gifted people as an at risk population

[Anemone]

Some people say gifted people are an at risk population. Others say not. I say that some gifted people are at risk and others not. But I would like some more facts.

What are the studies used to justify gifted programs on the basis of gifted kids being at risk? Is it just on the basis of gifted kids not doing well in school in regular programs? Or is there evidence gifted kids are at risk in the real world as adults?

If anyone knows of any good studies on this subject (books, journal articles), I would like some hard data on who's at risk and why, if it's out there. I'm familiar with Grady Tower's article and will be reading Terman's five volume set shortly (may take a few days to get through!) What else is there out there? Does anyone have any lists posted anywhere I can work from?

I will put together a reading list as I go, but it sure would help if there was one already out there.

[thinker]

Here is an interesting article which may be from a questionable source.
http://www.giftedbooks.com/aart_webb.html

I may have more links... "The Outsiders" brought me here, but I probably don't even fit the profile. Still enjoy the discussions though.

Not sure I'm gifted, so I won't skew your results. There is a chance I'm gifted with an LD or simply ADD. Either way, it's made my life rough, but it's not the giftedness alone in my case, it's the "dual diagnosis" as described in the article above that would make things difficult. Notably, not achieving my potential or being laughed at and dismissed for not spelling properly (for example). "But it's all good" - shoot me now!

F.

[JohnSC]

Some people say gifted people are an at risk population. Others say not.

Depends on the definitions of "gifted" and "risk". I have not yet met a truly gifted person who was not successful in their choosing, but neither have I met a gifted person who lived-up to the low expectations of what society fantasizes a gifted individual is suppossed to do.

[Dr Spock]

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_couns ... eing.shtml

[Markus]

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_counseling/Neihart_TheImpactOfGiftednessOnPsychologicalWellbeing.shtml

That is a good professional link!


What you say about this one?


http://www.prometheussociety.org/articl ... iders.html


Are gifted really maladjusted cases from a view point of mediocre society?

Has giftedness been to you a blessing or a curse?

[thinker]

Very interesting article Dr. Spock, thanks for the link.

The first part of the article mentions "gifted" with no reference to standard deviations above the norm. "The Outsiders" article rehashed Terman's data to show that maladjustment started at 3 standard deviation above norm?

This following paragraph addresses the 3 s.d. idea.

Gallucci (1988) administered the Children's Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to 90 gifted children with IQ 135 or more who were participants in a summer enrichment program. The CBCL is widely used in educational and clinical settings to obtain a global assessment of adjustment in children. Overall, results fell within normal limits of the instrument, and gifted children with IQ's above 150 did not show greater levels of psychopathology. This latter finding is of particular interest given the widely held belief that highly gifted children are at-risk for more social and emotional difficulties than are moderately gifted children. Of course, Gallucci's study is limited by the use of summer enrichment participants. It is possible that children with more severe difficulties are not referred for such programs or are not admitted.

How many gifted children with IQ above 150 were there? What was the standard deviation? Were these children always together? Some alienation would be alleviated by being "normal" in a group of 150+ IQ?

Some interesting paragraphs in the "Giftedness and Psychiatric Disorders" section relating to...
"Dally and Gomez (1979) observed that 90% of their adolescent eating disordered patients had an IQ of 130 or more."
also "artistic giftedness"

A snippet from the "discussion" section:

Eysenck (1995) observed that the number of people making claims about the psychology of gifted children is greater than the number of people who bother to verify such claims. It is clear from the studies referenced here that there are some claims we should stop making. One is that highly gifted children (IQ above 160) are more vulnerable to social and emotional problems. The research does not support the broad conclusion that there's a level of IQ at which problems in adjustment significantly increase. Rather, it seems that there's a level of IQ at which it becomes very difficult to find appropriate educational services and it may be the lack of good educational fit that most often contributes to the difficulties some highly gifted children encounter (Baker, 1995; Dauber & Benbow, 1990; Gallucci, 1988; Gross, 1993; Hollingworth, 1942; Parker, 1996; Witty, 1955). Future research will need to control for educational placement when comparing the psychological well-being of highly gifted children in order to clarify the role of "fit".

