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This article addresses the cross-cultural generalization of the pentagonal implicit theory of giftedness (R. J. Sternberg and L. F. Zhang, 1995) as well as differential expectations regarding excellence for girls vs boys. An instrument based on the pentagonal theory was used with a sample of 72 in-service and pre-service teachers (aged 20–50 yrs). In a second study, a questionnaire designed to assess conceptions of "excellence", one of the attributes for giftedness described in the pentagonal model, was administered to a different sample of 102 in-service and pre-service teachers (aged 22–48 yrs). Results showed a good fit of the pentagonal model to the data collected, paralleling results obtained in the US. However, it was also found that in Hong Kong, unlike in the US, teachers had higher expectations of excellence for boys than for girls. Implications for identification, instruction, and programming for the gifted are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Suggests that the lens through which the gifted Self sees the world is at once complex and vividly intense. Giftedness is seen as a ground of experience that differs significantly from the norm. Just as developmental delay produces lifelong effects on social and emotional development, academic achievement, home life, response of the community, and career goals, developmental advancement exerts a profound impact on the Self, permeating all facets of a person's life in childhood and adulthood. Children with significant developmental differences in either direction require modifications in parenting, teaching and counseling in order for the Self to be fully realized. Because their abstract reasoning abilities enable the gifted to compensate, true disabilities and disorders are often masked, while typical behaviors of the gifted may be misinterpreted. Diagnosticians, school psychologists, therapists and educators need to be aware of the characteristics of giftedness in order to recognize what is atypical for this population, rather than comparing gifted individuals with the general population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Provides a critical overview of the existing research literature on gifted children and their families. The purposes of this paper were: (1) to provide family therapists with information on the unique psychosocial stressors associated with giftedness, and (2) to stimulate further research and development on the efficacy of family therapy in alleviating distress and actualizing potential in gifted and talented children and their families. First, current conceptualizations of giftedness are described. Then the research literature on the characteristics of intellectually and creatively gifted children and their families is reviewed with an emphasis on the endogenous (individual) and exogenous (systemic) factors that can create or exacerbate psychosocial problems. Finally, an eclectic, eco-systemic approach is suggested to three common concerns that bring gifted children and their families to therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

This paper reports on a small scale study carried out in a large Australian school to investigate student perceptions of giftedness, preferred teacher qualities, and ways of providing for gifted students in the school setting. 80 students, aged 12–16 yrs, from grades 8, 9, and 10 participated. 40 students with IQs of 130 and above were identified as gifted, and 40 students with a mean IQ of 106 as nongifted. 76% of Ss said giftedness in sport was most valued. Far less important were academic skills (27%), music (22%), and maths and the arts (both 18%). Both gifted and nongifted Ss believed that students generally feel positive or neutral about special provisions when they are not involved in them (43% were positive and 39% neutral). When asked how they felt personally about special provisions for the gifted, 34% were highly positive and 36% positive (70%), with 23% using neutral ratings. The teacher quality most often important by the total group was that the teacher should "know the subject well." Gifted students chose 3 qualities as particularly important: that the teacher "knows the subject well," "is interested in students," and "doesn't stick to the text all the time." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Demonstrates that the cognitive complexity and certain personality traits, such as heightened moral sensitivity, of the gifted create unique experiences and awareness that separate them from others. This awareness is demonstrated using a combination of clinical observations and theoretical propositions from case examples. A central feature found to be part of the gifted experience is their moral sensitivity, essential to the welfare of the entire society, yet making them vulnerable to environmental exposure. These inner qualities of the gifted are overlooked in most of the formulations of giftedness and talent. Giftedness defined as asynchronous development, a phenomenological approach, focuses on the inner world of gifted children and stresses their vulnerability in society. The need to understand the relationship between abstract reasoning, complexity, moral values, and the evolution of society is stressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Contends that gifted young people without an accurate and realistic self-concept create emotional difficulties for themselves that prevent them from fully using their talents in constructive or satisfying ways. They frequently misunderstand what giftedness means in their lives, hold unrealistically high expectations for their own achievement, confuse the means and the ends of their accomplishments, overvalue their cognitive dimensions at the expense of their affective natures, or view giftedness as an entitlement. It is suggested that gifted youth need help to build accurate and realistic self-concepts, to develop realistic expectations of themselves, and to place their intellectual talents in the proper perspective. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Argues that, on the basis of classroom observations, preschoolers (PSs) do show evidence of giftedness. In nearly all preschools, one routinely observes happenings characteristic of the 6 areas of giftedness delineated by S. P. Marland (1972). For example, PSs may be seen reading and discussing the extinction of dinosaurs or suggesting uses for common household objects that adults never imagined. PSs do not appear to be restricted from possessing or displaying a variety of gifts or talents. However, gifted PSs are in a double-jeopardy situation because they are a minority and, historically, gifted programs for PSs have lagged behind those for older gifted children. The sparsity of such programs may have long-term negative consequences: Gifted children may never reach their potential if they miss experiences early in life that are necessary for maximum development. Some researchers have suggested that a lack of support during the early childhood years is one reason for the underachievement of many gifted adolescents. An enriched, child-responsive preschool environment that affords opportunities for all children to demonstrate and develop gifts specific to them would meet the educational and affective needs of children who normally would have been identified as gifted or who would have been overlooked. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Assessed the accuracy of teachers in primary and secondary schools in determining which children are able or gifted. Teachers' accuracy of the perception of giftedness was compared with that of the individually administered intelligence test, and the accuracy of the perception of giftedness by teachers and psychologists of primary and secondary school children and males vs females was also compared. 82 male and 81 female primary and secondary schoolchildren considered gifted by the heads of the school and teachers were administered the WISC. Results show that (1) there was a greater tendency by all teachers to overrate rather than underrate children as gifted in primary schools, (2) there were relatively fewer gifted children in secondary schools assessed by teachers and psychologists, (3) there was a strong tendency for teachers at secondary schools to underrate children, (4) more females than males were overrated as to being able by teachers at both primary and secondary school levels, and (5) more males than females were underrated as able at both primary and secondary school levels. Findings indicate that teachers, although they are able to identify a certain number of able children, do in fact underrate and overrate the performance of children generally on the basis of academic achievement. (30 ref) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

