Adam, aged 7 months, gave a running commentary on the grocery items as she wheeled him past the shelves in the shopping cart. Peter, whose first word, spoken at 8 months, was "pussycat", surprised his parents at 18 months by announcing, "I think I'll have a quick shower." Roedell and her colleagues reported a 2-year-old who regularly used such complex sentences as "I want to take a look at this story to see what kinds of boys and girls it has in it" (Roedell, Jackson and Robinson, 1980).
It is this early and fluent command of language, linked to the cognitive precocity of the highly gifted, that gives rise to the love of wordplay which characterizes many highly gifted children - such as Steven's juggling with the alternate meanings of "pass".


Occasionally the speech of highly gifted children may be delayed, as in the case of the two brothers in Gross's study who did not speak until 18 months and 21 months respectively and whose mother was warned by their pediatrician that this might be indicative of intellectual disability. (Jonathan later tested at IQ 170 and Christopher at IQ 200!) In these situations, however, when speech does appear, it often arrives in the form of phrases or short sentences, rather than words in isolation. Robinson (1987) reports a young boy whose first utterance, at 20 months, was "Look! Squirrel eating birds' food!" It is important, therefore, to note that while unusually early speech is a powerful indicator of possible giftedness, delayed speech should not be taken as an indicator that the child is not gifted!
However, as will be discussed later, young gifted children who are verbally articulate may quickly learn to moderate their vocabulary at pre-school or in kindergarten if they sense disapproval from their classmates. Some even develop two vocabularies - one for home, the other for school (Gross, 1989) - and may even appear relatively inarticulate in the classroom.


Early Development of Mobility
Just as highly gifted children generally demonstrate an unusually rapid progression through the stages of speech development, the development of mobility may also arrive early and progress with unusual speed.
Even moderately gifted children tend to crawl, walk and run earlier than their age-peers (Terman, 1926; Witty, 1940) but highly gifted children may display even greater precocity. Silverman (1989b) describes a girl of 7 months who stood alone, climbed into chairs unassisted and navigated stairs by herself. Gross (1993) describes Rick, of IQ 162, who sat up by himself at 4-1/2 months, ran at 11 months and rode a two-wheeled bicycle unaided at age 3. The mean age at which Gross's subjects of IQ 160+ sat up unsupported was 6.1 months, as opposed to 7-8 months in the general population. The mean age at which they walked while supported was 10.1 months - 1-1/2 months earlier than the population mean - and the mean age at which they were walking independently was 12.1 months - fully 3 months earlier than is usual. Not only did these children become physically mobile at remarkably early ages, but the stages of skill development were traversed with exceptional speed.


Early Development of Reading
The research literature on intellectual giftedness suggests that one of the most powerful indicators of exceptional giftedness is early reading. Both Terman (1926) and Hollingworth (1926, 1942) reported that it was early reading that most clearly differentiated between the moderately and highly gifted children in their studies. Almost 43% of the children of IQ 170 in Terman's gifted group read before the age of 5, compared with 18% in the sample as a whole, while 13% of the IQ 170 group read before the age of 4.
Over the last 30 years print has become more accessible to young children ...


finish reading the article by going here ---->  http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10124.aspx

[queriquita]

I know it seems like a lot, but this really is a great article and taps on so many things that concern our kids' development. here are the other headings in the article:

Early Development of ReadingCommunity Attitudes to Physical and Intellectual Precocity (this made me think of so many of us on this board)
The Awareness of Difference
Issues in the Identification of Young Highly Gifted Children
Teacher Nomination
Parent nomination
Ability and Achievement Testing
Appropriate Placement of Highly Gifted Young Children

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Interesting article, thank you for sharing!

(PS I added some white space for you to make it easier for everyone to read versus one block of text, hope you don't mind.  )

[Kimba15]

Thank you for sharing.

