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The consideration of giftedness and talent in a developmental perspective requires an understanding of the current issues in developmental theory with respect to the origins of individual differences and prediction across the life span—from infancy through the adult years. In this chapter I discuss these matters along with changes in the definition of giftedness and talent, the emerging themes in the developmental discourse on giftedness and talent, the role of cultural contexts and matters of diversity, and the implications of all of these issues for setting the research agenda in the field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Our most famous resources for the future of our society are human resources. We made an important commitment of scientific talent and financial support about 25 years ago to enhancing the developmental potential of the retarded among us. The progress in this area has been gratifying. A concomitant commitment has not been made to understanding the developmental potential of the gifted among us. The time is past due for that commitment. It is important to draw out the developmental issues related to the gifted and the talented in such a way as to frame productive scientific questions. The model presented in this essay has been used to frame such a set of questions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Two major objectives motivated us to develop a volume of contributions from developmental psychologists and from experts in gifted education. First, we wanted to better understand how recent advances in developmental psychology might enhance our understanding of high-level achievement and performance and help to translate the science in light of research, policy, and practice in gifted and talented education. Second, we wanted to interest developmental psychologists in a consideration of exceptionally high-end abilities in their conceptual frameworks. These understandings also have implications for clinicians working with clients throughout the life span. This concluding chapter discusses key themes across the volume; gaps in the research literature; implications for policy; implications for educational practice; and challenges met and challenges ahead. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: create)

In this chapter, I want to capture what it is like to be young, gifted, and Black in America. My theoretical perspective is that of a motivational psychologist, so I focus on how contemporary approaches to motivation research can shed light on giftedness in African American adolescents. I organize my discussion of African American gifted adolescents around overarching questions about "can" and "want." In framing my discussion, I focus on both the normative challenges of adolescence relevant to giftedness as well as the unique challenges that gifted Black adolescents are likely to encounter. To do this, I must cast a broad net and begin with factors that are unique to the everyday lives of people of color. Everything that I write in this chapter is shaped by the recognition that many racial and ethnic minority groups in contemporary America are positioned at the bottom of a status hierarchy wherein barriers to opportunity often override personal strivings for achievement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Lynn Liben raises three broad, thought-provoking issues in her chapter on giftedness in the spatial-graphic domain (see chap. 4, this volume; see record 2009-00231-004). First is the role of the study of giftedness in developmental psychology and the question of why giftedness is such a neglected area of study within psychology. Second, she prods readers to consider just how one should undertake the study of spatial giftedness, which is itself a much neglected domain of study within the area of giftedness relative to the study of mathematical and verbal giftedness. And finally, she leads readers to recognize what can be learned from the study of spatial-graphic giftedness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

In this chapter, I consider some of the specific challenges experienced by high-ability learners as they grow out of childhood and into adolescence. I also address evolving perspectives on giftedness that can work to obviate some of the added complications, with a focus on talent development and other theoretically grounded evidence-based approaches that incorporate individual and developmental diversity, including the domain specificity and fluidity of cognitive development, and the importance of mindsets in regulating young adults' responses to the challenges and opportunities in their lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Giftedness, a dynamic construct, develops over time. During the transition from adolescence into adulthood, gifted individuals move first from broad educational experiences to more narrowly focused efforts in universities, colleges, institutes, or conservatories, followed by the pursuit of scholarly productivity, innovation, or artistry. The focus of this chapter is on the catalysts for these transitions. I take the view of talent development as the transformation of abilities into competencies, competencies into expertise, and expertise into outstanding performance or seminal ideas. Finally, I explore the stages of talent development experienced by gifted adolescents as they move into scholarly productivity or artistry in adulthood, focusing on the increasingly important role played by psychosocial variables in the fulfillment of their potential. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Although there is considerable overlap in the scientific study of giftedness and of child development in terms of research traditions as well as participating investigators, it is important to recognize that there are substantial differences in the history of each research tradition. The historical divergence in the core conceptual frameworks guiding each field has led to conflicting positions at least as often as to a productive connection between them. At the risk of overemphasizing the conflict between these conceptual frameworks, it is important to draw out the distinctions because they illuminate many important issues, particularly with relevance to the goal of this volume, an integration of developmental science and the study of giftedness. I thus first provide a brief history of those two approaches, recognizing of course that there is a personal filter through which such a historical analysis must proceed. I take up the implications for a life-span integrative framework in the final section. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The purpose of this chapter is to expand the perspective of psychology to include the dynamics of the later years of life. I describe the stages of late life that have been proposed and the diversity of the older population as revealed by longitudinal studies. The abilities of older adults are described in terms of social intelligence, self-regulation, creativity, and wisdom. Unique contributions by elderly persons are described as the products of late-life bloomers, or individuals who express latent talents late in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

I was asked to respond to chapter 7 of this volume by Sandra Graham on giftedness in adolescence (see record 2009-00231-007). When I read the chapter, I found, as expected, that Graham's social-psychological perspective and my psychosocial perspective have much in common, including a focus on the interaction of motivation and social context. Therefore, I have endeavored to expand on some of the issues that Graham addresses in her chapter, in the hope of stimulating discussion among researchers and practitioners concerned with giftedness in adolescence. In this chapter, I discuss identification practices in some detail, as I believe that there are some fundamental misunderstandings in this area. I highlight some of the more recent research on teachers and the messages that they send. I also address the potential role played by identity variables such as stereotype threat. In addition, I discuss the concept of oppositional identity, which relates to Graham's notion of "I can, but do I want to?" Finally, I briefly discuss the idea of cultural learning styles. Although much of what I discuss is applicable to adolescents of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, the implications may be different for youth who are traditionally underrepresented in gifted and talented education (e.g., African Americans, Latinos). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Although my own research program was not intentionally designed to study gifted and talented developmental processes or outcomes, it nevertheless offers some relevant data and perhaps insights. The work discussed here concerns children's developing competencies in understanding and producing spatial-graphic representations. These may be defined as stand-for symbols (the representational aspect) that involve marks of some kind (the graphic aspect), whose representational components are distributed over the surface in a way that corresponds to the distribution of components of the referent (the spatial aspect). This chapter is organized as follows. First, I expand on what I mean by spatial-graphic representations (in the section entitled "Defining Spatial-Graphic Representations"). Second, I sample from work that my colleagues and I have conducted to study children's developing spatial-graphic competencies. In doing so, I highlight performance that might well be classified as gifted ("Illustrative Empirical Work"). Finally, I offer some speculations about implications this work has for research, public policy, and education ("Implications for Research and Practice"). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

This chapter comprises three sections: (a) commentary on the Colombo, Shaddy, Blaga, Anderson, and Kannass chapter titled "High Cognitive Ability in Infancy and Early Childhood" (chap. 2, this volume; see record 2009-00231-002); (b) consideration of issues concerning early prediction of gifted intelligence; and (c) discussion of implications regarding early identification of intellectual giftedness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Chief among the attributes of giftedness is the expression of exceptionality in one or more domains of talent or ability, and most commonly this exceptionality is expressed in the domain of cognition. In this chapter, we address issues pertaining to the concept of such high ability within the period of infancy and early childhood, and we do so from both the empirical and theoretical realms. In the empirical realm, we present new data on the prediction of high cognitive ability (HCA) from infancy and early childhood. In the theoretical realm, we outline a recent significant advance in the field of early cognition and its implications for how intelligence is thought about. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)