A literature review of gifted sutdents - Dissertation Example

?Running Head: Literature Review on Gifted Literature Review on Gifted [Institute’s Literature Review on Gifted Students Definition and early studies surrounding Giftedness Despite its wide usage, experts, scholars, academicians and scholars have yet not agreed on a single definition of the term “gifted”. In fact, they have even failed to develop a consensus on outlining a set of characteristics or behaviours relating to of giftedness, which is just another manifestation of the intensity to which this topic in debatable and undecided in educational, psychological, sociological, anthropological and other similar fields of study. Since the earliest human civilizations, the progress and accomplishments of humankind have been mainly dependent upon persons who have performed extraordinarily in their fields (Sternberg & Davidson, 2005, pp. 163; Bates & Munday, 2005, pp. 85-86). These people have accounted for the bulk of accomplishments forcing the governments, administrations and local authorities to focus on exploring and developing to take charge of their respective fields. In fact, “as early as in the 2200 BC, evidence reveals that the Chinese authorities had developed a system of competitive examinations for children to explore the gifted or extraordinary ones (Coon & Mitterer, pp. 30-32, 2010) and groom them for taking the government positions in the later years. This fascination with giftedness remained there, in one form or the other, in Greek and Roman civilizations as well (Coon & Mitterer, pp. 30-32, 2010). However, it was Sir Francis Galton, a well-known scientist and researcher of the 19th century and the cousin of Charles Darwin, who used the term gifted for the first time in order to refer to people who showed exceptional and extraordinary talent in a particular field, such as a gifted writer or a gifted singer (Sternberg & Wilson, 2004, pp. 310). Furthermore, Galton also called the children who show the potential of becoming a gifted adult as gifted children. It was Lewis Terman, the guru of educational psychology and one the leadings American psychologists in the 20th century , who widened the scope of the research and provided some sort of platform and meaning to the term “gifted” (Sternberg, 2003, pp. 360). Terman added the criteria of high IQ in order to determine the giftedness of any individual. The fact is that Terman was very much inspired with the ideas of Alfred Binet in this field that never became public because of his early death (Janos & Robinson, 1985, pp. 259). However, Alfred’s invention of the first useable IQ test gave the inspiration to Terman in order to look for and understand the students who have an IQ of 120 or more. In the 1920s, Terman selected almost 1500 students from different schools in California, which satisfied the IQ criteria. Over 1350 students out of this sample were white and a significant majority belonged from the upper and middle class families. The aim of Terman was to prove that most of the common stereotypes held about gifted children such as physically weak, socially misfit, unhealthy and others were incorrect (Treffinger & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 145-149). After selecting the sample in 1920, Terman did seven follow-ups with his “termites”, as he liked to call these gifted children. He followed the educational progress, interests, personalities, families and other related variables from their childhood to deep adulthood and found out that these gifted children were just as socially apt, physically strong, and tall and fit as others compared at their age. Even after the death of Terman, the study is still underway with many follow-ups by the students of Terman, making it longest running longitudinal study ever (Davis & Rimm, 1989, pp. 23-24; Sternberg, 2003, pp. 360). In addition, there have been some serious criticisms on this longest running longitudinal study. First, the sample that Terman selected in 1921 is highly unreliable and looking at the technique of convenience and judgment sampling, some claim that the results obtained from this research are far from generalisable. Second, Terman took special interest in the lives of these children. In fact, in many cases, he wrote letters of recommendations himself and from other friends, for these children so that they could scholarships and jobs. He became the counsellor, confidant, mentor, teacher and friend for many of these “termites” (Lyth, 2003, pp. 241; (Hoboken, 1946, pp. 105-106). Rather than separating himself from the sample, he indulged in their lives in order to ensure that the sample could create successful and happy children since he was supposed to create many “Terman Kids” with this study. Furthermore, Terman also pulled some strings, repeatedly for many of these children to be admitted in Stanford (Janos & Robinson, 1985, pp. 259; Richardson, 2000, pp. 485). Third, Pitirim Sorokin, founder of the department of sociology in the Harvard University and a reputed 20th century sociologist, criticized Terman for exaggerating the