Making connections: cognition, emotion and a shifting paradigm

International Journal of Learning and Development

Determining what must be included in a common description for what constitutes disorder is a crucial task for resolving the debate over whether giftedness is a disorder, and if ethics/responsibility demands its inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Without a clear and agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a disorder, it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons between different conditions or to assess the relative costs and benefits of including certain conditions in future DSM editions. Moreover, it is important to establish clear criteria for what constitutes a disorder non-illness (DNI) and disorder underlying-illness (DUNI) as spectral in the context of mental health, education, and intelligence research, drawing on the insights and expertise of researchers, clinicians—including the gifted. By doing so, we can promote a more productive and evidence-based conversation around the inclusion of giftedness in the DSM and whether giftedness demands heighten...

2010

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 1982

There has been a revolution in psychology, a revolution that has changed the way we think about intelligence and its development. This revolution is usually identified with the monumental contributions of Jean Piaget and his colleagues at the University of Geneva (see or Gardner, 1972, for summaries). It will be my purpose in this chapter to examine the ideas of Piaget and others who have studied general intellectual development for suggestions about how to reconceptualize research on two more specific aspects of human behavior, giftedness and creativity. As part of this process, it will be necessary to depart from some traditional ways of describing intellectual development, modifying the Piagetian framework to better accommodate the specific problems of giftedness and creativity. Until now research on giftedness has almost exclusively come out of the psychometric tradition, where the focus has been on studying how and why gifted individuals are different from other people. Within the psychometric tradition giftedness has generally been considered synonymous with high IQ. Intelligence (and creativity as well) is seen as a quantity that is essentially This chapter was prepared with the help of a grant from the Spencer Foundation, H. Thomas James, President. Lynn T. Goldsmith of M.I.T. and Peter B. Read of the Social Science Research Council provided helpful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts. 31 D. Fcldman (Ed.).

Gifted and Talented International, 2010

Exceptionality Education International, 2009

Elementary and secondary students identified as gifted produced representations of themselves as readers, writers, and mathematicians and were interviewed about what they chose to represent. Interviews indicated a developmental pro-gression in the way academic learning is understood, a progression that also was evident in their representations. Action-based understanding of academic learn-ing in early childhood progresses to increasingly complex integration of mental activity and knowledge of self-as-learner with descriptions of learning activities in middle childhood. Adolescence is marked by views of learning as transforma-tive and emergent recognition of the nature of knowledge as important in learning. The representations showed similar developmental characteristics, but also offered complementary, creative views of the students' learning identities.

High Ability Studies, 2012

In our commentary, from the very start, we welcome the opportunity to face the inefficacy of the currently existing educational paradigm gifted people. For many years, we have verified and supported the difficulties of a paradigm whose philosophy and anthropological foundation are incapable of guaranteeing the promotion and development of gifted people's potential. It is now urgent to review, as the author has done, the results of an educational practice and a traditional research that have not met the experts' expectations (Lipsey & Wilson, 1993). This proposal is timely because gifted people's education should be in tune with education in general, the paradigm of which (institutional, administrative, instructional and personal) has given way to the new paradigm of inclusive education (Banathy, 1984), and it should somehow reflect their coincidence, especially with regard to their common roots, goals, and guidelines. Obviously, both paradigmsthe paradigm of inclusive education and the paradigm of systemic educationare closely related because they share the same unit of educational analysis; a unit of analysis that no longer focuses on the subject but on the learning community, as demanded by inclusive education, or on the context, as required by systemic education. Based on new and successful paradigms, both proposals could achieve the results that the currently existing paradigm has not yet managed to attain. Besides being timely, this proposal is also necessary because, from this perspective, gifted people's results and the trust placed in the people who may one day be the social, scientific, and political leaders of society would not only improve, but the gifted people would also benefit by achieving a more realistic personal selfimage and, especially, by developing their whole potential. However, if the systemic vision is overly emphasized or exaggerated, the contexta central and configurative element of giftednessmay emerge, and the subject may once again be overlooked, as has occurred so often throughout the history of psychology and of education. The context must be underlined, as must the subject's interaction with the context, but not to such an extent that the subject's image and characteristics are weakened. Thus, for example, when, according to systemic

Essential Issues in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 59)Chapter: 3Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2024

In this chapter, I will outline the labels of giftedness and underachievement and present the theoretical debates surrounding these labels. A historicist examination of these labels follows, highlighting how the gifted underachievement (GUA) label emerges through the negation of “giftedness.” Subsequently, I explore the concept of GUA and its negative connotations, stemming from the positive valuation inherent in the term “giftedness” and its implications for what is considered “normal.” This chapter also reviews perspectives on shifting the focus away from the individual within the current paradigm of labeling giftedness and explores insights from systemic thinking and symbolic interactionism (SI). The conclusion underscores the necessity of a symbolic interactionist perspective to address the gaps in research on the labeling of giftedness and underachievement. Finally, I propose a generic definition that can be used in GUA research in the light of SI.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

2013

Giftedness, or the existence of remarkable natural talents, is believed to occur once in every hundred individuals, and exceptional giftedness once in every ten thousand as per current definitions. The phenomenon of giftedness has caught the attention of psychologists, pedagogists, educationists, and neuroscientists, from the mid-19 th to the 20 th centuries. Giftedness research is the basis of various specially developed tests and programmes the world over. These tests and programmes are intended to identify gifted children and to encourage them to develop their talents and realise their potential, as well as to handle the social and emotional issues that may arise from their differentness. Giftedness has been defined in many ways, pointing to the complexities associated with its identification. Inevitably, special programmes for the gifted draw as much criticism as applause, triggering debates on elitism vs. equity in education. The present review of literature of giftedness research attempts to outline the phenomenon of giftedness in children in its various manifestations, the methods of evaluation and tests in current use, the need for gifted programmes and their efficacy, the developmental trajectory of giftedness, the social and emotional issues accompanying giftedness, and the impact of the socio-cultural environment, educational intervention options for gifted children are also discussed.