While many experts agree that these children do exist, there is currently no formal criteria to identify giftedness in children who are ADHD or to identify ADHD in children who are gifted.
Studies have shown that 50% of kids who are gifted have ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. But that doesn't mean that 50% of people who have ADHD are Gifted.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd)
Traits such as intensity, impatience, sensitivity, and high energy are common in children with ADHD, as well as in gifted children.
A popular misconception is that all children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are naturally smarter and have a higher IQ than children without ADHD. However, there is no correlation between this condition and intelligence.
While gifted children may not be any more susceptible to mental health issues as other adolescents, there are certain aspects of giftedness that may influence or amplify a gifted child's experience of mental health issues.
Gifted children are more prone to depression, self-harm, overexcitability, and learning deficits. A gifted student might be so paralyzed by her own perfectionism, say, that she refuses to hand in any assignments.
Gifted trauma stems from childhood issues with feeling like you don't belong anywhere because of your gift. Bullying, starving for mental stimulation, school mismatch, and other issues specific to the life experience of the gifted child may also contribute both to the main mental health issue and gift-specific trauma.
Gifted children often are asked “If you're so good at doing that, why can't you do this?” Gifted children with ADHD often show heightened intensity and sensitivity, but they are set up to fail in a system that only recognizes and expects intellectual proclivity without consideration of their emotional needs.
Many gifted children are being mis-diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The gifted child's characteristics of intensity, sensitivity, impatience, and high motor activity can easily be mistaken for ADHD.
When do signs of giftedness appear? Signs of giftedness can appear as early as infancy and continue during the toddler and preschool years. Testing for giftedness and high IQ, however, usually takes place around age 5.
Common Characteristics of Gifted Children:
Ability to comprehend material several grade levels above their age peers. Surprising emotional depth and sensitivity at a young age. Strong sense of curiosity. Enthusiastic about unique interests and topics.
Social Skills
The problems gifted children sometimes face with socializing often stem from their asynchrony and educational setting. Asynchronous development, or uneven development, is often considered a core trait of giftedness.
Most people use terms like “bright,” “gifted,” “exceptional,” “remarkable,” and “talented” interchangeably, but when a psychologist uses the term “gifted,” we're usually talking about something that is statistically quite rare. About 3 to 5 out of every 100 children could be considered gifted.
High IQ may “mask” the diagnosis of ADHD by compensating for deficits in executive functions in treatment-naïve adults with ADHD.
Frequently, bright children have been referred to psychologists or pediatricians because they exhibited certain behaviors (e.g., restlessness, inattention, impulsivity, high activity level, day-dreaming) commonly associated with a diagnosis of ADHD.
Children with exceptionally high IQ scores can also have ADHD. Both of my sons qualified for the Gifted/Talented program in school based on their high intelligence test scores. Both were also given the diagnosis of ADHD.
Individuals with ADHD often perform at a lower level on intelligence tests than those without ADHD, because these tests require sustained mental effort. In addition, as previously mentioned, the structure of most intelligence tests can limit the success of a child with ADHD.
Intellectual giftedness doesn't go away. Instead, it influences development from infancy to old age.
One way to distinguish between the two is to identify the “acting out” behaviors. If the behaviors happen in specific situations then the child's behavior is related to giftedness. On the other hand if the behavior is the same across all the situations, then the behavior is related to ADHD (Bainbridge 1).
Studies show that gifted children have a higher risk of experiencing mental health issues, like anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Because gifted children have different capabilities than their peers, other children may find them intimidating.
Many gifted students have trouble keep their lives organized. Because of how quickly their brains work, they often become forgetful and distracted easily. This results in lost papers, missing assignments, and not being prepared at the start of class.
While other forms of burnout might be tied to the workplace, or the emotional labor involved in care-taker roles, gifted child burnout is often tied to an educational system that the child finds repetitive, unrewarding, without autonomy, unfair, or not aligned with their values.
Those who are considered “gifted” are especially likely to experience depression, particularly existential depression, a type of depression that centers around thoughts about life, death, and meaninglessness as the name might suggest.
The gifted children's brains have enhanced neural function, greater connectivity between brain regions, and faster processing of information and stimuli. Meaning that they may experience some sensory processing issues. They can be easily overstimulated. They are also prone to feeling understimulated.