School and Emotional Development of Intellectually Gifted Children - Coursework Example

School and Emotional Development of Intellectually Gifted Children Name: Institution: Date: Introduction Education of the intellectually gifted children has largely focused on their cognitive abilities. However, this education has ignored the social and emotional needs of these children and yet this area needs to be given much attention by undertaking research on the specific needs of the children. Although for the past 20 years, a surge of research has attempted to examine whether the gifted students are also are at a high risk for the adjustment problems. As a result, various research have focused to support both the views, making it difficult to come to a conclusive understanding on whether the gifted children are appropriately adjusted or maladjusted in comparison to the non-gifted or talented children (King, 2005). Some of the empirical studies indicate that gifted and talented children are better of adjusted than their peers who are not gifted. Supporters of this idea perceive that giftedness guards them from the maladjustments. This implies that gifted children have the capability of having greater understanding of the self and others because of their cognitive capacities. Therefore, they are able to cope better with any stress, developmental dy-sychrony and conflicts. In another view, the gifted children stand high chances of being at risk for adjustment difficulties than their peers who are non-gifted. This means that giftedness increases the vulnerability of children to adjustment problems (Neihart, et al. 2002). Research indicates that supporters of this idea consider the gifted children as being more sensitive to both interpersonal conflicts and they experience higher degrees of alienation and stress than their peers due to their cognitive abilities. The social and emotional adjustments of the intellectually gifted children are associated to the type of giftedness, personal attributes as well as educational fit. Various characteristics that concern being gifted exists and these include advanced moral judgment, perfectionism, high expectation of the self and others, heightened sensitivity to expectations, feelings of others and self-awareness as well as higher degree of the social and emotional depth and intensity. This study investigates the attributes associated with the gifted and talented students, analyses their social and emotional needs, their varied Underachievement Patterns and Affective up on the type of giftedness, assess the heritability of giftedness and concludes with a look at the relation between the gifted children and youth with special needs (Reis & McCoach, 2002). Characteristics of the intellectually gifted students Although the intellectually gifted children perform well in academics compared to their non-gifted age-peers, their social and emotional are closely related to what their classmates possess. However, in some instances it may not be the case with the intellectually gifted students who are to some extent more mature in comparison to their age-peers within their areas of communal and affecting development and this appears to be invisible. It becomes certain to note that it is easy to mistake the emotional intensity of the gifted children as well as the associated sensitivity presented by some of the gifted students for the emotional immaturity (Robinson & Moon, 2002). On the other hand, some of the gifted students may have already achieved their education in their primary school where abilities and opinions would have already displayed and different from other students who may be in the same class. This is perceived to be mockery to such students or results in negative response to the social needs of these students. Thus, an indication that some of the gifted children may already have become skilled at camouflaging their abilities and concealing their interests which might differentiate from their respective age-peers. This creates an ironic view that the more academically excellent the student becomes, the more competent such a student emerges to be in the creation of this protective camouflage (King, 2005). However, other students may not be willing to drop this camouflage even after their enrolment into higher institutions of learning while others may have the feeling that high abilities and the desire for learning can be very suitable at their secondary level. Thus, such students are presumably able to demonstrate their gifted talents, especially in their early days of higher levels of learning. As a result, teachers need to make use of such moments to maintain and monitor the intellectually gifted students who may have not yet been subversive. This means that schools need to discover and respond to the different needs of the gifted students irrespective of whether their intellectual gifts are confidently exhibited or cautiously covered for the peer recognition (Frasier & Passow, 1995). Emotional intensity shows that gifted students experience their emotional responses at a far level than how their non-gifted age-peers do. These individuals possess an improved capacity that enables them to react to either their intellectual stimuli. Therefore, it be concluded that the passion for gifted students to learn is not easily understood within their peer cultures that normally fail to recognize their intellectual striving. It has been discovered that the intellectually gifted children always have a preference for the companionship of the grown-up students. This implies that their improved intellectual development, relative emotional maturity as well as their reading interests may drive them to look for, the grown-up students who are considered to be at the same maturity stages. It is imperative that teachers ought to smooth the progress of and not just dishearten such friendships. This is because these friendships suggest that the intellectually gifted student would emerge to be ideal candidates in some forms of acceleration. Apparently, one of the utmost gifts which people can give to the gifted students is more opportunities and support to a short-term risk failure within the safe surroundings of their classrooms, encourages all the students, inclusive of the intellectually gifted individuals, to allow their achievements exceeds their grasp (Silverman, 1997). Social and Emotional Issues Isolation is one of the major challenges that the intellectually gifted individuals face, particularly those who lack the social relations of gifted peers. Normally, for the gifted children to gain popularity they make every effort to hide from their abilities in order to achieve social appreciation. Among