Article: Highly Gifted Children in the Early Years

[annisis]

I was considered "gifted" as a child and attended special classes. What I noticed personally about gifted children was more their creativity than their "intelligence". Gifted children seemed, to me, capable of seeing things differently than the average child or adult. This was, of course, coupled with a strong desire to learn, and an insatiable curiosity, either in specific or general topics. Gifted learners also tend to want to overdo projects, or in more common terms are over-achievers.

So no, I don't think reading at an early age determines giftedness. However, I do think that IQ can be improved upon or even determined at a young age. I believe I read once (no telling where!) that Einstein took an interest in his father's (?) physics journals as a child. And I have read many other articles lately (I really should bookmark these things) about how creativity may actually be a skill and not necessarily an inherited talent. If we look back at many of the geniuses, several had early exposure to that about which they became passionate. Oftentimes, it had to do with family professions and/or hobbies.

I don't believe that the term should be "gifted", but rather "exposed and intrigued" at an early age of course

[PokerDad]

I figured instead of an edit to my above post, a separate reply to queriquita was warranted.

First a few quotes and my responses:

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've mentioned on BK before, but most of the little kids crushing the 8 & under category were no where to be seen when I was in college (and we're talking specifically about swimmers here). There's perhaps many reasons: burnout, asymmetric growth, skill advancement or lack thereof, etc. To support your quote, I'll take a look at one of the Olympic Gold Medalists. I'm going to use abbreviations here just because - well... just because!

If you look at the men's 100m freestyle. A 23 year old, we'll call him N.A., won the gold medal. I never raced N.A. because he was too young at the time I was competing. However, I was college teammates with N.A.'s older brother J.A. - JA and myself raced the 100 freestyle more times than I can remember (though I do remember ONE TIME losing to JA). In college, I marveled at JA's stature. I thought, "this guy should be far faster than he is". In fact, my opinion was shared by another teammate and close friend of mine (we'll call him JH and his older sister won the 200m butterfly gold in 2000).

I surmise that JA's parents (who treated me well BTW) put JA & co into swimming when JA was a kid. JA eventually was very fast in the 100 fly but not world class. Because NA had the benefit of sibling experience and enrolled sooner, perhaps NA was the swimmer that we felt JA should/could have been. IMO, this little look supports your contention.

i don't believe a 15 year old who started swimming at 10 could have accomplished the same.

If you take out the "15 year old" part - I'm not so sure. My best man started swimming at age 12. By the time he was 20, he was ranked 10th in the world in the 100m backstroke. Unfortunately, he quit the sport and allowed a slower competitor named Lenny Krazelburg to go on and crush the event without a fight. By age 16, my best man was already remarkable and accomplished. He's certainly the exception.

I did have a friend that crushed the 8 & unders who went on to do very well in college. He's the one that started young and kept with it. One of his rivals, Anthony Ervin, went on to win the gold in 2000 and 5th this summer in the 50 free. I've also had to go head to head against AE in the 100 (I lost BTW, but not without a fight beating him to the halfway mark, LOL)... I'm not sure when AE started, but I know AE and my friend were childhood rivals. That friend of mine passed away this last Feb in a tragic plane accident - I literally couldn't count all his all-american accolades when I spoke at the memorial.

I suppose this one supports your contention also.

EDIT: the reason for mentioning AE is that of all the swimmers I competed against, watched, tried to learn from, etc, AE was the exception. It was fairly easy to tell most swimmer's training strategy or strategy in how to go fast, but with AE, he just had something that others didn't. I once tried to talk to him about it, but LOL - dude had no idea what I was talking about/ didn't seem to think things through much or was deliberately blowing me off. At that point, I decided "some are just faster than others... naturally". I still think this, though the book Bounce takes that to task. There is a difference in phenotype that is besides training, which is how I'd classify someone like Phelps (as naturally superior, but not without the obvious efforts as well)

if the bar's been raised, then maybe giftedness will then be the norm. ;-)

I'm not sure if it's the bar or the environment. The bar would be sort of like the Pygmalion effect - the environment perhaps more like the Flynn effect.

The Flynn effect is an indirect empirical observation that strongly suggest that IQ coincides with environment. For further proof, Dr. William Fowler outlines an entire chapter in "Potentials of Childhood vol 1" where he discusses increases in IQ at length. I don't have time to go look up some quotes for you but increasing 30 points is not unreasonable (especially if they started low)

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

This is actually fact. Education authors that will attest to this include E.D. Hirsch and Daniel T. Willingham. The more knowledge you have, the faster you can accumulate it. The more you have, the more creative you can become and on down the line.

In short, education has a GEOMETRIC growth trajectory, not a linear growth trajectory.

[Frukc]

In general, I still lack evidence that it is possible to cause a child to be gifted,

Lately I am reading about highly sensitive children (hsc) because my girl is highly sensitive and I am. These children use pause to check before acting. They are more observative. They see and note more than another children. They do not need repetition so they usually are above the average academically.

This is fully inborn trait. Researchers of sensitivity say that brain of sensitive people somehow work in a different way, and something here is more complex (book about hsc is here http://www.scribd.com/doc/60743155/The-Highly-Sensitive-Child).