results for his gifted children. Sorokin believed that much of success and achievements that these children witnessed in their lives were primarily a result of their good family backgrounds and any other sample of children from similar family backgrounds would have achieved and performed just the same (Coon & Mitterer, pp. 30-32, 2010). Fourth, while selecting his samples, Terman also failed to take into account the cultural differences inherent in the American society therefore avoiding the racial, social class and gender differences. Fifth, Terman’s study also possesses many weaknesses and shortcomings of any longitudinal study. Much of what happened with the lives of these individuals was partially a result of the dramatic events that happened in that era such as the Great Depression, World War I, World War II, Red Scares, Cold War and others (Davis & Rimm, 1989, pp. 23-24). One of the less popular but relevant findings from Terman’s research was the non-correlation of achievement and intelligence. Despite the fact that his “termites” went to become reputable in their respective fields such as Jess Oppenheimer, Lee Cronbach, Ancel Keys, Robert Sears and others, a considerable majority of the participants of the study lived low profile lives with mundane jobs such as that of a policeman, mailman, clerk and others. Therefore, Terman concluded, “At any rate, we have seen that intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated” (Sternberg, & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 30). At the very same time when Terman was conducting his research, another prominent American psychologist, Leta Stetter Hollingworth, who was previously devoting her time to understand the psychology of women, diverted her focus to study exceptional and gifted children. Although Hollingworth and Terman never met, their ideas regarding gifted children were very similar (Gross, 204, pp. 257). Nevertheless, they did disagree on one important point, which was that when Terman was a strong proponent of the idea that giftedness is purely an inheritable trait, Hollingworth believed that along with inheritance, environmental, family, cultural and other factors also had a strong impact on the same. She believed in giving credit to both nurture and nature. More importantly, she conducted various researches with gifted children and published books about the same, some of which later gone on to become standard textbooks and important academic material (Sternberg & Wilson, 2004, pp. 310). One less cited longitudinal study of Hollingworth began in the year 1916 and continued almost until her death. She researched eleven different children with an IQ of 180 and more and found out that high giftedness was correlated with certain characteristics such as desire for privacy, disliking all intruders and others. She found out that these children were afraid of being labelled as “special” and their families confronted for the same. Being the first researcher to study children with an IQ of over 180, Hollingworth concluded that the sufferings of these children have its roots in two major problems. First is the incapacity and incapability of adults in dealing with these children and second, the absence of adequate intellectual challenges. Her research in this field is also very reputed because she stressed direct and daily contact with the study participants when other experts in the field did not follow the same (Hollingworth, 1926, pp. 52). Haensly, Reynolds, and Nash’s Approach to Giftedness These three researchers admit the giftedness in itself is a quite complex construct. They have identified five different characteristics, which are directly, correlated with giftedness. First, giftedness comes with an ability to see possibilities that other fail to see. Giftedness means that one would be able to make sense and allocate meanings to stuff that fail to do. Second, giftedness provides individuals with the capacity to not only see those possibilities but also exploit them with a superior set of skills (Morelock, 1992, pp. 82). Therefore, not only that gifted people see the glass as half full but at the same time, they also think about how to use that glass of water. Third, giftedness also fills individuals with an inbuilt and mysterious capacity to overcome the hurdles that are put into their way. Fourth, these individuals would sit idle but end up producing a response. Fifth, giftedness would mean that they would also share their outcome with the society in a meaningful way (Dai, Swanson & Cheng, 2011, pp. 63-64). This definition and framework of giftedness is far from widely acceptable and perfect because even a glance at this mode reveals many shortcomings and gaps in this definition. For example, there are many examples of children and adults, especially girls and women, who give up on their gifted abilities, hide them or suppress them because they cannot overcome the “hurdle” of peer pressure (Tomlinson & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 96-97). Many longitudinal researches have made this a fact that not all gifted individuals