the strategies used are underachievement and use of less the sophisticated vocabulary while they are in the same-age peers than when they are seen among their trusted individuals. This implies that the isolation that is experienced by the gifted children may not only be as a result of giftedness, but also through the society’s reaction to the issue of giftedness. In such cultural settings, the affected children are under great pressure to be normal with a significant stigma that is connected with giftedness or talent. Therefore, counteracting such problems professionals in gifted education recommend the creation of a peer group which should be based on the common interests and abilities. This suggests that the earlier the groups are created, the more effective they are likely to prevent isolation (Robinson & Moon, 2002). Perfectionism is also an important issue for the individuals. This act is more common because the gifted individuals have the tendency of succeeding in what they do. Studies indicate that it is tend to be a virtue rather than a problem. This still happens even if the intellectually gifted children may seem to have difficulties with their healthy perfectionism. This is because such individuals set their own principles that are relevant to their own mental age. However, such children cannot always be in a position to comply with them since they are bound to their social environment restricts them. In such incidences, the outsiders may refer to some conduct perfectionisms, whereas for the intellectually gifted children this may emerge to be their principles (Colangelo & Davis, 2003). In contrast, the detrimental perfectionism can be generated through parents, children and school comrades with either good or bad intentions. This proves that parents are more often than not proud and will praise their gifted children extensively. Conversely, siblings, comrades and the school bullies will usually turn out to be jealous of the academic ease of the intellectually gifted children as well as make them teased about their minor imperfection within their activities, strength, dressing, appearance, or for their behaviors. Perfectionism is only desirable if it motivates the healthy pursuit of academic excellence (Reis & Renzulli, 2004). Conflicting Underachievement Patterns based on the type of Giftedness When a broader perception of underachievement is taken into consideration to enable a discordant performance and abilities in various gifts and talents, the alleged accuracy in the identification of underachieved intellectually gifted students vanishes. Based on the academic domain, the procedures used in the identification compares the student’s academic ability, often by use of various IQ test scores in addition to the academic achievement that use some regulated achievement test scores. This suggests that in cases where significant discrepancies are identified, it means that diagnosis of under-achievement has been noted (Schuler, 2002). To use such tools to measure underachievement among the students with significant and spatial giftedness or some interpersonal talent, particularly where the two are different from the types of giftedness that are more often than not identified as well as provided by schools, is considered as unsuitable in the application of IQ cut scores for placement of such students within the intelligence domain-specific programs. This implies that for the few schools that have managed to implement programs that aimed at identifying as well as serving the nontraditional giftedness, comprehensive qualitative research of pupils enabled the determination of their talents. Perhaps, the recognition of the under-achievement as well as its feasible causes can be achieved through the same ethnographic practices. This also applies to the only intellectually-gifted programs in which school practices have widely involved in the compilation of more detailed data than can be revealed through the tests results alone, since these data have provided evidences that make them to be constructive for placement and in programming for the children’s needs (Lardner, 2005). Underachievement among the gifted students such as, the intellectually giftedness and underachievement independently, is perceived not to be a defined development. Although most of the research results have indicated that a number of interventions and approaches are effective in changing the underachievement from the intellectually gifted students into more successful people, there is limitation on how generalizations can be used across the aspects of the varied intelligences. Therefore, the need for underachieving gifted children to adjust their attitudes towards their abilities becomes one of the few research outcomes that appear generalizable so that a more optimistic and hopeful affective realm can be developed (Robinson & Moon, 2002). Conflicting Affective Development based on the type of Giftedness The affective development of the intellectually gifted students has been reported by numerous scholars. Silverman (1997) portrays the social and emotional maturity of the gifted children as being asynchronous in comparison to their advanced intellectual skills. However, other scholars have examined that the gifted students often demonstrate their advanced cognitive skills at their early ages. The personality traits of the gifted students tend to comprise of higher levels of perfectionism and sensitivity with each of them contributing to higher degrees of stress in comparison to other students. Tendencies develop among the intellectually able children on whether they are gifted academically or not, in order to have a deeper concern about the moral issues at their earlier ages than peers. Different views on the awareness of the global episodes, injustice, and perfections, if combined with the emotions of inability experienced by the intellectually gifted children, have the possibility of a serious influence on both the social and emotional development of the gifted children. Although a range of differences are certainly in existence between the affecting features of the gifted people, children of high talents have a tendency to adopt some pronounced sensitivities, and thus, require more focus on emotional curriculum and training (Colangelo & Davis, 2003). Various distinctions exist which distinguish those with the intellectually gifted talents from those who are far less traditional. This indicates that a large number of the external forces or variables from home, classmates, school, parents and communal values have significant influence on the emotional development of persons, gifted or not. As a result of the enhanced sensitivities, such external forces have a big impact on the affective development of the academically gifted people and even greater effect on the social and affective development of individuals with gifts that are rarely and commonly addressed by schools (Gross, 2004).  