This has been one of the reasons I want to home school. I can not tell you how frustrating it is to get teachers on board who blatenly disbelieve you and your child's ability. My dd has become so resistant to any learning with me or her teacher and I believe that she is trying to hide what she knows so she can fit in with the other children. I have also had huge issues with getting her reading progressed and she has been at lvl 21 for weeks. It is so frustrating to the point that I am looking at having her tested just so I can have the paper work that says "See she really is smart" which sounds so egotistical but without that piece of paper no one will believe me.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

End RANT.

[Mela Bala]

Hi Queriquita,

Thanks for posting this article.  It is so nice to see you back on the forum!   

I have been looking for a more advanced preschool setting for Cayden.  I'm not sure if your coming back to the northern Virginia area but if you do...   www.curiosityzone.com. It's a science based program with classes for children from ages 2 to 5th grade. 

[queriquita]

tmt - thanks for taking the time to do that; much better!

kimba - i feel ya, and i have been frantically searching for non homeschool options since we started this journey, knowing that the picking were scarce

mela - yay, i'm glad to be back too!!  i've been up there so much this summer ... i just came back to hr thi week, actually, but will be up again next week, i think.  you know that's how i roll .  anyway, yes, another momma told me about that place, we should definitely go!! we've been doing a lot of the museums lately too - a lot of interactive things for the kiddos and free, so that's nice too. thanks for the suggestion.  call/text me and we'll figure it out :-)  maybe i can drag tmt up with me jeje and we'll make a day/weekend of it.

[PokerDad]

Enjoyed the article. I'm going to save it for future reference should I ever need it.

It seemed to mirror much of what I've read in my time here on BK in that children adapt to their surroundings and (especially if bright enough) will throttle themselves just to fit in socially. This throttling concerns me greatly because my wife is adamant about "socialization" (and in her words, that means like-age children NOT like-interest or like-thought or like-development). Should PokerCub take to EL like I think he will, this article might go a long ways to helping me avoid some huge pitfalls down the road. Thanks!

[Mandabplus3]

I have a question. Do the early learning parents on this forum believe that doing EL activities that cause early advancement of skills mean that their child is gifted?
I see the two as completely difrent. I see a gifted child as gifted and an EL child as well educated. Both are in need of different curriculum in the classroom but not necessarily the same different curriculum.
For the record my teachers training had plenty of gifted study components and as a preschool teacher I still would have been disappointed in that boys reaction to the cup. I would have been more patient and asked him if he knew what meaning I had intended and asked him to comply with that meaning.  Being gifted is not an excuse for being a brat!
Your thoughts? Are your reading 3 year olds gifted? Would they show up as gifted in an IQ test in 6 years time?

[DadDude]

Welcome back, queriquita!

Yes, interesting article.

On Mandabplus3 & PokerDad's observation/question, notice this sentence: "The research literature on intellectual giftedness suggests that one of the most powerful indicators of exceptional giftedness is early reading." I believe this means that if your child reads early, then he is more likely to be gifted. That would be exciting for the parents whose children are reading early--except that you must bear in mind that it is possible to teach children of perfectly average intelligence to read early. If your child reads early because he is gifted, grand. But if it is because you have taught him to read early, that's grand too, but it doesn't mean (by itself) that he's gifted; the fact that you taught him to read early is an adequate explanation of why he reads early.

In general, I still lack evidence that it is possible to cause a child to be gifted, or to raise his IQ by huge amounts. I am sure it is possible to raise it somewhat.

For the record, I don't think H. is especially gifted. He's somewhat bright, though, like his parents. For me, the goal of early education is getting a great start on an excellent education. Moderately enhancing his natural intelligence, which I suppose is all we can aspire to, is an excellent side-effect, but not at all the point.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Being gifted is not an excuse for being a brat!

