Unevenly Gifted
(Originally published by NAGC, 2001. - Guidance & Counseling Division
Newsletter Article
Topic: Twice Exceptional with the title Ability Disparities Are Like A
Disability)
Many parents bring their children to me for assessment of giftedness. I have
gained a reputation as a professional who is especially interested and concerned
about the levels of gifted because I am aware that one's level or degree of
intellectual function can affect one's entire perspective and personality. My
clients have brought me another issue, however. Some children have only one or
two areas that are amazing and advanced rather than being uniformly gifted. This
article addresses the problems surrounding exceptional giftedness that is
embedded in an otherwise ordinary young child.
As readers know, most educators are not well informed about gifted children,
intellectual levels, or the value and validity of good assessment. Many people
believe that a person is gifted or not gifted. Attention to degrees of
intelligence is largely missing because most people do not view intelligence as
being on a continuum. There is also a tendency to think of a person who is smart
as needing to be smart in everything in order to “qualify” as smart. This
viewpoint causes problems for children who have exceptional abilities in only
one, perhaps two, domains. The general reaction to the parents' pleas for
attention to the child's exceptional abilities is met with disbelief that the
child is actually gifted because he is not performing well, or manifesting the
talent, in other areas.
Three different ability domains illustrate the academic and personal
confusion that commonly ensue when a child is unevenly talented. The selected
domains from which I wish to generalize are language, numerical reasoning, and
conceptual thinking. The reader should keep in mind that most teachers, and many
parents, believe children should be well rounded. They devote a great deal of
time and effort toward moving the lower areas up rather than supporting and
promoting the unusual talent area.
Children who are exceptionally capable in language, those with excellent
vocabularies and reading skills, are often assumed by their teachers to be
stubbornly refusing to cooperate when it comes to math. In fact, my testing of
children on the Stanford-Binet LM has shown me that parents and teachers
commonly over estimate the IQ of such children. Language skills are highly
visible, or at least audible. More of this groups' members are girls than boys.
Further complicating the language gifted child's dilemma is that the
achievement tests which are administered to elementary aged children usually do
not have ceilings much higher than two grade levels above that of the children
being tested. The mathematics section of such tests is usually merely
computational, not numerical reasoning. A bright child who is highly gifted in
language can score in the top percentiles in her weaker areas on achievement
tests. This profile is the most likely of the unevenly gifted to be selected
into gifted programs.
The ability disparity is when children are very high in numerical reasoning
but much lower in their language abilities. These children cannot even
demonstrate or practice their exceptional talent in the numerical domain because
very little actual math is taught in elementary schools. Instead, numbers and
arithmetic, the rote tools of mathematics, takes up at least the first four
years. Parents are typically aware that their children possess high numerical
interest and reasoning abilities before they enter school. Unfortunately, both
the parents and the teachers are confused into thinking that memorizing and
using number facts, doing computation, is the same thing. It is not, and most
children highly gifted in numerical reasoning balk at or even become confused by
all the memorization and repetition of working on computation and tables. This
group consists of more boys than girls.
The frustration of spending so much time on language-based lessons, lessons
that may not be interesting or particularly easy for the math-able boy, often
leads to acting out and “bad attitude.” This child is the least likely to be
selected for gifted services. Unfortunately, unless his ability is identified
and addressed, such a child can learn to under-achieve, may lose confidence in
his abilities, and self-select out of advanced paced opportunities when they are
finally available. Again, the child who fits this profile may be above average
in language but profoundly gifted in his specialty.
The final example of unusual isolated ability is conceptual thinking. There
are many individuals, boys and girls, whom I have tested who are exceptionally
gifted in pulling together facts, figures, and concepts in order to recognize
and solve problems. If they are average or typical in their language and
numerical reasoning abilities, they continually confirm for their teacher and
the other students that they are not really very smart and are “talking through
their hats” most of the time. This child is very intuitive and very aware. He or
she scores high on the section of the Stanford-Binet LM that calls for seeing
relationships, noticing and picking out what is irregular or illogical. This is
a definite talent, a needed and valuable ability. But, it is not part of the
curriculum. These talented children tend not to be good students and are
unlikely to be selected for special services.
When children have exceptional ability in conceptual reasoning, they can grow
to be the inventive problem-solvers that society so badly needs. Friends and
parents can see and appreciate the talent in every day life. But school life
does not reward this type of thinking in elementary school. “Show your work” is
anathema to the intuitively conceptual reasoner. When a child is exceptional in
this domain and normal in all the others, he or she can be seen as a real
nuisance in class. “Who do you think you are?” is a common reaction that might
indicate the individual is talented as a problem-solver but does not yet have
the supporting credentials. This child's self-image is at risk because the
normal challenge of normal schoolwork can make him feel inadequate. It is
difficult to see the big picture, as this child can, and have no one else climb
aboard.
The last group of children need opportunities to speak often with older, more
mature people who can give them positive feedback for their creativity and
intuitive grasp of situations and problems. As their reading skills and
knowledge base increase, these children will finally be able to accrue the
credentials of good writing and a good factual base that makes for a more
wide-spread acceptance of their observations and pronouncements.
In every situation I have found that simply knowing about the talent disparity
and its meaning can be a tremendous help and relief to the individual and to the
parents. We can work around unevenness once we understand that it is there. I
encourage the family to recognize the value of the curriculum that is being
taught, and when possible, I help them set up subject acceleration in their
strength areas.
In conclusion, it is imperative that we recognize that exceptional talent can
be uneven in people. Educational approaches that expect a gifted enrichment
program to fit all these different profiles will miss too many children who are
in need. Good assessment can be done early in a child's educational career and
the results, interpreted and used correctly, can greatly aid in not only the
academic life of each child, but in the self-image, social, and emotional life,
as well.
Copyright © Deborah Ruf, 2001. All rights reserved.