The references I read were mostly related to gifted students.
Interestingly, this last paragraph puts "highly gifted" at 160 IQ, when "profoundly gifted" should be 160.

My understanding is:
gifted ~= 130
highly gifted ~= 145
profoundly gifted ~= 160

These numbers are 2, 3 and 4 standard deviations from the norm (one s.d. = 15 points on the IQ scale) respectively.

F.

[Anemone]

Depends on the definitions of "gifted" and "risk". I have not yet met a truly gifted person who was not successful in their choosing, but neither have I met a gifted person who lived-up to the low expectations of what society fantasizes a gifted individual is suppossed to do.

I am a forty-year-old chronic welfare recipient (>7.5 years of welfare to date, + unemployment insurance etc). I went to the best schools, got straight As, got three science degrees, including a Masters, and was basically unemployable at the end of all this. I would like to know to what extent my problems are due to being exceptionally gifted, to being female, to being handicapped, to personality differences, or to lack of family support. I suspect all of the above and quite frankly, my being handicapped is quite low on the list although it is what qualifies me for travelling first class on welfare (non-disability welfare rates are not even enough to keep people alive in Canada so the extra is very badly needed).

I just want some solid answers. If gifted people are at risk, then high IQ societies need to address that in some way. If they aren't, then someone needs to get the word out to parents who are freaking out.

Also, the support available to people in poverty does not even begin to address my needs. So it would be interesting to see which other gifted people have serious problems and which don't. Might clarify the causes of poverty.

[Anemone]

Thanks for that link, Dr. Spock. I hadn't come across that article before. Roeper Review is a very good journal and I am planning on surveying every issue I can find once I get through Terman. Here are two books I've looked at so far:

Leta Stetter Hollingworth (1942) Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet.

The author was concerned about the schooling of exceptionally gifted kids. She saw the greatest discrepancy between mental age and calendar age in the elementary grades, and recommended gifted classes for this age group instead of thumb-twiddling in regular classes or skipping grades (or truancy). She thought that the problems the exceptionally gifted had would become much less significant by the later teens when they were old enough to choose their own environment. She didn't really see these kids as being at risk as adults, and her subjects seem to have turned out well, for the most part. In some cases, rebellion against irrelevant schooling seems to have slowed them down in adjusting to adult life. Most of her subjects (8/12) were boys.



Joanne Decker Denko, 1977. Through the Keyhole at Gifted Men and Women: A Study of 159 Adults of High IQ.

When asked about the 'problems of being highly intelligent':

Women below IQ 125: perplexed, quizzical, or dubious at question
Women above IQ 125: almost all start venting.

Survey of Mensans:
Q: Do you feel that being of intelligence to qualify you for Mensa puts you at any disadvantages in social, occupational, or other ways? How do you feel about working under or over people of average intelligence?

Only one or two women in study (out of 58 ) said 'no problem'
Men in study: a handful in Cleveland (1973) and half of men in Columbus (1966) said 'no problem'

•Obviously, there may be significant sex differences in outcome.
•The author (and some male subjects) was more upset at 'wasted' talent of women without careers than the women in the study were.



Thanks for the other links too. I've got lots of reading to do.

[Markus]

Dear Anemone,


Do you have any more recent and up-dated literature, references available of the topic?

[Anemone]

I'll post a list of good references when I've completed my lit review. In the meantime, I'm just going through the classics to get the background (Terman, Terman, more Terman). I really have no idea what's out there yet.

[Bo]

To me, the worst side-effect is boredom. Few things are worse than boredom. I suppose an average-IQ person would be bored less often.

Another side-effect that I think has hurt me careerwise is that I can reach the top 10% or even 1% easily in most all intellectual pursuits I care to try, and then I lose the drive -- because I feel like I got it, I understand it, I know what can be known and what cannot, and the rest is just tedious detail. Out in the real world, of course, nobody gives a hoot about what you understand. It's what you can publish, deliver, make, and/or sell.

