A GENIOUS
Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education: A Proposed
Direction Forward Based on Psychological Science (Rena F.
Subotnik, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, and Frank C. Worrell)- MONOGRAPH
Introduction
Aim: review and summarize giftedness and suggest some directions
for the field of gifted education
Perspectives of Giftedness
1. High IQ: generic, innate quality that can be discovered through
an assessment
Excellence in all academic domains & Remain gifted
throughout their life (no matter if they achieved or not).
Academic achievements require more than intellectual
ability
2. Emotional fragility: Many studies supported they are
competent but many people relate giftedness and high
sensitivity.
Implication for special programming, socioemotional support
and understanding.
3. Dichotomy
i. Creative-productive giftedness: innovative ideas
ii. School-house giftedness: tests
Creativity, persistence and motivation are important for both
No focus on continued development
4. Talent development: sport and art development programs,
combining talent with psychosocial strength training and
coaching.
5. Practice and unequal opportunities: practice hours,
advantageous chance factors important for development of
talent.
Giftedness as a developmental process- New framework
It is malleable and domain-specific, developed and sustained by
training and interventions in domain-specific skills, the
acquisition of psychological/social skills needed to pursue new
paths and the conscious decision of the individual to engage fully
in a domain.
Goal: transformation of talent to outstanding performance and
innovation in adulthood, long-term giftedness
, PROBLEM 3. SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR 2
A GENIOUS
o Age differences bt adults and children on how giftedness
manifests
o Talent differences: Creative performers & Creative producers
Two stages of the process
1. Talent identification: continuous targeting of the precursors of
domain-specific talent and the formal and informal processes by
which a talent is recognized and identified
2. Talent promotion: how the person is guided, instructed,
encouraged (usually left to chance)
Important to recognize the domains of talent that have different
developmental trajectories and that transitions are influenced
by effort, opportunity, instruction, technical and psychosocial
skills
Educating gifted Children
Enrichment
Programming options that extend and supplement the regular
curriculum and often include topics not covered in the curriculum
Not accelerated but can lead to acceleration
They might benefit all students
Goal: engagement in the subject more in depth compared to
traditional classroom
Most frequent option
No formal evaluations of the enrichment strategies
Acceleration
1. Gifted children can acquire and process info more rapidly than
their peers.
2. Gifted students often master advanced levels of content in
subject areas.
Strategies of Acceleration:
a) Earlier access to courses and content than their same aged
peers e.g. entrance to any level of schooling, grade skipping
etc.
b) Accelerating the pace of instruction within courses e.g. fast-
paced etc.
Evidence: in general the efficacy of acceleration was overwhelming
positive.