Learning Problems-The-

Giftedness

Synonyms
Synonyms in a broader sense

Synonyms

Talent, high talent, special talent, genius, special talent, high intelligence, highly intelligent, highly gifted, high performance

English: highly gifted, highly talented, endowment, giftedness.

Synonyms in a broader sense

Partial performance disorder, dyscalculia, dyslexia can be associated with giftedness, but need not be

definition

Giftedness is mostly determined by measuring intelligence. Giftedness, however, is more than an intelligence test that promises to determine intelligence using an intelligence quotient.

Neither talent nor giftedness is to be equated with achievement or high achievement. This is due to the fact that performance is based on different components and is influenced by many aspects or side effects. Due to these influences, giftedness can go undetected.
Particularly in connection with ADD or ADHD, or with dyslexia or dyscalculia, giftedness may go undetected.

In the literature one finds a very suitable multi-factor model of giftedness, which was developed by Prof. Dr. Franz Mönks was described and defined. While on the one hand he describes the individual factors that emanate from each person, he also indicates that external factors also have an influence.

Developmental advantages can manifest themselves on different levels. Advances in the intellectual - intellectual area are conceivable, but also in the musical - aesthetic, motivational or social area. Environmental conditions, such as the family environment, friends, but also kindergarten and school, as so-called extrinic (= coming from outside) factors, play a sometimes quite significant role.

Giftedness, assessed solely on the basis of the intelligence quotient as part of an intelligence test, is far easier to define. According to this, one speaks of giftedness if the intelligence quotia (IQ) is measured at 130 or higher.

Read more on the subject here "Giftedness in Adults"

Characteristics of giftedness

Curiosity and interest in learning new things
Independent (self-taught) learning to read, write, etc.
Pronounced, early interest in abstract symbols (numbers, letters, shapes)
Fun in brain games and puzzles
Very good memory and reasoning
Perseverance in solving difficult tasks and demanding questions
Often introverted behavior
Few friendships and generally older social contacts
Pronounced perfectionism in self-selected tasks
Great sensitivity in various areas e.g. Noise, avoidance of crowds

Read also below: How do you recognize giftedness?

Test giftedness

The behaviors mentioned are indications for a possible giftedness. An objective test to prove giftedness can be done in a Psychologists be done through an intelligence test. One should consult an experienced psychologist who has experience with gifted children. From an intelligence quotient, IQ for short, of one hundred and thirty or more, people are considered highly gifted.

Find out more at: Test for giftedness

Who tests giftedness?

If educators, teachers and parents get the impression that a child could be gifted, the child should be examined for giftedness. You can contact the German Society for Gifted Children (DGHK) for this. This nationwide association advises families on possible giftedness and promotes gifted children and young people.

It is possible to have the child take an intelligence test (IQ test). An IQ test should only be done within a serious framework, that is, with an experienced psychologist who is very familiar with gifted children.

What are the signs of giftedness?

The following signs may indicate giftedness in young children:

Your child masters development phases faster than average and skips development phases, example: Your child learns to walk very quickly and skips crawling in the process.
Your toddler starts speaking extremely early and is able to form whole sentences early on
Your child has a good memory and an above-average power of observation.
It showed early interest in numbers, letters, characters and symbols.
Your child asks a lot of questions and wants to learn and understand things.
They seek contact with older children and adults rather than with their peers.
An indication is early independence in relation to learning to read, write and do arithmetic.
A pronounced sensitivity can be an indication of giftedness.

Signs of giftedness in older children:

Gifted children show interest in a wide variety of areas early on and enjoy challenging tasks
Not infrequently often complain of boredom or refuse to work because they are underutilized.
They are way ahead of their peers, have more complicated thinking and often find unusual solution strategies for tasks
Often there is a lack of contact with peers, the children often orientate themselves towards contact with significantly older children / adults
Gifted children develop above-average skills at an early age.

This is how you can promote giftedness

Support begins in the family, as parents play a central role in the child's development. In addition to the home environment, education should also be promoted in schools or other institutions where appropriate.