[Markus]

To me, the worst side-effect is boredom. Few things are worse than boredom. I suppose an average-IQ person would be bored less often.

Another side-effect that I think has hurt me careerwise is that I can reach the top 10% or even 1% easily in most all intellectual pursuits I care to try, and then I lose the drive -- because I feel like I got it, I understand it, I know what can be known and what cannot, and the rest is just tedious detail. Out in the real world, of course, nobody gives a hoot about what you understand. It's what you can publish, deliver, make, and/or sell.

I agree with you, Bo.

At the moment, I am taking my third professional degree. Because of have bored to previous careers and human types within it. A curious, hungry mind needs to find new perspectives of different things constantly. Black & white thinking is not the best way to teach our gifted children and young adults. They need much more than that. As a matter of fact, boredom, frustration are real life's problems to me.

It may be a sad thing that you have just a few real good friends. Fortunately, a gifted person seems to find almost similarly, in a very bright way thinking individuals, whose value system is in a correct position. This is one of main reasons, why I stay and don't leave from highIQ societies´discussion boards.

Furthermore, a quality concept is preferable to internalise than always a massive quantity in our society. For instance, this shows in mass consumption. People buy goods that won't endure for a very long time. We are living in the middle of disposable items, throwaways culture.

The average people seem to sware in to the name of Efficiency and Productivity. There should be more accuracy in their actions. They do more intellectual mistakes than highly gifted persons, for instance. These people's strength is on the area of social skills. As group-workers, they are more likely winning the social game. They have designed rules that suit to them very well. Sometimes, I lose my interest and motivation, when trying to spend time with them.

Perhaps this is a partial explanation, why I have changed my career plans. So I try to find right kind of personality types that are suitable thinking about proceeding in the working life.

[Markus]

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/highly_profoundly.htm


Behind the link can be found new research findings, regarding the IQ definition -and testing of children.


Quotations:


1. "The question is often asked, is my child highly gifted, or exceptionally
gifted, or profoundly gifted? What does his score mean? What does her level of
giftedness imply?"

2. " Old "common wisdom" said that a gifted child would be inherently weak in physical or social / emotional development (or both) - it was considered "a fact" that a strength in one area was offset by a weakness in another. Gifted children were seen as skinny, poor-eye-sighed children. Terman's research back in the 1930's attempted to disprove this "knowledge." He succeeded, but his research methods are now considered questionable."

"More current research continues to support the conclusion that gifted children are not inherently weaker in any other developmental area."

That is an interesting thing to know.


The web page is updated in 26th April 2005.

[JohnSC]

although it is what qualifies me for travelling first class on welfare (non-disability welfare rates are not even enough to keep people alive in Canada so the extra is very badly needed).

I want to move to Canada! My wife is severely disabled (due to car and work accidents not her fault), the doctors said she would die within 6 months (6 years ago), something like a 76% total disability (10% is supposed to be enough to classify a person as disabled in the USA), she has had two spinal surgeries and needs another along with a heart and lung transplant, and we still cannot get insurance payments nor USA government disability, let alone unemployment insurance. The only things keeping her alive are herbs and nutrition, and keeping her away from doctors… but that’s a different story…

I am a forty-year-old chronic welfare recipient (>7.5 years of welfare to date, + unemployment insurance etc). I went to the best schools, got straight As, got three science degrees, including a Masters, and was basically unemployable at the end of all this. I would like to know to what extent my problems are due to being exceptionally gifted, to being female, to being handicapped, to personality differences, or to lack of family support.

I finished college at about the same time I finished high school, and though I scored the highest on employment tests, never was I offered a decent job (many USA employers want employees who score average on tests, something I didn’t know at the time). After a few years of trying to do well in a mediocre world, and seeing an unskilled uneducated neighborhood girl get a job as a communications equipment tech I tried for months to get, I finally got off my butt and started my own business (which did very well). My ‘socially approved education’ was a 100% waste of time. The only support needed (and desirable) is one’s own.

The average USA employer does not want an above-average employee, and an above-average person needs to look elsewhere for an income. It is not logical to hope to find fair-play in a capitalist economic system that is based on unfair trade practices. How can a person of high logic find logic in an illogical society?

