Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Three Young Gifted Children of Today
Meleik Delaney at the age of 4 is the youngest author in the world. Meleik Delaney created the Fighters of Justice Book Series at the age of 3. The Fighters of Justice is a series of superhero children’s books. Meleik’s first book, The Fighters of Justice Saves their Mother and "Learns to Never Give Up" can be purchased at http://www.fightersofjustice.com/. He is from Washington, D.C.
Jayla Watts published a series of short stories at the age of 7. Jayla Monique Watts was born on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 in Pitt County, Greenville NC. Her website is http://www.jaylamwatts.com/.
Gloria Tesch is the author of the Maradonia-Saga Book Series. Gloria Tesch began writing her first book at the ripe age of ten, and celebrated her thirteenth birthday with the publication of her Debut Novel, "Maradonia and the Seven Bridges." Gloria Tesch was born on April 17, 1994 in San Diego, CA. Her website is http://www.maradonia.com/.
Who are the Highly Gifted?
Highly gifted children tend to be those who demonstrate asynchronous development. Due to their high cognitive abilities and high intensities they experience and relate to the world in unique ways. These children are often found as a result of extremely high scores on an individually scored IQ tests, generally above the 140 IQ range. Others may be prodigies in areas such as math, science, language and/or the arts. Profoundly gifted children can score in excess of 170 IQ.
Highly gifted children demonstrate characteristics such as the extreme need to:
1. Learn at a much faster pace.
2. Process material to a much greater depth.
3. Show incredible intensity in energy, imagination, intellectual prowess, sensitivity, and emotion which are not typical in the general population.
The child of 160+ is as different from the child of 130 IQ as that child is different from the child of average ability. Current research suggests that there may be higher incidence of children in this high range than previously thought. Due to their unique characteristics, these children are particularly vulnerable. Highly gifted children need a specialized advocacy because very little has been done to develop appropriate curriculum and non-traditional options for these children.
From the Hollingworth Center for Highly Gifted Children
Monday, January 3, 2011
Identifying The Gifted
1. Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read.
2. Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school.
3. When Thomas Edison was a boy, his teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything.
4. F.W.Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21. But his employers would not let him wait on a customer because he "Didn't have enough sense."
5. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had "No good ideas"
6. Caruso's music teacher told him "You can't sing, you have no voice at all."
7. Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college.
8. Verner Von Braun flunked 9th grade algebra.
9. Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been retired from the navy, as, "Unfit for service" Until he flew over both poles.
10. Louis Pasteur was rated as mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College
11. Abraham Lincoln entered The Black Hawk War as a captain and came out a private
12. Fred Waring was once rejected from high school chorus.
13. Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.
Characteristics Gifted Children - Creative and Learning
Creative Characteristics of Gifted Children
Gifted children's creative abilities often set them apart from their age-mates. These characteristics may take the following forms:
1. Gifted children are fluent thinkers, able to generate possibilities, consequences, or related ideas.
2. They are flexible thinkers, able to use many different alternatives and approaches to problem solving.
3. They are original thinkers, seeking new, unusual, or unconventional associations and combinations among items of information.
4. They can also see relationships among seemingly unrelated objects, ideas, or facts.
5. They are elaborate thinkers, producing new steps, ideas, responses, or other embellishments to a basic idea, situation, or problems.
6. They are willing to entertain complexity and seem to thrive on problem solving.
7. They are good guessers and can readily construct hypotheses or "what if" questions.
8. They often are aware of their own impulsiveness and irrationality, and they show emotional sensitivity.
9. They are extremely curious about objects, ideas, situations, or events.
10. They often display intellectual playfulness and like to fantasize and imagine.
11. They can be less intellectually inhibited than their peers are in expressing opinions and ideas, and they often disagree spiritedly with others' statements.
12. They are sensitive to beauty and are attracted to aesthetic values.
Learning Characteristics Gifted Children
Gifted children are natural learners who often show many of these characteristics:
1. They may show keen powers of observation and a sense of the significant; they have an eye for important details.
2. They may read a great deal on their own, preferring books and magazines written for children older than they are.
3. They often take great pleasure in intellectual activity.
4. They have well-developed powers of abstraction, conceptualization, and synthesis.
5. They readily see cause-effect relationships.
6. They often display a questioning attitude and seek information for its own sake as much as for its usefulness.
7. They are often skeptical, critical, and evaluative. They are quick to spot inconsistencies.
8. They often have a large storehouse of information about a variety of topics, which they can recall quickly.
9. They readily grasp underlying principles and can often make valid generalizations about events, people, or objects.
10. They quickly perceive similarities, differences, and anomalies.
11. They often attack complicated material by separating it into components and analyzing it systematically.
Are Some African-American Boys In Special Education Actually Gifted?
Some boys are over active. Some boys are over stimulated A child who is over active needs to be distinguished from a child who is over stimulated. A general behavior characteristic of Gifted Children is that they often have seemingly boundless energy, which sometimes leads to a misdiagnosis of hyperactivity.
General Behavior Characteristics of Gifted Children
Gifted children's behavior differs from that of their age-mates in the following ways:
Gifted children's behavior differs from that of their age-mates in the following ways:
1. Many gifted children learn to read early, with better comprehension of the nuances of language. As much as half the gifted and talented population has learned to read before entering school.
2. Gifted children often read widely, quickly, and intensely and have large vocabularies.
3. Gifted children commonly learn basic skills better, more quickly, and with less practice.
4. They are better able to construct and handle abstractions. They often pick up and interpret nonverbal cues and can draw inferences that other children need to have spelled out for them.
5. They take less for granted, seeking the "hows" and "whys."
6. They can work independently at an earlier age and can concentrate for longer periods.
7. Their interests are both wildly eclectic and intensely focused.
8. They often have seemingly boundless energy, which sometimes leads to a misdiagnosis of hyperactivity.
9. They usually respond and relate well to parents, teachers, and other adults. They may prefer the company of older children and adults to that of their peers.
10. They like to learn new things, are willing to examine the unusual, and are highly inquisitive.
11. They tackle tasks and problems in a well-organized, goal-directed, and efficient manner.
12. They exhibit an intrinsic motivation to learn, find out, or explore and are often very persistent. "I'd rather do it myself" is a common attitude.
Blacks, Mostly Males, are Misdiagnosed or Misplaced into Special Education Programs
Black children constitute 17% of all students, but comprise 41% of all special education placements, primarily educable mentally retarded and behavior disorders. Black boys disproportionately are 85% of the Blacks in special education. Black students in classes for educable mentally retarded pupils has exceeded the generally accepted 2% expected level (Bureau of Education for Exceptional Students, 1985).
Not only is this data alarming, but it has also been recognized that some Blacks, mostly males, are misdiagnosed or misplaced into special education programs. The numbers are disproportionate and an overrepresentation of Black placed in special education. A continuing problem in the public school system is the disproportionate and overrepresentation of Black students in certain types of special education classrooms ( Ysseldyke & Algozzine, 1983).
Along with the overrepresentation of this same group of students are classrooms for gifted pupils (Bureau of Education for Exceptional Students, 1985). Gifted children who are culturally different, are overlooked because many of them are underachievers (Wilgosh, 1991).
Bureau of Education for Exceptional Students, (1985). Administrators management conference: Education for exceptional students. Tallahassee: Florida Department of Education.Ysseldyke, J. & Algozzine, B. (1983). Introduction to special education. Boston: MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Wilgosh, L. (1991). Underachievement and related issues for culturally different gifted children. International Journal of Special Education, 6, 82-93.
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