This is a highly condensed report of a 5-year pattern of research studies made on 45 gifted children from Grade III through Grade VII in the University of Chicago Laboratory School. The test and observation data are interpreted in terms of personality differences associated with differing patternings of academic achievement, sex differences, and the attending social motivational pictures. Inferences relevant to educational practices are drawn. 20 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

Reviews the book, Gifted at risk: Poetic portraits by Jean Sunde Peterson (2009). In this book, Peterson utilizes subjective personal introspection, or autoethnography, to render poems and essays about her years in gifted education and in counseling gifted students. As complementary constructions, each one of Peterson’s reflections about a particular case includes a poem and an essay. As arts-based research in education, each entry is from Peterson’s own impressions and memories about a specific gifted student, whom she taught or counseled. For anyone who works with adolescents and emerging adults who are gifted, Peterson’s book will be an informative resource. It does not stand alone as a textbook to introduce topics about giftedness, as it lacks explicit definitions, citations, and references. However, together with one or two more thorough treatments of giftedness research, it will do well. Counselors will come back to its pages numerous times as they work with gifted students. It will be a resource for them to reflect about the struggles and triumphs of gifted life—with highs and lows being realistically recounted. Its coverage—from moving toward good decisions, to suicide attempts and suffering abuse, to an eye toward “developmental task accomplishment”, is broad. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

The study brings first empirical experience with the diagnostic use of the Czech adaptation of the international method called Woodcock-Johnson International Edition (WJ IE COG, Ruef, Furman, Muñoz-Sandoval, 2006). It is a first standardised cognitive battery in the Czech Republic that has adopted Cattell-Horn-Carroll new internationally acknowledged hierarchical model of cognitive abilities. The method was applied to a research sample (N =118) of extraordinarily gifted individuals with and without dyslexia. The authors point out some important findings concerning especially issues of determining an appropriate criterion to identify giftedness in a group of gifted students and students with dyslexia. It shows that in case of this group of individuals it is impossible to derive the giftedness criterion only from the global IQ but it is necessary to analyse also wider factors of abilities or also abilities measured by the method themselves. themselves. Primary diagnostic attention needs to be paid particularly to the Thinking ability factor and Verbal ability factor. Performance in the so-called Cognitive efficiency factor may be significantly harmed by a learning disability. Moreover, the study also tries to compare the achieved performance profile in the given method in the examined groups of gifted probands with a performance profile of intellectually gifted students obtained by administering a more extensive American version of the test published recently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