will overcome the hurdles that are put into their way and many would lose their essence in order to fit into this average society and intellectually average and below average people. Furthermore, the last point about giftedness also lacks any experimental or empirical evidence. There is almost no research, which shows a correlation between meaningful sharing of outcomes with giftedness of individuals. Not all gifted individuals end up providing services to the society, in fact, as mentioned earlier, many of them ended up living a mundane and ordinary life and many of them decided to keep their inventions to themselves. Even with they made it public, it was highly likely that their motive was personal wealth and success (Phillipson, & McCann, 2007, pp. 85-86). Gruber’s view of Giftedness Gruber is amongst one of the few experts that took the liberty of defining giftedness with a more qualitative perspective rather than engaging the concept of high IQ into it. Gruber defines giftedness as the state of being visionary and the ability to see “what could be done”. They are idealists with a special sense of mission (Sternberg & Davidson, 2005, pp. 163). More importantly, Gruber also sees it as an essential characteristic is the fact that these people are ready to put in more time and effort in order to fulfill their sense of mission and complete their projects. Furthermore, contrary to the popular stereotype, these people do not show a sense of urgency but they are ready to devote their whole lives for their projects (Wallace & Eriksson, 2006, pp. 262). Renzulli Three Ringed Model of Giftedness Modern educational psychologists, such as Joe Renzulli with his Three Ringed Concept of Giftedness, have developed different framework to understand the developed of gifted behaviour. They believe Renzuilli’s model believes that creativity, task commitment and above average ability are the three major factors crucial for someone to have a gifted behaviour. For Renzulli, “creativity is the flexibility and originality of thought. Furthermore, it is also the openness to experience, mental playfulness, ability to take risks with new ideas, thoughts and beliefs (even if seem irrational) and being extremely sensitive to external stimuli” (Heller, 2000, pp. 413-415). Task commitment, as outlined by Renzulli is motivation turned into action. In particular, “Perseverance, enthusiasm, high levels of interest, self-confidence, energetic, endurance, determination, drive to achieve and other few terms can draw a picture of overall task commitment” (Straub & Myers, 2004, pp. 203-205). Above average ability, third factor in development of giftedness is complicated since it is a product of general abilities such as abstract thinking, retrieval of information, world fluency, vocabulary and verbal reasoning and specific abilities that include application of knowledge on specific areas of human performance, strategy formulation and others. In simple words, according to Renzulli, only if these rings work together, one can witness gifted behaviour. According to the model, having above average ability is the starting point for exploring gifted behaviour and task commitment and creativity are more of developmental goals that follow through (Sternberg, et al., 2010, pp. 210). Gange’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent Gange’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent is one of the most latest and modern debates and perspectives in this field. Unlike many classical thinkers studying giftedness, Gange bases his research on the distinction between what a talented or gifted individual is capable of achieving and what he ends up achieving. Giftedness is not directly correlated to achievement but it is environment surrounding the gifted individual, which determines whether or not that potential would convert into achievement. Gange’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT) is the manifestation of the same along with a few more perspectives and dimensions (Distin, 2006, pp. 51-52). According to Gange’s, giftedness can be referred as the possession of unexplored, spontaneous and unpolished natural abilities and skills that allows the person to be placed within the top 10 percent of the individuals in that field. Talent, on the other hand, refers to the superior mastery developed by an individual based on the near perfection of use of those skills, knowledge and abilities in order to be placed in the top 10 percent of his or her active peers in that field (Dai, Swanson & Cheng, 2011, pp. 63-64). Gifted behaviour is more likely to be surface out in children because of the moderate exposure of environmental factors on them and that also in a limited way. According to the model, there are four domains of natural abilities, which are “intellectual (fluid reasoning, judgement, observation, spatial memory and metacognition), creative (problem solving, imagination and retrieval memory), socio-affective (intelligence, communication and influence) and sensorimotor (visual, auditory, strength, coordination olfactive)” (Morelock, 1992, pp. 