I did not find much research if it is really true about hsc brains, just some papers like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3023077/?tool=pubmed

In article cited by queriquita there are some suspicion that gifted children often are sensitive. "...  when the psychologists actually tested the intelligence of the children, the gifted children appeared not among the plungers but among the sideliners and go-alongers. "

I think, my girl is slightly gifted, similarly as I am. If we have some extra abilities in our brain than we use them  for intense emotions, and little bit for academical issues D) and this is inborn trait. Also the type of sensitivity is inborn - sensitivity to emotions, to sounds, food, harsh textiles.

I believe that the giftedness can be a type of sensitivity what is inborn. We can not get that structure of brain, similarly as we can not get another type of physical body.

Elaine Aron (one of authors of "highly sensitive person" concept) writes: it is undemocratically to say but we are born different.

My aim of early education is to help my kids to open and use their potential. I think we all want the same

[diva7]

Hi all,

My daughter was an EL. I reluctantly got her tested due to the preschool teacher insisting and due to her love of learning evaporating after a few months in a Montessori enviroment. I too believe that she wasnt gifted and didnt have a need to get her tested. My daughters demotivation and refusal to learn anything other than her abcs and counting to 0-9. We got her tested and she was in the highly gifted range.

I now have another daughter and can see the difference in EL in each child. The older dds ability to process information and memory recall was at a much faster speed. i didnt have to put much effort into the learning process as I have to with the second dd. My first dd was reading independently when she was 2.5 yrs and the second is showing no signs of reading at all. I do believe that if all EL get tested they would be showing all ranges of giftedness and if everyone does early learning with their kids such tests wouldnt exist.

[Mandabplus3]

Oh diva7, thanks for chiming in!
Did you sit in on the test? How much of it do you think she ranked higher on because of her EL knowledge? Do you think she will still test high in 5 years time on the adults logic test? I find it interesting that you had decided she wasn't gifted only to have the tests tell you otherwise. I assume you had decided she was a normal little girl with a good education.
Now that you have 2 children, having that comparison must be very ....oh what's the word? I would love to read more!  Anyway I truly hope your little girl gets the education she needs to keep her motivated and learning.

[shadahfree]

Frukc, thank you for posting about the sensitivities. I was labeled as gifted as a child. I have always been extremely sensitive to smells and chemical additives in foods. I cannot tolerate chemical perfumes without getting a migraine. This is extremely aggravating, but it makes me wonder if it is tied. Do you know of any more research on this?

[TeachingMyToddlers]

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.

There is a whole website dedicated to training your child to take an IQ test/gifted school entrance exam, like anything, it is  trainable to an extent. www.testingmom.com. She even has a test prep game called IQ Fun Park ($300) which pulls questions inspired from the top 4 industry standard IQ tests. I find it fascinating, but I've not yet had a reason to train my children to take an IQ test although the logic portion of it is probably very beneficial, test or no test. If my children did need to take some kind of entrance exam, I would absolutely prepare them as best I could. This is what she had to say about how she became involved in preparing her son for testing.Talk about a huge jump!

aren first became interested in testing when she noticed that her son, Sam, wasn’t developing as quickly as her daughter had. A doctor diagnosed a hearing problem that could be fixed via surgery and (after giving Sam an IQ test where he scored in the 37th percentile) pronounced that Sam would never function in a regular classroom. Luckily, Karen’s mother was a PhD in Early Childhood Development. She showed Karen how to work with Sam and get him ready for both testing and a regular classroom. Karen worked diligently with Sam for about half-an-hour every day doing activities that would build the abilities he needed for school and testing. A year later, Sam scored in the 94th percentile on an IQ test. He was admitted to a competitive private school in Manhattan and is now an honors student.

[Tamsyn]

Interesting thread.  I agree with DadDude on this one.  However, I would like to point out that while every child who has done the Suzuki program does not end up being a prodigy, there are a large percentage of string prodigies that came out of the Suzuki program.  (I'm not going to look it up, but I remember reading that somewhere).  Why?  Because those children who really were gifted had the opportunity to excel. If giftedness is associated with early reading, then they first had to have the opportunity to read, just like the string prodigies had an opportunity to play.  How many gifted string prodigies have we missed because no one ever put a violin in their hands?

So I say, teach your children to read early.  Maybe they will become gifted.  Worse case scenario, they become a well-educated child.  I can live with that.

[Korrale4kq]

I would also assume that many children who do Suzuki also have parents that are of high intelligence and successful. So socio economics probably plays a part in that also.

Just as with early reading parents. Many of the parents here are of high intelligence with more than a few earning high degrees.

I don't know if giftedness can be taught and intelligence raised. But I do think that early learning does help.  Take the success rate of early intervention for example. A program in the US that proides therapies and eduction to children from birth to three that show developmental delays. The stats for children succesfully catching up with their peers developmentally are all over the place but they are generally high. Some stating sucees rates higher than 80%.

My son had issues during birth and in his first year of life that left him with a chance of 85% mental retardation. I believe it Is because of early learning that he can read and do maths above his 2.5 year old age level. Genetics may have played a role in his achievements because I was in gifted equivalent classes at school.

