![]() Intellectual and physical characteristics of young gifted children that parents are likely to notice include unusually early and fluent speech early mobility (the child crawls, walks or runs earlier than age-peers) early reading (the child spontaneously "picks up" reading from television, street signs, or advertisements) unusually retentive memory intense curiosity unusually long attention span eager desire to learn unusually mature sense of humor and less need for sleep than agepeers of average ability (Gross 1993). ![]() The majority of parents of intellectually gifted children become aware, in the early years, that their child is very bright (Louis and Lewis 1992). This can affect how gifted children come to view, or value, their gifts.Ĭontrary to the myth that "every parent thinks her child is gifted," (whether he or she is gifted, or not) parents are highly effective identifiers of high ability in their children (Robinson and Robinson 1992) indeed, they are significantly more accurate than teachers, who are rarely trained in how to identify and respond to gifted students and who may not notice high academic ability if they present the gifted child only with work set at the level and pace of the average child in the class (Jacobs 1971). However, although talent in music, sports, or athletics is valued and actively sought and fostered in many cultures, high intellectual ability is often undervalued (Gross 1999). A child may be gifted in any domain of ability, intellectual, creative, physical, or social. ![]() Children, no matter how gifted, will not achieve high levels of talent unless they are prepared to work and study to develop their abilities. A range of environmental variables affect talent development, such as parental encouragement, family relationships, the provisions the child's school makes, or fails to make, to develop his or her gifts into talents, and even the social ethos of the community that can dictate that talents are valued and, therefore, which programs of talent development will be established or funded.Įncouragement and assistance from home and school are essential if gifted children are to develop as talented, but the children themselves must maintain their motivation to succeed. Giftedness is not an automatic guarantee of success. Gifts are natural abilities whereas talents are systematically developed skills. Talented children, by contrast, are those whose abilities have already been translated into achievements, and who are currently performing at a level that places them within the top 10 percent of their age-peers. Gagné (1985, 2000) defines gifted children as those who have high levels of innate ability, in any domain of human ability, that places them within the top 10 percent of their age-peers-even if their high potential is not yet being demonstrated as high performance. Internationally, the most widely used definition of giftedness and talent is that of Françoys Gagné of Quebec. ![]() Gifted children comprise a minority of the population, although not such a small minority as is sometimes thought. ![]()
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