What I alluded to in my original post was that if a person chooses to let other people control his/her life, the person can never do better than what the people allow. Gifted individuals (stable emotions, stable mentality, IQ of around 150+, a person who does something with their talents) chooses what they want in life, and if the desired thing is possible, the gifted individual will achieve it. It is not logical for a talented individual to want acceptance in a mediocre society that shuns talent (even though most of us have tried). High IQ societies are for finding acceptance, where a person can vent and share thoughts usually capable of being understood by others: a thing that cannot be had in normal societies.

I am poor (oh the sob stories I could tell! ), but at the same time I don’t care about achieving a mediocre society’s definition of ‘success’, my interests are in something else, what no other person has ever done before, and what no ‘well adjusted’ social conformist could ever do, ever. We get what we aim for, whether we choose lofty goals or no goals at all. Life can be hard sometimes, but hey, that just makes the achievements more special.

I just want some solid answers. If gifted people are at risk, then high IQ societies need to address that in some way.

Your sentence structuring and use of the English language is very good. Your obvious IQ qualifications mandate that you are not now nor will you ever be capable of fitting-in with an average social system: you always will be ‘at risk’ of not being average. In the spirit of the reason why this forum exists, I offer the thought that your skill of language be coupled with your talents and aimed towards a productive goal that has meaning and value to you alone. If money were the only thing of value, then illegal drugs and body parts are possible occupations, but if aspiring to achieve a thing worthy of one’s talents is deemed of value, then money is not. A person must choose which is worth their life.

If they aren't, then someone needs to get the word out to parents who are freaking out.
Also, the support available to people in poverty does not even begin to address my needs. So it would be interesting to see which other gifted people have serious problems and which don't. Might clarify the causes of poverty.

No articles nor research are found about how average people are ‘at risk’ of not fitting-in with high IQers, the articles are about how gifted people are supposed to magically fit-in with non-gifted behaviors. Most people who write articles about gifted people being ‘at risk’ are using the yard-stick of conformity to mediocre standards. Most writers of ‘at risk’ studies are not gifted themselves, and should not be deemed as authorities on the subject any more than would a 100 IQ person be qualified to write about what it is like to have a 140 IQ. In my opinion, the majority of at-risk research is weak-kneed at best.

Every time my wife is injured (5 times now in 25 years, and now me twice in 2 years), we lose our jobs, our businesses, our home, our cars, credit, everything, and we are left with little more than the clothes on our backs. Each time we start over, living in cheap housing (cheap as in a one room rural shack without utilities), driving a clunker car, working at a menial job, and we slowly rebuild our lives. Each time we regain what we lost plus more, and each time we are left with lofty achievements accomplished during our down-time. We make use of our time, we do not sit with hope that someone else will tend to our needs.

I fully sympathize with everyone who has a disability of any sort, but at the same time I have no sympathy for a person who does not choose to aim for higher goals than what a mediocre society can aim for. Handicaps and poverty are a part of life, not the rulers of life. All responsibility is the person’s own, no one else’s, and the only thing a gifted person is at risk for, is one’s own indecision.

Anemone, you have my best wishes at heart. When life seems annoying to me, I just set new goals, and then get on with my life.

[Anemone]

After a few years of trying to do well in a mediocre world, and seeing an unskilled uneducated neighborhood girl get a job as a communications equipment tech I tried for months to get, I finally got off my butt and started my own business (which did very well). My ‘socially approved education’ was a 100% waste of time.

After years of trying to follow other people's advice, and failing spectacularly, I decided I needed to be self-employed, and have been working towards that for the last five years. When I joined Triple Nine Society a couple of years ago I was surprised, and not surprised, to find a fair number of others there who also found out the hard way that self-employment is the way to go for many of us. I wish they'd figure this sort of thing out and tell us in high school. It would save a lot of grief. But I'll bet even if I publish extensively on this, they'll still ignore it because 'they don't want to restrict gifted people too much' or some such nonsense like that. Go figure.