Reviews the book, Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says edited by Jonathan A. Plucker and Carolyn M. Callahan (see record 2008-01728-000). Over the years, gifted education has received substantial criticism in and beyond the research literature (e.g., Grant, 2002; Sapon-Shevin, 1993). Criticisms have fallen into several camps. One group of critics describes gifted education as elitist and suggests that there should not be special programs for high-achieving students. Others criticize how giftedness is defined and more frequently how gifted students are identified, and even suggest that gifted education is responsible for maintaining the achievement gap. Some critics comment on the programming choices available for students who are identified, and others criticize the field of gifted education for making decisions based on fads and myths rather than empirical evidence. This context provides a backdrop for the publication of Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says. In this book, the authors have attempted to bring together research that addresses almost all of the aforementioned issues. Their goal is aptly stated in the book’s introduction: “Despite a century of research on giftedness, the enthusiasm and rhetoric surrounding...services offered to gifted students often exceeds the level of available empirical support—or even contradicts the available evidence” (Plucker & Callahan, 2008b, pp. 1). The editors go on to state that their goal is to be inclusive, but brief. Thus, they included chapters across several domains—conceptual and foundational issues, curriculum, cognition, affect, programming, issues related to teacher and parents, and special populations—that are synopses rather than comprehensive reviews of the empirical literature in the field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

In the development of performance excellence, the relative roles played by intellectual ability and motivation remain speculative. This study investigates the role played by general intelligence, school environment, self-efficacy, and aspects of personal identity in the formation of learning motivation in German students attending the Gymnasium schools. Using self-reports of academic achievement and scores on a shortened version of the Berlin intelligence structure test for adolescence to differentiate students as achievers or underachievers, ninth-grade students were administered a battery of self-report instruments, designed to measure learning motivation, school environment, self-efficacy, and personal identity. After the posited factor structure was confirmed, factor scores were computed and then used as data in hierarchical regression analyses using learning motivation as the criterion variable. The results showed that the greatest predictors of learning motivation were variables related to personal identity-style, rather than general intelligence, supporting the hypothesis that learning motivation is a moderator variable of intellectual achievement for students with intellectual giftedness, rather than an inherent component of giftedness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

A case study of the psychometric characteristics of two profoundly gifted girls, one with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the other without ASD, is used to describe the nuances and subtleties most relevant in understanding the relationship between extreme giftedness and social difficulties. Through the presentation of the results from psychoeducational and psychosocial assessments, we demonstrate how data from a comprehensive evaluation can distinguish between the manifestation of extreme giftedness and concomitant social impairment indicative of ASD. Comparison of the assessment results highlights the relevance of cognitive and achievement information as well as the need for specific measures to diagnosis ASD. The girls demonstrated virtually identically superior cognitive and achievement performances. However, an in-depth analysis of additional measures, especially those specific to ASD, indicates that information about adaptive behavior and executive functioning can reveal important distinctions that are helpful in understanding the need for unique interventions specific to ASD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

Gifted children report a higher academic self-concept compared with children of average talents. To test this hypothesis we examined by a quasi-experimental design the academic self-concept and global self-esteem of primary school children with different intelligence scores but all nominated by teachers as gifted. Wigfield & Eccles (2000) emphasized the evaluations of others as a mediatonale variable on students self-concept as on their achievement. So parents and teachers also rated their children's abilities and self-esteem. Independent of students' intelligence scores, children with teacher nominations as gifted expressed a higher academic self-concept and received better evaluations than the control students. The identification of giftedness by psychometric testing did not influence parents' nor teachers' descriptions of gifted behaviour characteristics of the children. The results illustrate the significance of evaluative labeling by significant others to the development of self-concept and also to die nomination of giftedness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

Traditionally, in giftedness research, the intelligence quotient has been presumed to be the best predictor of high achievement levels. From the perspective of the Actiotope Model of Giftedness, however, it is merely one indicator among several on the effectiveness of the academic action repertoire. In this model, learning is considered to be more important than personal traits for attaining high levels of achievement. This is confirmed with three studies conducted with pupils in grades 8 through 11. In Study 1 it was shown that high achieving pupils in the subject of mathematics can be differentiated from other pupils according to the learning orientation of their subjective action space. High achievement can be better predicted over a temporal distance of six months through the learning orientation of the subjective action space than through intelligence. This finding was replicated in Study 2 for the scholastic subject of biology. In Study 3, an investigation was undertaken to determine whether the performance enhancing effect of a learning oriented subjective action space is also beneficial in coming to terms with experiences of failure. This premise could also be confirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