If the child is musically gifted, the talent can be supported by making music together, at home and also in the context of professional lessons.

Children with fine motor skills can be encouraged by expanding domestic handicrafts and handicrafts and sending the child to clubs for carving, turning or pottery.

Many gifted people are interested in mathematics and other natural sciences. To support the giftedness of these children, various games for math, geometry, spatial thinking and logic are suitable.

It makes sense to give the child special lessons in addition to regular school lessons, for example so-called gifted special lessons. Chess is also often a very suitable game for the gifted. In order to promote an existing giftedness, concentration games are generally particularly advisable. For this purpose, we have developed a game in combination with a game manufacturer, which can playfully promote giftedness.

In order to support the child's giftedness, it is important to find out what the child likes and what is fun. Then you can promote your talent at home and at school.

Read on below: Support for gifted people

What is the connection between giftedness and depression?

Unfortunately, a high IQ is not a promise of a happy life. A high IQ increases the risk and predisposition that those affected will worry more and think self-critically. Unfortunately, most gifted people tend to be introverted and have few social contacts. Loneliness and too much brooding can make you feel depressed.
Gifted people actually have a higher risk of developing depression.

You might also be interested in: This is how you recognize depression

Giftedness and ADHD - what is the connection?

In principle, ADHD and giftedness can occur together. The intelligence performance of those affected with ADHD is on average not higher than that of healthy people.

It is also possible that gifted children may be mistakenly diagnosed with ADHD. This is due to the following signs: complaints of boredom and refusal to do certain work. One reason for not being able to do a task can simply be that a child is under-challenged. In addition, affected children often have few friends of the same age. This can also be misinterpreted.
Therefore, one should take a close look before diagnosing ADHD and rule out giftedness.

Find out more at:

ADHD
ADS

Giftedness and behavioral problems

In fact, some gifted children stand out negatively. If a gifted child is bored because they are under-challenged, they can adopt inappropriate behavior. For example, a bored child may shout their knowledge through the class, tease other children, or engage in other activities. Such behavior can be extremely negative at school and at the same time make the child very unpopular with other children.

Especially when gifted children experience frustrations or even bullying in school or kindergarten more often, they can become conspicuous by becoming aggressive, looking for arguments or ignoring instructions. If there are difficulties, it can help to call in a psychologist who can analyze the child's behavior and help to find the right way to deal with it.

Is intelligence inherited?

It used to be said that intelligence is inherited from mothers. Nowadays people have lost the idea that IQ is inherited through the X chromosome. There is currently no plausible evidence that giftedness and intelligence are passed on from a particular parent.

frequency

Based on the Measurement of the intelligence quotient with appropriate Intelligence tests / Test method, about 2% of the people examined in a comparison group (= same test, same age) can be found in the IQ range of 130 and higher. The 2% relate to the people examined and not to the general population.
Roughly estimated and statistically speaking, it is assumed that there is a highly gifted child in roughly every second grade of primary school.
The Gender distribution in the area of giftedness is the same. Girls are just as often gifted as boys.

Historical view

If you look at the ancestral line of ingenious personalities, it is noticeable that people with special talents have certainly been around for as long as people with problems in the field of learning.
While one can hardly doubt that there have also been special human talents since the beginning of mankind, the question arises, what is the basis of the ability to perform special actions and abilities.
The first research-like efforts with regard to giftedness and intelligence can be found in the area of philosophy. Already at this point it was recognized that skills are, on the one hand, rooted in the child himself, but that the already existing components can only be promoted through additional reinforcements from outside. It was also assumed that special abilities were inherited.
Even then, the attempt to measure the level of intelligence was of particularly great interest, but it was not yet able to do so, so all attempts were limited to observations and family surveys.

Forced in the 19th century Galton the research on the measurement of intelligence. He initially assumed that intelligence is made up of the sum of the sensitivity of the sense organs, but this could not be proven.