People tell me James is smart, I consider him an average boy that is trained. However I have been getting my hands on some workbooks written for gifted and talented children and I am finding that he does well with the challenge. The content in the workbooks I have found is quite differnt to the standard books that I encounter. So we enjoy the diversity.
 

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Korrale4kq- If you have connections to the early intervention community, have you considered volunteering to spread EL to those children who truly need it? BrillKids' charity arm, the Early Education for Every Child Foundation, needs individuals like you to help identify children in need of  receiving BrillKids learning programs. Go to www.eeecf.otg to apply to volunteer or PM me for more information. This holds true for anyone else reading this post--if you know of schools, orphanages, special needs groups, low income day cares, etc, who need to be reached....please help us reach them! 

[diva7]

I didnt sit the test with her. She's very independent and still is. The tests she did had nothing to do with reading...from what I saw its just shapes and logic and determines how a child process the information that is given. A child from a non english background can take the test as well. So I assume a math whizz could easily excel it. I do think EL has alot to do with exercising the working memory and many other factors of the brain.

She was the first child, talked early so theres no comparison. I started EL with her from 12months old, very erratic and no routine sort of learning.(which doesnt seem to work with the 2nd daughter!). Did ybcr starter dvd twice and the rest once...as she was bored with it.
After I found out she could read we left it at that. So EL stopped at 3 at home as thats when she attended preschool. I was told that the brain stabilize at 6-7..we then can get her tested again to see if theres any changes to how she process information. Not really a priority though...more of curiousity.

At the moment she is attending Kindergarten doing a grade above in literacy and maths. Although she is happy, I do believe it is a breeze for her and she doesnt need to work hard so she is content.

[Mandabplus3]

Diva7, I understand that difference. My first was happy to absorb what I tell her after just one hearing. The other two need a gradual reinforcement and building upon the knowledge regularly to maintain the information. Unfortunately I am more haphazard like my oldest and not so great at routine and commitment.  Oddly enough, I doubt my oldest would test the highest on an IQ test as the other two have much better thinking strategies. We will probably never know as I just don't think it's worth the money to find out!  From your comments I do believe your daughter will still test highly if you have her tested again later on. It also appears she had a pretty good quality test done. your observations about the math whizz being able to ace the test are possibly quite true. However it would need to be an EL math wizz who has been given lots of opportunity to see and develop patterns and logic ( or probably any kid who could still subitize).
TMT i have checked out that ladies website. It was quite interesting, from memory you could get some test questions free by email? And then had to cough up that ( incredibly expensive!) $300 for the rest. However yes if it mattered that my kids needed to be tested I would probably find the $$$$ to be sure they were well prepared.
Now isn't this an interesting conversation? 

[Kimba15]

I have the iq fun park game. I bought it because my eldest dd seems to be going through a resistant stage but will play a game. Personally my dd really enjoys it and we she is solving questions in the 6-7 age range. I get free practice questions all the time. If I end up having her tested she is well prepared but I will be having her tested more because I just need to have the piece of paper that says she is bright and needs to be challenged just to prove it to the school because heaven forbid they believe a parent.

Do I believe she is gifted? No, I believe she is well educated enough to pass a test and get a high score. The Pediatrician wants her tested and has told me to bring her back at 5 even though I explained to him that I taught her to read and I taught her maths. He said even if you taught her it is the ability to retain the knowledge at her age that would suggest that she is gifted. Because I have taught her I guess that I have always taken Dad Dudes opinion that she was given the opportunity to learn and there fore become well=educated because of it not because she naturally gifted. But I still argue the children's whose parents say they received no active early learning but still test in the gifted range still provided an environment (maybe unknowingly) where the child could learn to their optimal rate. Maybe read lots of books to them? Maybe talked to them all the time? Maybe Dad had them in the shed? Or mum played an instrument? Mum or Dad cooked with them and had them actively participating in things even though they thought they weren't doing anything special?

[Frukc]

shadahfree,
here is a test if you are highly sensitive http://www.hsperson.com/pages/test.htm

If your child is sensitive, here is a book http://www.scribd.com/doc/60743155/The-Highly-Sensitive-Child 
and its summary http://www.mandalachildrenshouse.com/DYK/Did_You_Know-Highly_Sensitive_Child_1-08.pdf

I do not personally know any IQ 200 child. But I know several enough gifted children. Their parents think that their giftedness is inherited. I think that parents spent a lot more quality time with them than average child has.

All gifted children I know are the first kids in their families. When I see families with two and more children, typically the first child is academically more successful than the second one. It can not be due to genetics but probably because of the possibility to have more quality time with a particular child.

http://taylorfinch.hubpages.com/hub/How-Birth-Order-Affects-Your-Life
... The oldest child tends to have a higher IQ and be more responsible, career-driven and confident.  .... Many Nobel Prize winners, US presidents, astronauts and classical music composers were first-borns and likewise a Time magazine survey revealed that 43% of CEOs interviewed worldwide were an oldest child ....

[Skylark]

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