This study examined the relationships between components of leadership giftedness and multiple intelligences among 510 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. These students perceived their strengths in intrapersonal, interpersonal and verbal-linguistic intelligences, and their weaknesses in bodily-kinesthetic and naturalist intelligences. They also rated themselves higher on leadership flexibility and goal orientation than on leadership self-efficacy. In predicting the three leadership components, intrapersonal and verbal-linguistic intelligences emerged as common and significant predictors, suggesting that self-reflection and self-management skills as well as a good command of language use were important in leadership. Other significant predictors such as logical-mathematical intelligence for leadership self-efficacy as well as goal orientation and interpersonal intelligence for leadership flexibility suggested that critical thinking might be important for the sense of confidence or efficacy and the vision of goals, whereas relational or people skills might be important for the openness to different options. Students who were classified high on both verbal-linguistic intelligence and personal intelligences, high on one and low on the other, and low on both were found to be generally high, medium and low on all three leadership components, respectively. Implications of the findings for inferring different levels of components of leadership giftedness from specific intelligences and for developing leadership training programs are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

Reviews the book, Educational psychology and developmental psychology, Vol. 55: Professional interests in highly gifted adolescents by Jörn R. Sparfeldt (2006). Highly gifted children and adolescents often are seen as being at risk for underachievement or other developmental problems, including diffuse professional interests because they have too many options to choose among. However, giftedness might also help in developing professional interests. The existing literature on possible links between giftedness and professional interests suffers from methodological problems such as selective samples or missing comparison groups. Sparfeldt's peer-reviewed monograph thus fills an empirical gap. The author used data from the Marburg Highly Gifted Project. Most comparisons were drawn between 107 gifted and 107 average adolescents who were identified from a large sample at grade 3 and confirmed at grade 9, and between 134 highly and 122 normally achieving youths. The results showed few differences between gifted and high-achieving, respectively, youth and the comparison groups. Gifted adolescents had more various general interests, but a clearer profile of professional interests than normally intelligent adolescents. Gifted and highly-achieving youths had stronger intellectual and cultural professional interests, but valued self-actualization, leadership, and safety in the profession less than the comparison groups. In conclusion, gifted adolescents appear not as an at-risk group, falsifying the common cliché. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The purpose of this study is to examine the underlying construct of over excitabilities (OEs) and to identify individual- and family-level factors that may explain gifted students’ patterns of OEs. Data are collected from a convenience sample of identified gifted students ( N = 143) and their parents ( N = 161) using a Likert-type questionnaire, the Over excitabilities Questionnaire II, developed to measure levels of the five intensities of the OEs. Multivariate and univariate analyses of variance and hierarchical linear modeling are used to differentiate between gender and age groups and to explain between- and within-group variance on the five subscales of the OEs: Psychomotor, Intellectual, Imaginational, Sensual, and Emotional. Results suggest that there were significant differences between gender and age groups and that most of the variance among students on the OEs was explained by family membership. This study represents an important step in our understanding of affective characteristics of giftedness and creativity. Putting the Research to Use: Dabrowski’s over excitabilities represent a multifaceted lens through which to view the intensities of gifted children. The challenge for researchers and practitioners is to examine these intensities and promote intervention strategies that will enhance students’ positive characteristics while teaching them to compensate for the negative. To address this challenge, researchers should explore and explain these sensitivities to gifted students, their parents, and their teachers. Those in charge of identifying gifted, talented, and creative students should use the over excitabilities as an additional tool in a multifaceted and inclusive model of identification. Furthermore, teachers must be aware that characteristics indicating a learning disability or behavioral disorder may be characteristics of giftedness manifested through these over excitabilities. Finally, students and their parents should be assisted in understanding and celebrating students’ unique sensitivities and intensities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

The eight articles appearing in this issue cross the entire spectrum of contemporary research in the field of giftedness. The first article of this issue features the first systematic neurophysiological study on the problem of underachievement ever conducted in the field of giftedness research. Starting with the phenomenon of neural efficiency, the authors examine the cortical activities of persons with differential grades of cognitive abilities and scholastic ability levels on various types of cognitive tests. The fourth contribution focuses on a personality variable often investigated in conjunction with the gifted: motivation. One of the articles present a highly promising method in the form of data mining. In particular, the prospect of being able to identify subgroups and non-linear correlations will certainly be appealing and beneficial for more than a few of our readers. Another interesting article also stems from the area of athletics. The authors results indicate the existence of extremely individual developmental trajectories in the development of expertise. One of the upcoming issues of High Ability Studies will feature a target article composed by Florida State University. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)