LOL

[Mandabplus3]

Dad dude, I agree. I just don't see the evidence either ( although there are 2 kids on this forum I might change my mind on,) i question it because i can see where the early earning changes the ability to learn in children. Some of these kids are learning and retaining new information at a speed faster than previously. This in itself is a great thing. But I see giftedness as the ability to manipulate this information in an advanced way. 
Interestingly the earlier the EL kids get themselves tested for giftedness the more likely they are to be classed as gifted. ( early reading and general knowledge can enhance  the results in younger children's tests) I would be curious to know if those kids would remain gifted in the iq tests over time or their standard intelligence shows through once the tests rely more on logic. I do believe EL kids could ace the patterning part of the tests especially those involving number. I reckon that bit could be trainable.
In the same boat, I don't think my kids are gifted either, but have fairly high levels of intelligence. Not to mention extreme curiosity for their ages.
TMT - glad you got the humor in it! I was wondering how many people that statement would offend! 

[Kimba15]

The problem with doing EL is that you do get a more advanced child then what the 'average' say child at 5 can do.  You still encounter what a lot of parents of gifted kids encounter and that is teachers unwilling to continue their advancement and unwilling to recognise it. You almost need the test to prove your point and you do watch their love of learning disappear because teachers will not recognise their advancement or have their nose put out of joint because you have taught them and therefore are not wanting to work with your child so they are kept at the same level they get bored with school and just like the gifted kids become disillusioned with the whole system.

[queriquita]

PokerDad, so glad that this article helped in some way :-)  

not that your wife's insistence for same-age socialization is due to any of this, but it's funny to me that so many people think social awkwardness is a result of giftedness (being advanced beyond the norm) rather than a normal reaction to being rejected by one's mismatched "norm" environment while trying to stay true to one's self .  the other thing that strikes me peculiar is people's belief that giftedness is closely tied to socially rejected mental health problems.  i will copy and paste from http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10550.aspx part of an interview with the impressive dr cross'

question: What is the biggest misunderstanding about the social and emotional needs of gifted young people?  

part of his answer: "A second misunderstanding is the myth that gifted students have a greater tendency toward mental health problems. This belief was disproven empirically approximately 100 years ago, but the myth still exists. Recent research has corroborated that students with gifts and talents tend to be healthier, stronger and more socially successful than their nongifted counterparts."

ok, so now that i got that out of the way ;-) here's my soapbox reply:
i keep the kids involved in a variety of activities so socialization with a mix of younger-, same- and older-aged children, as well as less-, similarly-, and more-experienced children is part of life, mimicking adulthood, no?  as an adult, i am proud of who i am and of my range of interests, and strive to remain authentic to ME while acknowledging and respecting that others have their own interests.  i do not have to be best friends with everyone, but it is important to live in peace and there is nothing wrong with seeking out interesting companionship (like i do on this board) to help keep life intriguing and exciting.  

with the hope of imparting onto future generations the life lessons of authenticity to oneself and peaceful living in a heterogeneous world, I do agree that it's important to teach socialization with 'all'.  I wouldn't force constant/prolonged companionship with children who don't interest your child, and I would make it a priority to find holistically stimulating friendships for your child. By this, I mean involving children in an array of social circles where without being forced they can develop friendships with those who are also great swimmers, even if math isn't what they discuss, as well as friends who love math, even if they never race in the water. i find this approach parallels many adults who have work friends, weekend friends, college friends, hobby friends, family, etc.

the sad reality, i imagine, is that many of us el parents may not have the luxury of not forcing our children into a school setting where they will be 'throttling' to the point of inevitably equaling or being surpassed by the 'hard-working' children whose parents didn't dedicate the time/energy required by el. what's the point of all our hard work in the early years if that's going to be the result??  if given the choice, well past the el years i would continue to do everything in my power to help my child develop their gifts and talents to their fullest, taking pride in whatever their true version evolves into throughout the journey that is their life. for me, not doing so would be like not fulfilling one's purpose, one's destiny. and if this is the case, how can one truly live happily with a shade of themselves that is just not so bright as what everything within them says they can be? how can i as a parent be happy with myself if i didn't nurture and encourage them to blossom to their fullest?  keyword: THEIR, not "MY opinion of what their fullest and truest self is or should be".

