Could My Child Be Gifted?

Gifted children can show advanced abilities and characteristics, many of which may be apparent from birth. These traits can point to giftedness even before the child is ready for school. Such characteristics as early alertness, early talking, early physical development, a large and advanced vocabulary for one’s age, facility with abstraction, analytical thinking, complexity in thinking, excellent memory, faster processing on cognitive tasks, a long attention span and persistence beyond what is expected for their age, interest in books and reading, early play with numbers, talent in music or art, and the asking of unusual questions can be early indicators of giftedness.

Very young, gifted children ask questions about how things work, how they came to be, and why they are the way they are. While average children also ask questions, gifted children ask more complex questions at an earlier age. In addition, they may make observations that reveal their precocious thoughts. These questions are important because they reveal curiosity, advanced reasoning ability, ability to make complex connections among facts and ideas and the ability to translate observations into an internal cognitive framework.

Gifted children not only ask more complex questions, but also demand more complex answers even to more age typical questions. Because the young, gifted child knows so much more information about the many topics, and because the level of complexity needed to answer the question satisfactorily is so much greater, young gifted children are not satisfied with easy answers.

At older ages, gifted children show advanced knowledge, initiative, perfectionism, independence and nonconformity to peer standards, super sensitivity of the central nervous system, emotional intensity, and acute perceptiveness. In general, these children are self-critical and motivated to meet high standards of personal achievement.

In addition, gifted children show curiosity, inventiveness, and put ideas together in unusual and creative ways. They have a passion for learning, doing so easily and quickly without needing much practice to learn basic skills. They have a wide variety of interests and know a lot of information in areas of interest. Unusually early long-term memory and well-developed memory for facts and events are often noted. Gifted children also show a capacity for empathy and compassion as well as show unusually early concerns about issues of fairness and justice.

While many of the traits mentioned by researchers are positive, some characteristics of gifted children can lead to increased vulnerability. These include perfectionism, difficulty with too high adult expectations, intense sensitivity, multi-potentiality (can do too many things well), difficulty finding appropriate peers, high need for intellectual stimulation, and difficulty with societal role expectations, especially for girls. The increased vulnerability created can lead to social maladjustment or development of alienation, unhappiness, or underachievement.

Characteristics of Giftedness Scale

One way for parents to ascertain if their children show traits of giftedness is to use The Characteristics of Giftedness Scale. This well researched scale, used with the permission of the Gifted Development Center, lists many of the traits mentioned above and allows parents to rate the applicability to their child. In using this scale please be advised that not all traits will apply even to the most gifted child. Also, some traits are more evident at some ages than at others. Finally, a child may not show many of the traits but still be gifted.

Children who exhibit fewer traits of early precocity may be those who are more reflective than average or have more difficulty expressing their ideas. Those who are twice exceptional can appear more average on the surface, but adults who know them well may note moments of sudden insight, deep comprehension, and original thinking. It is important that parents of such children recognize their unique giftedness and build on their sometimes not so obvious strengths.

Could My Child Be Twice-Exceptional?

Gifted children can be twice exceptional: gifted with a disability, such as a learning disability, processing disorder, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, anxiety, depression, or other mental health issue.

Because they are twice exceptional, either their giftedness, their disability or both may not be recognized. Thus, some children known to be gifted struggle with schoolwork and in social and emotional areas, unlike gifted peers. Some children with disabilities show areas in which they are advanced over age peers, but these are not recognized as giftedness. Finally, the disability may be enough to mask the giftedness, but not so much that the child is seen as having the disability. They can compensate enough to look average.

Gifted children with disabilities share both similarities to and differences from children who are gifted, but not disabled, and children who are disabled but not gifted. Twice Exceptional (2e) children, however, are unique in their presentation of both giftedness and disability; thus, many of the recommendations for gifted children or for those with a certain disability may not fit the 2e child.

Traits commonly found in 2echildren can include:

Struggles with basic skills, but good at learning content.
Uses compensatory skills to master basic skills.
Has high verbal ability but difficulty with language usage and written expression.
Shows peaks and valleys of achievement between subjects; at times, depending on areas of interest, differing achievement occurs within a subject.
Exhibits strong observation skills but poorer memory.
Is excellent at abstract reasoning, critical thinking, and solving problems.
Shows attention deficits but also the ability to hyperfocus in areas of interest.
Asks insightful questions, but also questions authority.
Needs frequent teacher support and intervention in areas of deficit, but independent in areas of strength.
Shows unusual creativity, imagination, as well as original and, at times, idiosyncratic ideas.
Shows a strong sense of humor, but also may use it inappropriately. Humor can also be unusual and bizarre.
Shows unwillingness to take academic risks but takes impulsive risks outside of school.
Can appear immature due to inappropriate expression of feelings to deal with conflict and difficulty. Shows high levels of emotional intensity and sensitivity.
Is often highly critical of self and others, can be perfectionistic. Can be stubborn and inflexible.
Has difficulty feeling accepted by others; may not fit well with other gifted children or average peers.
Can exhibit leadership ability especially among other nontraditional students.
May show a wide range of interests or may fixate on interests that provide a high level of stimulation.
May exhibit a passion for, and know an unusual amount of information about, an interest. Also, may be far ahead of age peers in subject achievement in that area.
More asynchronous (physical, social, emotional, and mental age all differ from chronological age but may not all be equally advanced) development than other gifted children. Can be below chronological age in some areas.

Observations of gifted children at the Gifted Development Center in Westminster, CO and the Gifted Resource Center of New England resulted in a checklist of behaviors that might indicate twice exceptionality. These characteristics were compiled into the Checklist for Recognizing Twice Exceptional Children. This checklist, used with the permission of the Gifted Development Center, is not a validated checklist for diagnosing a disorder. However, if many symptoms are present, parent should seek further evaluation of their child.