Signs of Giftedness in Children Include: an extreme need for constant mental stimulation. an ability to learn and process complex information rapidly. a need to explore subjects in surprising depth.
While you may wonder early on whether your child is gifted, it's often difficult to tell in kids younger than 8 years old. There are programs for very young gifted children (ages 4 to 8), but they're rare, and most educators don't have the training or resources to identify and serve gifted early learners.
The child may have ADHD, which makes it hard to control their impulses or focus for long periods of time unless it is their area of interest. The child may be both gifted and have ADHD, which presents as an inconsistent (or even average) performance across school subjects.
It may depend where you live. While we like to think everyone is special, some people have extraordinary abilities — intellectual, artistic, social, or athletic. Many experts believe only 3 to 5 percent of the population is gifted, though some estimates reach 20 percent.
Gifted children are challenging to parent in many ways. The more gifted the child, the more often it seems the more the parent is frustrated with the discrepancy of someone able to do school several levels above age level but unable to remember to take their finished work to school.
That is, some gifted children have more advanced abilities than others. And some gifted children also have disabilities. For example, a child who is intellectually gifted might also have autism or hearing loss. Being gifted often runs in families.
Likewise, two people of very average or low intelligence may have a brilliant child. In biology, this phenomenon is called a mutation. Another cause of giftedness is environmental, the belief that you can make a child gifted by exposing him or her to a variety of enriching experiences, beginning at an early age.
Giftedness is often defined as an intellectual ability linked to an IQ score of 130 or more. However, not all gifted children excel in an academic area. Signs of a gifted child also include a high creative, artistic, musical and/or leadership ability relative to same-age peers.
While giftedness and autism are two types of neurodivergent groups that are often confused, a child can absolutely be gifted and on the autism spectrum. This is where a dual diagnosis becomes incredibly important.
Giftedness falls into one or more of the following areas: intellectual, academic, creative, artistic and leadership. A student may be intellectually (cognitively) gifted if he or she uses advanced vocabulary, readily comprehends new ideas, thinks about information in complex ways, or likes to solve puzzles or problems.
Many gifted kids struggle with inattention and disorganization, in part because they're abstract thinkers and in part because they have many diverse interests competing for their attention. It's also very common for a child to be gifted and have ADHD, a state known as being “twice exceptional.”
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.
Specifically, existing research indicates that gifted individuals have: Increased regional brain volumes. Greater connectivity across brain regions. Brains that operate more efficiently.
But being gifted means a lot more. It means a child's brain works differently – it's wired to absorb, master, and synthesize information more efficiently and effectively than an average person's.
Most gifted kids can learn and process information faster than kids their age and comprehend material several grade levels above their peers. But they are not always well-behaved, high-achieving students. In fact, neuroscience experts say that giftedness looks different in each child.
If you think your child might be gifted, you can see an educational psychologist for an IQ test and a report on your child's advanced learning. This report is likely to focus mostly on academic learning but often includes notes about social and emotional gifts too.
A gifted child's IQ will fall within these ranges: Mildly gifted: 115 to 130. Moderately gifted: 130 to 145. Highly gifted: 145 to 160.
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 ...
The two primary types of tests for gifted children are IQ tests and achievement tests. Both types of tests have pros and cons. A combination of both IQ tests and achievement tests is often required for admission to a gifted program.