Alfred Binet took Galton's idea of measuring a person's physical abilities further, but realized that intelligence cannot be reduced to physical abilities. He shifted his research to the physical realm and eventually introduced the concept of intelligence age on the basis of his test developed at the beginning of the 20th century.
Under the Intelligence age one understands a form of the intelligence level on which the child is. For example, if a 12-year-old only answered the questions that were developed for six-year-old children, it was assumed that the intelligence age was 6 and that mental retardation (= late maturation) was very likely. If, on the other hand, a six-year-old answered the questions of the twelve-year-olds, it was assumed that they were gifted.
Since Binet's research was classified as purely empirical and the intelligence age alone did not say anything about the intellectual deficit or advantage, one was not satisfied with the intelligence age as an assessment of intelligence.

star took up Binet's current state of research and also developed tasks for different age groups. The children to be tested began with the questions of the lowest age group and answered the questions of the different age groups until they were no longer able to answer. The end point at which the test person could no longer answer the questions revealed the age of intelligence. The Intelligence quotient he then determined the following Formula:

Intelligence age * 100 = intelligence quotient
Age

Due to the fact that the increase in performance also decreases with increasing age (the increase in knowledge is never greater than in childhood), this form of intelligence determination was unsuitable for adults.

Joe Renzulli coined the concept of talent anew in the 1970s, because he assumed - like Galton in the early years - that several factors are necessary for the development of a special talent. The three-ring model goes back to him:

Based on the representation you can see that he equates giftedness with talent. Accordingly, what he describes as talent is the intersection of above-average creativity, motivation from the environment and talent. Based on the accompanying factors, however, extraordinary achievements can only be achieved if the task to be mastered is motivated in a special way and a creative and individual solution mechanism can be implemented.

It should be noted critically with this model that, on the one hand, the socio-cultural aspect, which essentially belongs to personality development, is not taken into account, and also the fact that this model completely disregards the so-called underachievers (= students with proven high intelligence but low academic performance) become.

At the level of this model and its critical comments, F.J. Mönks the so-called “triadic interdependence model”.

The diagram shows that in addition to the three important external influencing factors: family - school - peer group (= equals, friends), internal influencing factors: high intellectual ability, motivation, creativity (above all with regard to finding solutions) play a very important role play. Only when all factors are in a favorable field of conditions with one another is the possibility of an achievement possible that can make a giftedness visible in a special way.

What does that mean in concrete terms?

Mönk's attempted explanation would mean that gifted people only show giftedness if, on the one hand, they can achieve this due to their inner prerequisites, i.e. if they are motivated to perform highly intellectual and can strive for special solutions through their creativity.But they are only capable of such achievements if the environment is right and determines the internal factors in a special way. As a result, disruptive factors can have a negative effect on behavior and, under certain circumstances, can also prevent highly gifted people from being capable of such actions. But it also means that the stronger the interdependence (the dependency of the factors on each other), the better a gifted person can implement and show their skills.

Heller & Hany go one step further in their so-called “Munich talent model”. In their talent model, they subdivide the individual abilities of a person into cognitive and non-cognitive personality traits and clarify what was already considered in the triadic interdependence model: The ability to be gifted - if not recognized and not positively influenced - may or may not be recognized at all but form back.

All explanatory models have one thing in common: They emphasize that intelligence, or the ability to act intelligently, depends on several factors and is not only determined by the measured intelligence quotient.

It therefore makes sense to warn against recognizing the intelligence quotient IQ determined in the course of an intelligence test as an absolute measure of intelligence. In principle, it only describes the level of intelligence - as it can be measured at the time the test is carried out. Since there are different intelligence tests, intelligence can only be measured in relation to the respective test and if you look at it correctly, a comparison of intelligences can only be considered and carried out within an age group. Not least because of this, a solid diagnosis is not based solely on the intelligence measurement but should always include a questioning of all those involved in upbringing (parents, teachers) and an observation of the test situation. As such, the IQ is based on the consideration that an average student is assigned the IQ 100. This means that in its comparison group (= peers, tested with the same test), about 50% better results can be achieved. In addition to the IQ 100, he is assigned the percentile rank (PR) 50. Percentage ranking can therefore be used to determine how many children in the comparison group did worse. The following table is intended to clarify to what extent the intelligence area and percentile rank are related to one another.