Today, majority of the gifted people are required to learn how to adapt to schools and society that more often than not fails to recognize their talents, rejecting them at large. It becomes certain those pejorative terms such as “nerd" and "egghead" denote the apparent contempt of a society for children who are indentified to be intellectually gifted. Contemporary education has largely resorted to reject the gifted individuals. Such contempt lead to negative emotional reactions among those children perceived to be academically gifted population. This means that a part from athletic giftedness, there are few other classes of talents that are as actively supported by various schools. However, efforts made on behalf of the intellectually gifted persons are absolutely inadequate compared with the often exaggerated expenditures of time, effort as well as money extended to the athletic giftedness (Schuler, 2002). The hallmark idea remains that there are various programs that are made available for students of superior academic potential. Studies shows that less program options are afforded by students identified with fewer traditional talents. Although the academically gifted students usually respond to their social rejection by carefully hiding their gifts, they get some chances for adjusting their own affective development. This is especially when the specialized programs group them mutually for intellectual and social support (Colangelo & Davis, 2003). Students with extraordinary talents within their domains and not in athletic or intellectual domains for whom assigned school programs are hardly ever available. It becomes apparent that in the deficiency of the appropriate school experiences, such children not only involve in the act of hiding their abilities, but they also endeavor to deny them. This clearly explains the reason as to why investigations on the intellectually gifted children other than the intellectually gifted or athletically talented have been limited to the three categories of the gifted students with some associated disabilities due to the case of poverty, minority as well as overlooked cultures and an educational disadvantage and children who are underserved because of their gender and extent of giftedness. It is so apparent that those talents that are still considered to be underserved or un-served within schools generate similar negative outcomes. Therefore, such children have minimal reasons to become optimistic and individuals who lack the "optimistic willpower" are more likely not able to either establish or develop their own optimistic way-power (Gross, 2004). Heritability of giftedness Intelligence is considered as a major attribute of giftedness, is greatly influenced through the most complex interactions of various genes combined and in distinctive environmental perspectives. This means that intelligence is the general cognitive capability which supports the idea that reliable measures of the cognitive capabilities do inter-correlate in one way or the other. It becomes a general agreement that giftedness may comprise of a genetic component. However, some children are uniquely born with various and innately higher academic levels in comparison to others. Such children are more often than labeled as gifted or the talented. This implies that the importance of identifying intellectual abilities of the gifted children in their early ages allows their educators to place them in the relevant classes of developmental value which encourage as well as foster exploration within the domain of their giftedness (Nielson, 2002). The environment plays a great role in nurturing of giftedness or children with higher intelligence. This is because giftedness and talent call for a special environment in a similar the special education would. Therefore, such environments must be inspiring and encouraging in order to allow the children to mature through the acts of experience and exploration. Furthermore, those environments must ease creative activities in a more developmentally appropriate manner that would require classrooms to be re-designed for the developmental levels in contrary to the commonly used age leveling (Schuler, 2002). Suggestions have been made on the type of academic settings identified with differentiated learning that could be as a result of the acceleration, imaginative enrichment as well as special grouping. Additionally, a developmentally enabled environment is appropriate for the gifted children and will minimize some behavior problems among the pre-scholars more engagement and the home motivation for student’s learning. This provides the view that gifted children will emerge to be high achievers only if their interests are intrigued by involving in what they are naturally motivated to do as well as empowering them to continuously try some new skills. Therefore, when the intellectually gifted children are largely supported by all the educational staff, society, families and peers, they tend to have higher chances of developing their cognitive abilities (Silverman, 1993). Gifted Children and Youth with Special Needs The importance of considering the gifted and talented children as normal individuals is further explained within an empirical literature on how the issues of gender sensitivity, sexual orientation, twice-exceptionalities, race as well as creativity influence both the social and emotional development of young people especially those who are bright. Reis and Renzulli (2004) provide a concise summary on some of the external and internal barriers that are faced by the gifted girls as they advance from their childhood to adulthood. They indicated that bright girls are largely influenced by the parent and teacher opinions. Reis and Renzulli argued that majority of the gifted girls do not actually realize their full potential due to the loss of confidence in their abilities, out-of-control perfectionism, having low self-confidence in themselves, concerns about the social isolation, increased worries on balancing career as well as family demands in the adulthood and the occasional inability to obtain a vocational or a professional niche (Reis & Renzulli, 2004). On the other hand, several central issues related to the social and emotional development of the gifted boys and their culture exist which can have a more significant influence on their development. For instance, mentors can play a great role in the both the social and