82). The model then goes to identify the four different catalysts that play the all important role in converting these natural abilities (NAT) which constitute giftedness into systematically developed skills (SYSDEV) so that they could become the talented and top 10 percent in the real world of achievements. These four catalysts are “interpersonal (IC), developmental process (LP), Environmental (EC) and Chance (CH)” (Hauert, 1990, pp. 62-64; Morelock, 1992, pp. 82). The interpersonal factors can be divided into physical and psychological factors, both being affected by the genetic factors. Amongst the physical characteristics, appearance, health, traits, temperament, well being and others are some of them. The mental and psychological factors are needs, interests, values, motivation and self-management impact the process of conversion of gifted abilities into talents and achievements (Parke, 2003, pp. 96). As mentioned earlier, genetic factors play a crucial role in determining the degree of this conversion. They might assist the process or they might discourage it (Heller, 2000, pp. 413-415). The positive and negative impact of environment can be understood by dividing them into four different factors. First, milieu include the influence exerted at microscopic level of family, size of family, their personality traits, caregivers and socioeconomic class and at a macroscopic level as well with cultural, social, geographic, political, economic and demographic factors playing their part (Dai, Swanson & Cheng, 2011, pp. 63-64; Richardson, 2000, pp. 485). Second, persons are an important component of environment that may include friends, parents, teachers, mentors, colleagues, confides, siblings and others. Every now and then, we see an extra ordinary person giving the credit of his or her success to someone who was close to him or her. Third, provisions, which is the third causal factors under the umbrella of environment, includes programs, activities, services and any other intervention from the school, educational institutions or the society which help the gifted people to explore their talent. Fourth and finally, these are the significant and moving events in the life of a gifted individual such as death of a loved one, accident, tragedy, loss, winning of a prize or award and others may move the individual that they may start realizing the potential (Tomlinson & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 96-97). Third, the development or learning process, both formal and informal can directly influence the conversion process. It is a simple process where the giftedness of an individual is the raw material and through practice, learning, polishing and hard work, the person decides to convert that into an unbeatable challenge. Perseverance and hard work is the bottom line (Pfeiffer, 2008, pp. 241-242). Surprisingly, Gagne has also mentioned chance or luck as the fourth catalysts but some critics believe that it can be put under the umbrella of the environmental factors as the fifth causal factor. The explanation with Gagne has provided for choosing Chance as a separate catalyst is inefficient and many other researchers, while criticising this model has noticed this point (Bryant & Colman, 1995, 41-42). Even if one agrees to the theory and the model, the fact is that chance in itself is not a catalyst but the way in which it affects other catalysts such as interpersonal abilities, environmental factors and developmental process is more important (Bates & Munday, 2005, pp. 85-86). The chance of being born in a particular family influences the interpersonal and genetic skills. The chance of getting into a good school with a talent exploration program influences the environmental factors (Treffinger, & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 145-149). Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory “Howard Gardner, American development psychologist and author of over 20 books, is famous for his multiple intelligences theory” (Bates & Munday, 2005, pp. 85-86). Although, he did not use the term “gifted” anywhere in his research, his multiple intelligence theory has been used widely in the academic circles for discussing and understanding giftedness. According to Howard, “reason, intelligence, logic, knowledge are not synonymous.", therefore, he has come up with “eight different dimension of intelligence, which are logical-mathematical, spatial, linguistic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic and bodily kinaesthetic” (Bates & Munday, 2005, pp. 85-86). Howard argues that cultural and biological factors both play an important role in formation of a genius (giftedness). However, this theory has met with great deal of criticism because of absence of strong empirical evidence and the fact that this theory is making ability and intelligence standing at the same ground. Furthermore, some critics have even viewed this theory as some sort of a consolation prize for people cannot and do not perform well in the major fields (Wallace & Eriksson, 2006, pp. 262; Sternberg, & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 30). Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence and Pentagonal Implicit Theory of Giftedness Two years after Howard presented his theory of multiple intelligence, Robert Sternberg, a well-known American scholar, academician, researcher and author, came up with his own model of Triarchic intelligence that he later renamed as theory of successful intelligence. According to Sternberg, “intelligence is of three types, which are analytical (componential), practical (contextual) and creative (experiential). Individuals who posses analytical intelligence, master the art of analyzing, criticizing, reasoning and questioning” (Sternberg, et al., 2010, pp. 210; Sternberg & Mio, 2008, pp. 274). Creatively intelligent persons are good at discovering, creating new ideas, thoughts, patterns and inventing. Practically, intelligent people excel by applying their knowledge into the tasks and decisions faced in everyday situations. Therefore, according to this model, intelligence is the combination of these three types and giftedness is the product of applying the skills from one or another area of intelligence with efficiency and effectiveness (Sternberg, et al., 2011, pp. 20). In the year 1995, Sternberg introduced another theory known as pentagonal implicit theory of giftedness. The rationale behind this research and model was to create a model that could help people in identifying gifted behaviour and making life simpler for people who wanted to define gifted. Sternberg defined five criteria that are excellence, rarity, productivity, demonstrability and value (Sternberg & Mio, 2008, pp. 274). First, excellence refers to superiority in a particular dimension, relative to peers. Important here to note is that excellence here has to be relative to the social group around the gifted individual. Furthermore, while studying this excellence, one also has to level out for other environmental factors (Sternberg, & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 30). For example, a ten year old may sing very much better than his or her colleagues but if he or she has been receiving music lessons since the age of four, and then labelling it as excellence might be unfair. Second, rarity is an important criterion. The field or area in which the giftedness is being claimed, it should be rare amongst the peers. For example, if in a mathematics test, all students in the class get full or 95 plus percent marks, then not all of them can be termed as gifted. Then again, this relative criterion can be applied to all situations because just because one out of two gifted individuals performs much better in a test, does not take null and void the fact that both are gifted (Straub & Myers, 2004, pp. 203-205). The third criterion of giftedness is productivity. According to this model, mere high scores on intelligence tests do not qualify someone as gifted. It is necessary for the person to perform in that field and become productive in that field. Then again, Sternberg here is moving forward with an extremely inaccurate definition of giftedness by failing to make a distinction between giftedness and talent as made by Gagne, which is mentioned earlier in the literature review (Treffinger, & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 145-149). Fourth, demonstrability refers to the fact that the giftedness must be visible through one more or valid assessment. Fifth and lastly, the dimension in which an individual claims giftedness must be valuable to the society (Sternberg, & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 29-34). Nonetheless, Sternberg defines giftedness with an extremely narrow focus here. What might not be valuable to a particular society during a particular time period may also be a gifted ability. Sternberg, through this model makes giftedness a relative quality, allows the society, and peers to define giftedness. That might be true for a certain extent but the fact is that a significant portion of giftedness might be absolute as well, which Sternberg has avoided. For example, in fundamentalist Islamic society, someone who can sing magnificently will not be gifted because the society does not value singing, since it is forbidden (Sternberg, & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, p. 30; Bryant & Colman, 1995, pp. 41-42). Linda Silverman, Gifted Development Centre and Asynchronous development “Dr. Linda Silverman, who has been operating the Gifted Development Centre since 1979, has studied over 5600 gifted students during the past thirty years where many experts have completed their doctoral researches as well” (Bates & Munday, 2005, pp. 85-86). The findings of Silverman reveal that parents, especially mothers are the best identifiers of the gifted behaviour. Although, fathers also posses that magical sixth sense of sensing gifted behaviour, their observations are most likely to be corrupted with their focus on achievement rather than giftedness, whereas, mothers are more likely to celebrate any developmental advancement. Fathers want to see medals, gifts, certificates, scholarships, grades