A study has been following 'gifted' kids for 45 years. Here's what we've learned
upworthy.com
upworthy.com
If anyone wants more in depth resources on gifted kids, I recommend two books by Deborah Ruf. Her more recent one follows up on the kids she studied in the first one almost 20 years later.
You can find the follow-up papers here: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/
The results seem surprisingly weak. Of the quartile that scored an average of 700 on their SAT math (at a time when the cap was 800) at age 13, only 10% went on to end up in the top 5% of earners. Add to that the context that the population since 1968 (when they were tested) has increased by about 65% (thus increasing the raw number of people in the top 5%) without necessarily increasing the number of academic outliers by a proportional amount.
It would be interesting to see IQ results and contrast them accordingly. There's a well known quirk with IQ. Childhood IQ levels are heavily influenced by environment, but adult IQ levels are predominately hereditary - privileges or disadvantages in childhood notwithstanding. Though that's definitely not an argument against the paper's overall premise - that we should work to foster and advance excellence so much as possible.
[1] - https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-my/wp-content/uploads/sites/82...
When you get pulled out of the "standard", suddenly people expect more from you, forgetting that happiness is at the core.
When you enter college at 12 it is beyond a "slight genetic advantage" IMO.
And it's not just genetic. A gifted kids was given the gift of having parents who care, who put in the work and who have the means to put in the work.
I don't know, I think both things (predisposition and hard work) can be accepted as true.
Giftedness is more about being developmentally more advanced and having high ability and/or potential in some area. It makes them out of sync with their peers. There are many theories, one of which is Dabrowski’s over excitabilities, but in essence they do function differently from others.
Some gifted students are high performing students but a surprisingly number are not. Many gifted kids struggle with motivation and persistence. True gifted programs deal with the needs of gifted kids development — the so called gifted programs in schools today are more like accelerated classes which have little to do with developmental needs. Giftedness is a special need on the other side of the spectrum.
I think we all know the type: really intelligent kid but amounted to not much in life. (The most well known pop culture portrayal was Good Will Hunting although that’s all fictionalized and not gifted kid is at that level — there are different levels)
in some field.
async development is a significant challenge for gifted kids
Social skills for instance is another are where the growth is uneven. A gifted kid may be advanced in their reading levels but may not yet have figured out how to behave maturely in a group or read social cues. (Sometimes it resembles ASD but the difference is that ASD might lack the ability in general whereas with gifted kids it just comes later IF they have the right support)