affecting development of the gifted boys. It is has been suggested that enabling an outlet for the enhanced level of sensitivity which is very common among the gifted boys is considered to be critical. This implies that providing more opportunities for such children to conduct community service is one of the outlets (Reis & Renzulli, 2004). Silverman (1997) examined some of the challenges that are faced by the gifted young people who are lesbian or bisexual and gay. He discovered that there is a remarkable need for extra research to be carried out in this field, arguing for the need to recognize the existing challenges in identifying the young people to act as subjects within sexual-orientation studies. This means that there is no research that details the significance of considerations for supporting the young people who are actually struggling to develop their sexual-identity. Research indicates that although the creatively gifted children share part of the same attributes of social and emotional with those who are considered to be intellectually gifted, various affective characteristics and their accompanying needs exist which the creatively gifted children represent that are not essentially attributable to the intellectually gifted children (Silverman, 1997). It becomes essential note that the creatively gifted children may turn out to be more psychologically vulnerable in comparison to most their intellectually gifted peers. This creates specific implications for some of the strategies that should be applied when dealing with the creatively gifted students. Therefore, interventions may include fostering psychologically supportive environments in which the intellectually gifted children do not feel threatened as well as be valued to enable them demonstrate independent thinking and actions. This suggests for environments that provide reasonable limits to the experimentation and issues of risk taking. However, such environments must provide the children with opportunities to both explore and develop their interests (King, 2005). Conclusion Gifted and talented children are better of adjusted than their peers who are not gifted. These children have the capability of having greater understanding of the self and others because of their cognitive capacities. The social and affecting changes of the gifted and talented children are associated to the type of giftedness, personal attributes as well as educational fit. While the intellectually gifted children are considered to be more academically able compared to their age-peers, both their social and emotional maturity is considered to be much closer to what their classmates possess. It is easy to mistake the emotional intensity of the gifted children as well as the associated sensitivity presented by some of the gifted students for the emotional immaturity. The intellectually gifted students increasingly prefer the companionship of the older students. This implies that their intellectual developments, relative emotional maturity and their reading interests may drive them to look for, as friends, the older students perceived to be at the same developmental stages. Isolation is a major challenge that the gifted individuals increasingly face in their learning settings, particularly those who lack the social network of gifted peers. Majority of the gifted people are required to learn how to adjust to schools and communities that more often than not fails to recognize their talents and rejects them at large. Perfectionism is an important issue for the intellectually gifted children. This act is more common because the gifted individuals have the tendency of succeeding in what they do. The unhealthy perfectionism can be generated or further exaggerated through parents, siblings and school comrades with either good or ill intentions. Intelligence is a major attribute of giftedness that is influenced through the most complex interactions of various genes combined and in distinctive environmental contexts. The environment plays a great role in nurturing of giftedness or children with higher intelligence. Majority of the gifted girls do not actually realize their full potential. This is due to their loss of confidence in their abilities, out-of-control perfectionism, having low self-confidence in themselves, concerns about the social isolation, increased worries on balancing career as well as family demands in the adulthood and the occasional inability to obtain a vocational or a professional niche. References Colangelo, N. & Davis, G.A., (2003). Handbook of gifted education (Third edition). Boston. Allyn and Bacon. Frasier, G. & Passow, L. (1995). A Review of Assessment Issues in Gifted Education and Their Implications for Identifying Gifted Minority Students. The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Gross, M.U.M. (2004). Exceptionally gifted children (Second edition). London. RoutledgerFalmer. Lardner, C. (2005). School Counselors Light-Up the Intra- and Inter-Personal Worlds of Our Gifted. Retrieved August 21, 2011 from, Neihart, M., Reis, S.M, Robinson, N.M & Moon, S.M. (2002). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? Waco, Texas. Prufrock Press. Nielson, M. E. (2002). Gifted students with learning disabilities: Recommendations for identification and programming. Exceptionality, 10(2), 93-111. Schuler, P. (2002). Perfectionism in Gifted Children and Adolescents. In M. Neihart, S. M. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.). The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children (pp. 71-79). Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc. Reis, S. M. & Renzulli, J. S. (2004). Current Research on the Social and Emotional Development of Gifted and Talented Students: Good News and Future Possibilities. Psychology in the Schools, 41, published online in Wiley InterScience. Reis, S. M. & McCoach, D. B. (2002). Underachievement in Gifted Students. In M. Neihart, S. M. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.). The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children (pp. 81-91). Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc. Robinson,S & Moon, M., (2002). (Eds.). The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children. Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, Inc. Silverman, L.K. (1993). Counseling the gifted and talented. Denver. Love publishing. Silverman, L.K. (1997). Family counseling with the gifted. In N. Colangelo & G.A. Davis (Eds.). Handbook of gifted education (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. King, E. W. (2005). Addressing the social and emotional needs of twice-exceptional students. Council for Exceptional Children, 28(1), 16-20. Read More