and other hardcore evidence before they could conclude that their children are gifted, whereas, mothers sense the potential with even the smallest steps. Furthermore, their statistics indicate that 84 percent of the parents who believe that their children fill almost ? of the gifted characteristics (which are mentioned below), turn out to be having an IQ level of 120 and more. Furthermore, over 95 percent of these children were gifted, in at least one area; however, they were asynchronous in their development, which end up depressing their overall IQ scores over the period (Bates & Munday, 2005, pp. 85-86). Important here to note is the concept of asynchronous development, provided by Linda Silverman with her research, which is becoming an important aspect of defining gifted children. According to these researchers, gifted children will witness uneven development, which means that when they may be showing the signs of a four year old in terms of an emotional maturity and three year old in physical ability, they may behave like an eight year old in terms of intellectual ability (Shavinina, 2009, pp. 20). Silverman also believes that identification of giftedness in the first three years is crucial in order for its survival and development in the later years. Moreover, when parents fail to identify gifted behaviour in their children, teachers also end up overlooking them as well. Dickson noted that more than half of the students referred to her for behavioural problems, had an IQ of over 132 and neither their parents nor teachers had an idea that they were gifted. In addition, the ideal age for testing of giftedness is between 5 and 8.5 years. The research from the Gifted Development Centre reveals that after the age of 9 years, gifted children are more likely to hit a ceiling. They feel more and more pressures from the society and their peers to mingle in within their social groups thus they leave certain characteristics of giftedness in order to fit in within those groups (Tomlinson & National Association for Gifted Children, 2004, pp. 96-97). Silverman specifies sixteen different characteristics of fourteen characteristics, when possessed by a child can be called as a “gifted child”. Some of them are as follows. First, giftedness comes up with superior reasoning power, ability to handle many ideas and outstanding problem solving ability. Second, gifted persons are likely to have immense intellectual curiosity, where they constantly question everything and do not stop before they find reasonable answers. Third, gifted children are more likely to read and absorb more as compared to the children of their ages. All of these criteria link greatly to the three-ringed model of Renzulli under the umbrella of above average ability (Straub & Myers, 2004, pp. 203-205). Fourth, giftedness also comes up with a tendency to set high but realistic standards for one and remaining self-critical. This links to the self-management part of interpersonal factors of Gange’s model. Fifth, gifted children are more likely to communicate with adults in a more confident and mature manner. Sixth, giftedness also accompanies the ability of sustaining concentration at an object or entity for longer than usual compared to peers (Sternberg & Wilson, 2004, pp. 310). Giftedness, behavioural problems and Depression The fact is that every gift received by the humankind has danger associated with itself as well. It is because whatever gift we possess, it is binding on us to come up with an adequate expression of that gift. Failure to do the same by ourselves or blockage, distortion or discouragement from the outside world turns that gift against us and begins a new period of suffering (Phillipson, & McCann, 2007, pp. 85-86). Their asynchronous development puts them on a great deal of risk, both from the inside and from the outside. It becomes troublesome for parents to cope up with the gifted behaviour of their children because the child is likely to appear of many ages, all at once. He might appear as a eight year age, his real age, while riding a bicycle, thirteen year old while writing a debate, ten year old while collecting stamps, fourteen year old while playing chess, fifteen year old while solving algebraic problems, twelve year old while conducting science experiments and even a two year old while he refuses to share the cookies with his sister (Wallace & Eriksson, 2006, pp. 262). Due to their abilities, these children become the target of their peers and sibling, because of both jealousy and their inability to fit in within the social groups. If the gifted child is emotionally stable and under the supervision of an able guardian, he or she might be able to survive those attacks or else he or she might suppress his giftedness due to all the peer pressure. This explains why there is such a high correlation between giftedness and behavioural problems. This also explains partly why many gifted children leave their hometown for higher studies. If they do not completely mingle in within the social groups, they start viewing their society, friends and