Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- 1 Gifted Education Without Gifted Children: The Case for No Conception of Giftedness
- 2 Youths Who Reason Exceptionally Well Mathematically and/or Verbally: Using the MVT:D4 Model to Develop Their Talents
- 3 A Child-Responsive Model of Giftedness
- 4 School-Based Conception of Giftedness
- 5 Giftedness, Talent, Expertise, and Creative Achievement
- 6 Permission to Be Gifted: How Conceptions of Giftedness Can Change Lives
- 7 From Gifts to Talents: The DMGT as a Developmental Model
- 8 Nurturing Talent in Gifted Students of Color
- 9 The Munich Model of Giftedness Designed to Identify and Promote Gifted Students
- 10 Systemic Approaches to Giftedness: Contributions of Russian Psychology
- 11 Giftedness and Gifted Education
- 12 The Importance of Contexts in Theories of Giftedness: Learning to Embrace the Messy Joys of Subjectivity
- 13 Feminist Perspectives on Talent Development: A Research-Based Conception of Giftedness in Women
- 14 The Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness: A Developmental Model for Promoting Creative Productivity
- 15 In Defense of a Psychometric Approach to the Definition of Academic Giftedness: A Conservative View from a Die-Hard Liberal
- 16 Creative Giftedness
- 17 Genetics of Giftedness: The Implications of an Emergenic–Epigenetic Model
- 18 The WICS Model of Giftedness
- 19 Beyond Expertise: Conceptions of Giftedness as Great Performance
- 20 Domain-Specific Giftedness: Applications in School and Life
- 21 Extreme Giftedness
- 22 Making Giftedness Productive
- 23 The Actiotope Model of Giftedness
- 24 The Scientific Study of Giftedness
- Author Index
- Subject Index
21 - Extreme Giftedness
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- 1 Gifted Education Without Gifted Children: The Case for No Conception of Giftedness
- 2 Youths Who Reason Exceptionally Well Mathematically and/or Verbally: Using the MVT:D4 Model to Develop Their Talents
- 3 A Child-Responsive Model of Giftedness
- 4 School-Based Conception of Giftedness
- 5 Giftedness, Talent, Expertise, and Creative Achievement
- 6 Permission to Be Gifted: How Conceptions of Giftedness Can Change Lives
- 7 From Gifts to Talents: The DMGT as a Developmental Model
- 8 Nurturing Talent in Gifted Students of Color
- 9 The Munich Model of Giftedness Designed to Identify and Promote Gifted Students
- 10 Systemic Approaches to Giftedness: Contributions of Russian Psychology
- 11 Giftedness and Gifted Education
- 12 The Importance of Contexts in Theories of Giftedness: Learning to Embrace the Messy Joys of Subjectivity
- 13 Feminist Perspectives on Talent Development: A Research-Based Conception of Giftedness in Women
- 14 The Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness: A Developmental Model for Promoting Creative Productivity
- 15 In Defense of a Psychometric Approach to the Definition of Academic Giftedness: A Conservative View from a Die-Hard Liberal
- 16 Creative Giftedness
- 17 Genetics of Giftedness: The Implications of an Emergenic–Epigenetic Model
- 18 The WICS Model of Giftedness
- 19 Beyond Expertise: Conceptions of Giftedness as Great Performance
- 20 Domain-Specific Giftedness: Applications in School and Life
- 21 Extreme Giftedness
- 22 Making Giftedness Productive
- 23 The Actiotope Model of Giftedness
- 24 The Scientific Study of Giftedness
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
GIFTEDNESS AS HIGH ABILITIY OR POTENTIAL
Giftedness, as we conceive it, is unusually high ability or potential in any domain. Giftedness at its core is difference in the direction of advantage. We believe that giftedness exists even when unrecognized by society and that it exists even when the gift has not been actualized through achievements. Further, giftedness exists when the domain of the gift is not valued by society. For example, Ramanujan, a mathematical prodigy, was born in India in 1887, where his gifts were not recognized. He failed his school examinations and was employed as a clerk (Weisstein, n.d.). Unless a gift is recognized and nurtured, it may die, undeveloped, on the vine.
Giftedness is not always revealed in high achievement, but it may also be defined by high potential in the absence of unusual achievement. The determination of giftedness through assessment of ability or potential is more difficult than the determination of giftedness through recognition of achievement. Unusual potential in the absence of high achievement can often be seen in children's passions and interests outside of school.
There are a variety of reasons why children may have unusually high aptitude without showing high achievement. High achievement can only emerge after a child has experience in the domain in which there is high potential to achieve. Given a disadvantaged background or a learning disorder, children with high potential in a given domain may well never develop the knowledge base in that domain that would make high achievement possible.
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- Conceptions of Giftedness , pp. 377 - 394Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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