Thursday, December 23, 2010

Characteristics of gifted children


Cognitive Traits

    • Very Observant
    • Extremely Curious
    • Intense interests
    • Excellent memory
    • Long attention span
    • Excellent reasoning skills
    • Well-developed powers of abstraction, conceptualization, and synthesis
    • Quickly and easily sees relationships in ideas, objects, or facts
    • Fluent and flexible thinking
    • Elaborate and original thinking
    • Excellent problem solving skills
    • Learns quickly and with less practice and repetition
    • Unusual and/or vivid imagination
 Social and Emotional Traits (see Supersensitivities in Gifted Children)

    • Interested in philosophical and social issues
    • Very sensitive, emotionally and even physically
    • Concerned about fairness and injustice
    • Perfectionistic
    • Energetic
    • Well-Developed Sense of Humor
    • Usually intrinsically motivated
    • Relates well to parents, teachers and other adults
Language Traits (See Language Development in Gifted Children)

    • Extensive Vocabulary
    • May Read Early
    • Reads Rapidly and Widely
    • Asks "what if" questions   
    • Additional Traits
      • Enjoys learning new things
      • Enjoys intellectual activity
      • Displays intellectual playfulness
      • Prefers books and magazines meant for older children
      • Skeptical, critical, and evaluative
      • Asynchronous development 

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

What is gifted and talented?

Many terms are used to describe the students who demonstrate exceptional talent, and sometimes these terms themselves become a challenge to understand. Gifted is the most commonly used word, but it has hundreds of definitions, from legal to jargon. Talented usually describes an individual with performance skill that has been refined through practice, such as music and dance.
For Gagne (1985), giftedness is above-average-aptitud in creative and intellectual abilities, and talent is above average performance in an area of human activity, such as music, mathematics , or literature.
In general, gifted person is defined as one who demonstrates an exceptionally high level of peformance in one or more areas of human endeavor.