families, suppressing their essence, and the essence being their intellectual superiority. They look for a place where people do not bully or tease them due to their young age. They look for new people who could appreciate their intellectual superiority or they may be look for places where they master their intellect into skills and talents with lesser involvement from the society (Dai, Swanson & Cheng, 2011, pp. 63-64). It was mentioned earlier in the literature review that Galton was amongst the first experts that put forward the idea of gifted. Important here to note is the fact that in his writings and researchers, he also went on to mention the connection between being gifted and insanity. He expressed these thoughts by saying that “Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity” (Dai, Swanson & Cheng, 2011, pp. 63-64). Despite the fact that there is theoretical evidence for this debate and much has been written about the same, there is a long list of experimental researches that have claimed that there is no strong and conclusive empirical evidence to suggest that gifted students are at a higher risk of depression, anxiety, suicides and other behavioural problems. Nevertheless, there are many historical figures, which are accepted as gifted and at the same time, their life histories reveals that they suffered with problems of existential depression. Examples include “Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Clemens, Henry James, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, Isak Dinesen, Sylvia Plath, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Dag Hammarskjold, Blasie Pascal and many others. Dabrowski, amongst with a few other researchers, claims that gifted people are at a greater risk of existential depression” (Bates & Munday, 2005, pp. 85-86). Existential depression can arise from four concerns of death, freedom, isolation and meaningless. Dabrowski believes that people that are born with a higher level of developmental ability have the tendency to be more reactive because their central nervous system is characterized by over-excitability. Therefore, they end up perceiving reality in a more different, reactive and intense manner (Phillipson, & McCann, 2007, pp. 85-86). References Bates, J., & Munday, S. 2005. Able, gifted and talented. Continuum International Publishing Group. Bryant, P., & Colman, A. M 1995. Developmental psychology. Longman. Coon, D., & Mitterer, J. O. 2010. Psychology: A Journey. Cengage Learning. Dai, D., Swanson, J., & Cheng, H. 2011. "State of Research on Giftedness." Gifted Child Quarterly, 126-138. Davis, G. A., & Rimm, S. B. 1989. Education of the Gifted and Talented. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Distin, K. 2006. Gifted children: A Guide for Parents and Professionals. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Gross, M. U. 2004. Exceptionally gifted children. Routledge. Hauert, Claude-Alain. 1990. Developmental psychology: cognitive, perceptuo-motor, and neuropsychological perspectives. Elsevier. Heller, K. 2000. The international handbook of giftedness and talent. Elsevier. Hoboken, N. 1946. Manual of Child Psychology. John Wiley and Sons. Hollingworth, L. S. 1926. Gifted Children: Their Nature and Nurture. England: Oxford. Janos, P. M., & Robinson, N. M. 1985. The Gifted and Talented: Developmental Perspectives. Horowitz. Lyth, R. 2003. Definition of Gifted Children. Retrieved January 21, 2012, from www.gifted-children.com.au. Morelock, M. J. 1992. "Giftedness: The view from Within." Understanding Our Gifted, 11-15. Parke, B. N. 2003. Discovering programs for talent development. Corwin Press. Pfeiffer, S. I. 2008. Handbook of giftedness in children: psychoeducational theory, research, and best practices. Springer. Phillipson, S. N., & McCann, M. 2007. Conceptions of giftedness: Sociocultural perspectives. Routledge. Richardson, K. 2000. Developmental psychology: how nature and nurture interact. Routledge. Shavinina, L.(ed.), S. 2009. International Handbook on Giftedness 3rd ed.. Springer. Sternberg, R. J & National Association for Gifted Children (U.S.). 2004. Giftedness. Corwin Press. Sternberg, R. J. 2003. Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized. Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. 2005. Conceptions of giftedness. Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, R. J., & Mio, J. S. 2008. Cognitive psychology. Cengage Learning. Sternberg, R. J., & Wilson, J. F. 2004. Psychology. Thomson/Wadsworth. Sternberg, R. J., et al. 2010. Explorations in Giftedness. Sage. Sternberg, R. J., et al. 2011. Explorations in Giftedness. Cambridge University Press. Straub, R. O., & Myers, D. G. 2004. Psychology. Worth Publishers. Tomlinson, C. A. & National Association for Gifted Children (U.S.). 2004. Differentiation for gifted and talented students. Corwin Press. Treffinger, D. J. and National Association for Gifted Children (U.S.). 2004. Creativity and giftedness. Corwin Press. Wallace, B., & Eriksson, G. I. 2006. Diversity in gifted education: international perspectives on global issues. Routledge. Read More