Jayden loves learning. He finds it really exciting to start with a subject and then explore it in different and abstract ways. When he starts learning a new topic at school he is usually really excited, he can’t help calling out and whispering what he already knows to the person next to him. But everyone in his class doesn’t seem as excited as Jayden is and his teacher often tells him to stop distracting others. If a topic interests him he has a lot of trouble sitting still. But if it’s clear to Jayden that he won’t be learning anything new he usually stares out the window and imagines what it would be like to live in another planet. Jayden sometimes has difficulty in group work because he wants to solve problems on his own and gets frustrated when other kids don’t understand the way he thinks.
When Jayden works on a project it takes a long time to finish. This isn’t because he find the project hard but because he wants it to be perfect. In class Jayden’s teacher often tells him to hurry up and hand in his work even when he’s not happy with it. Sometimes Jayden wonders if he’ll ever meet another kid like him. He can tell that he’s different and gets worried that eventually people won’t like him because of his differences. It’s exhausting trying to find a friend and work out how to fit in with his peers.
Jayden is a gifted student with very unique learning needs. It is crucial that his teachers understand his capabilities and how best to differentiate and extend the curriculum in order to engage him. Over the last two weeks I have written about defining giftedness and effective identification processes. This post covers a few other key terms in gifted education including characteristics, twice exceptionality, IQ, asynchronous development and flow.
Many teachers would not identify Jayden as being gifted, but may instead consider a diagnosis of ADHD or Autism. As you can see from the table below this is not surprising as there are many similar traits across giftedness and learning difficulties.
What makes matters even more complicated is that a number of gifted students are twice exceptional. This means they are gifted as well as having a learning difficulty. It can be very complex to identify a twice expectational student because the disability often masks the giftedness. This masking effect means that these unique learning needs are often unaddressed and the student has a great sense of underachievement and a negative experience at school.
Alfred Binet first defined mental age and introduced intelligence testing. An intelligence test score is expressed as chronological age for typical performance. Mental age is divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100 to give Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The same mental and intelligence age is an IQ of 100 or average intelligence. For example:
Asynchronous development is the lack of sync between cognitive, affective and physical abilities. For gifted students advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences which are very different to other students their age. Asynchronous development increases with higher IQ.
Emotional and social maturity is often more linked with the mental age than the actual chronological age (Tannenbaum 1983, Janos & Robinson 1985). Gifted students often have a heightened sense of moral and social justice, advanced reasoning, deep sense of self awareness which matches peers of the same metal age rather than chronological age.
The Flow of Learning developed by Csikszentmihalyi in 1993, is a very important concept for effective differentiation for gifted students. Flow is often displayed in talented young musicians, athletes and dancers who may set goals that seem impossible to same age peers, but they achieve them with a strong sense of passion and commitment. Their success is due to complete and total immersion. When gifted students find a great passion or love for a field or subject, they seek to become engaged to the point where the level matches ability. The experience of being totally absorbed is very fulfilling. Flow is when a student is completely involved in what they are doing and have extremely high concentration. It comes from optimal levels of challenge that then increases skill. In order to facilitate flow for gifted learners, teachers should facilitate immersed learning such as longer projects and lengthy problem solving.
To finish I have included quotes from parents of gifted students which illustrate advanced cognitive abilities in gifted students.
‘We thought he would learn to read when we went to school but at three and a half he already knew how. We hadn’t consciously taught him.’
‘She always felt it when other children were hurt or anxious and showed an adult like concern for news items about the poor and the suffering.’
‘He questioned and challenged every request, every instruction. He wore me out with his debating. He could always find reasons for doing things his way.’
(Harrison, Giftedness in Early Childhood)