i think that too many individuals suffer from a growing uneasiness and personal frustration resulting from untapped potential energy. and i place the bulk of the blame on a society that may be inadvertently stimulating our youngest minds and then forcing them into an archaic and slowly evolving school system, which is producing countless 'throttlers' who learn to survive by leading an inauthentic existence, misguided into thinking that they are to conform under one label to be accepted.

my experience is that it's rare to find ONE person or label with which we click on all facets. in any forced setting where i haven't felt stimulated, intrigued, challenged, etc, i have felt stifled and dare i say turned off or 'depressed', not the natural high felt from the synergy created when similarly inspired individuals come together and exchange ideas, ideally culminating in action.  i want to encourage my children to seek out others who can help them vibrate to such a livelier frequency.  i was stunned and alarmed to find in my research that 'gifted children' are at risk for depression and suicide!  but this shouldn't surprise me if i think about how gifted children tend to feel disconnected from the norm if not encouraged to be authentic and placed in an environment that allows like-minded peer interaction.  check out tracy cross (http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/archive/2009/new-gifted-ed-center-director-recognized-by-mensa-for-lifetime-achievement-123.php) and his life's work about this specific trend to learn more.

but to wrap up, yes, i think that mingling up and down the varying social ladders is an important life skill that i am working on instilling in my children, and that includes learning to acknowledge who they are, taking action to become who they want to be and standing tall on their own two feet. all this reminds me of a marianne williamson quote that has stayed with me over the years since reading her book return to love: reflection on the principles of "a course in miracles"

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Mandabplus3, hey there, again :-)

as far as i say, gifted, in short, means going beyond the norm in a particular field (as a result of one's own volition).  i don't know of a case where curiosity was not the driving force or the developing force behind 'giftedness', giving rise to retention and then "the ability to manipulate the information in an advanced way", thus creating.  until the majority of the population is doing el, whether intended or not, el helps our children go beyond the norm with regards to whatever the el subject is - music, art, math, reading, swimming, etc.  the gifted spectrum is massive and el throws our kids up on that rainbow.  even in watching the olympics, the highlights of the "gifted" gold medal swimmers mentioned that those athletes were swimming and reading well before preschool. i was so excited i had to rewind and hear/watch again.  i don't believe a 15 year old who started swimming at 10 could have accomplished the same.  even the "gifted" gymnasts were highlighted as doing perfect cartwheels at three.  there is no forcing a 1-3 year old to read and decode all we can do is guide and encourage. when presented in an engaging way, on their own children take joy in accepting what we present and figuring out how to read.

as to the child in the article, i don't think he was being a brat at all. :-P had he demonstrated his cleverness for me, i absolutely would have rejoiced , as i do with my own kids, but then again, my mother and grandparents, and even my husband at times, feel that my kids should be conforming more to cultural standards of what is and isn't acceptable behavior.  my kids listen to respected authority, and when they don't, they go to time out, and hear an explanation of what is expected of them and why, so that they can learn. so long as they are being safe and respectful, i give them creative license to discover our world, especially at such a young age.  i side with the author when it comes to the kid in the article, though.  i think he was trying to entertain with his play on words and i don't think it's good to dim one's spirits, especially at that age.  she could have respected his creativity and explained her preference, demonstrating a better approach to conflict resolution.  i loved domanmom's post about elmo's creator and how he may have never become such a gifted puppeteer had his father dampened his initial creative attempt at puppet making (http://domanmom.com/2012/07/your-words-can-shape-your-childs-future/). my two cents.

and whether or not our el/gifted reading 3 year olds show up as gifted on an iq test in 6 years i think has more to do with the environment in those 6 years.  does it encourage them to fully develop their potential, not restricting them based on lower expectations/standards, or pressuring them to throttle so as to assimilate and be accepted for survival?  and what's the norm doing?  if the bar's been raised, then maybe giftedness will then be the norm. ;-)  somehow, i don't see that happening so soon.

DadDude, thanks for the warm welcome! It's definitely been TOO long :-)  I'm glad you found the article interesting, even if 'old' by my standards.  

When it comes to intelligence and reading early, i find them related in that  i think that as soon as you have taught a 1, 2 or even 3 year old to read ... and to ENJOY it ... you've set them up to increase their intelligence and set them apart from the norm.  although you've altered their course by a few degrees today, the result could be a gap that's separated by light years from their peers, depending on how many other course changes were made and in what direction (towards or away from the norm).  does this make sense?  i don't see the difference between reading early because the child is gifted and knowingly teaching a child to read, aside from the fact that in one case someone intentionally set out to accomplish a result, instead of pretending to have no clue when the cameras run on good morning america how their child learned whatever they learned - reading, the countries of the world, the periodic table, etc. the inspiration and desire came from somewhere, even if it wasn't intended, and the tools to accomplish the task where placed within reach to get the final result.  regardless of how the child began to read early, i think the result of reading earlier than their peers initially puts the child in the 'gifted' spectrum.  now, whether or not the child stays there, i believe is based on the child's experiences from that point up until the child/adolescent/adult is tested again.  that said, when it comes to my children, the goal is less about the results of a test (unless that test is a tool to help me accomplish my goal) and more about setting my child up for a life long pursuit of knowledge and acting on it to improve our world.  

i love that you are looking for evidence, though.  i am diligently gathering evidence to prove that so long as the norm remains unchanged, you CAN create 'giftedness' and raise iq significantly, not just from reading but from a holistic approach to el, since the act of reading could still be turned off and not continued to develop, plus the book selections would have a significant impact on breath and depth of knowledge.  anyway, i don't believe that the final effect will be such if a lifestyle of curious pursuit isn't fostered well beyond the el years, though.  it's uber late/early, so i'm hoping my ramblings are still coherent ;-) chat soon :-)

[Mandabplus3]

Well I would love to see the evidence! I would love to know it is possible. It would be world changing. I would love to know that early education can permanently rewire the brain into the analytical gifted brain. I see gifted to mean more than above the norm, the gifted people of the world think deeper, analyze more, make connections.... But based on your definition then yes these EL kids are all gifted, mine included.
In the meantime I do believe there will soon be a need for another word to describe our not naturally gifted but well educated early learning children. Since we are slowly taking over the planet! 

[PokerDad]

This thread sure did take off!

Do the early learning parents on this forum believe that doing EL activities that cause early advancement of skills mean that their child is gifted?

I haven't read all the replies yet, but I'm with DadDude on the whole "gifted" thing. DadDude points out some potential fallacies in his post (that early reading is often associated with gifted but that early reading does not equal gifted) - namely there's the potential to affirm the consequent. (ie, Gifted read early; Billy reads early, therefore Billy is gifted)

I do find myself using the term incorrectly, or equivocating if you will. While Gifted and EL are not synonymous, I have a belief that:
1. IQ is malleable
2. Environmental stimuli influences IQ in either/both directions

IMO, both of these have been "proven" to an extent. That's not to say that IQ doesn't have a genetic component when it assuredly does.

With these two beliefs that I have, I sometimes conflate EL and Gifted-ness. The reason is that if you were to EL and then keep the pedal to the metal so to speak, you'd wind up with a bona fide  "prodigy" after enough period of time and the proper sort of EL. While the prodigy may not be the result of pure genetics, the outcome would still be indisputable. There have been several examples of this throughout history.

The article is dealing mostly with the pure genetics "gifted" sort of kid. As it pertains to social ramifications, I believe the article is pertinent to EL kids as well. Mea Culpa for conflating the two haphazardly.

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