Giftedness

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Giftedness is a far above average intellectual ability of a person. In the model most frequently used in psychology , an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 130 as the limit value is the decisive criterion. The gifted are rare; they only make up a good 2% of the population. Whether someone achieves the criterion also depends on the specific intelligence test used, since different tests can lead to different results due to different problems.

Critics call giftedness a construct . It reduces intellectual ability to a one-dimensional numerical value, claims that this can be measured using an intelligence test and divides people into groups of different values ​​depending on the measurement result. Instead, they refer to alternative concepts that also recognize emotional , sporting, artistic, technical and similar achievements as the basis of giftedness.

Gifted children are prone to underperformance and problematic social behavior . Parents therefore often confuse learning disabilities and behavioral disorders with gifted children in their children .

There is no consensus in research and teaching about the exact causes of giftedness. A combination of social environment (especially during childhood ) and genetic factors is considered a likely cause .

definition

The intelligence quotients (x-axis) of gifted people are 130 or more on the German scale.

In the narrower model, a definition of giftedness denotes a degree of intelligence that is far above average . Intelligence tests are designed in such a way that when the tests are applied to a randomly drawn sample, an approximately normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 results. In other countries, such as the USA , regional scales with one of 15 different standard deviations are used. (The values ​​of these scales can be converted to the scale used in Germany.)

In differential psychology , according to the most common definition, people are considered gifted if their test results in an intelligence test exceed the mean value by more than two standard deviations. So these are people who achieve an IQ that is reached or exceeded by a maximum of 2.2% of their fellow human beings. On the scale used in Germany, this limit value corresponds to an IQ value of 130. Other scales use different IQ values ​​for equivalent test results, which is why it is always important to know the underlying scale and the test procedure when making comparisons.

Since the intelligence of the population can change over time, IQ tests must be regularly recalibrated. If someone with normal talent by the standards of the 1990s were compared with people at the beginning of the 20th century, they would be considered highly gifted by comparison. If, on the other hand, American children from 1932 underwent an intelligence test from the 1990s, the average IQ would be 80 according to an estimate by Ulric Neisser. Nevertheless, there was the same proportion of gifted people in the population at both times. Intelligence values ​​are therefore only directly comparable within a country and within a generation.

In addition, there is a dynamic, broader concept of giftedness, which, in addition to intelligence, also includes the skills relevant for implementation ( Albert Ziegler and others) and emphasizes the interaction between skill development and the environment. This intelligence model is based on assumptions from expertise research .

Distinguished from giftedness, the concept of high performance (Engl. Overachiever applied to people), which achieve high performance in a particular area. Psychological expertise research has shown that chess players , for example, do not have generally superior memory abilities and differences in brain activity in musicians can be just as much a consequence as a cause of the activity. This is why people often speak of partial or partial talent in this area.

The concept of giftedness , which is sometimes used in the context of IQ scores, is not scientifically uniformly defined and also not in use. According to the most well-known definition, a person is considered to be highly gifted if their IQ value is above that of 99.9% of the population, i.e. 145 or more. On the one hand, it is controversial whether such values ​​can be measured reliably at all ( ceiling effect ), on the other hand, the relevance of this term is questionable. Occasionally it is used synonymously for 'giftedness' by laypeople. It should also be taken into account that the IQ tests are “calibrated” to the standard value, ie 100; the measurement error increases the higher the "measured" intelligence quotient.

Giftedness is defined purely quantitatively because it has so far not been possible to identify qualitative differences in cognitive performance between gifted and average gifted people who can withstand replication. It is often noted by critics that giftedness, like intelligence, is a construct that is tapped through operationalizations . It is also feared that intelligence tests favor middle-class children, as the intelligence researchers (who are middle-class people themselves) would ask about things that are typical of the culture of this class. Thus, lower-class children , working children and children from certain ethnic groups rarely gifted as defined, so a good performance in IQ tests. Critics argue that the test does not adequately reflect their actual abilities.

In colloquial language, gifted children with excellent skills in special disciplines are often referred to as child prodigies .

causes

It is controversial which factors lead to the occurrence of giftedness. It is generally believed that it is a combination of several beneficial factors. Even if there is a certain connection between intelligence and genetic predisposition, the social environment, especially during childhood, plays a major role in the development of intelligence . Heredity estimates for intelligence vary from study to study. The better the environmental conditions under which the observed people live, the greater the role of genes.

A connection is also suspected for the growth hormone IGF-1 . Children of older mothers often have high levels of this hormone and in fact it has been shown that children of older mothers tend to be more intelligent. Promoting intelligence through targeted doses of the hormone does not make sense, as high IGF-1 levels are associated with diseases such as cancer and schizophrenia .

Genetic influences

There is a broad consensus among experts that giftedness has a genetic component. The proportion of this component is controversial, with an added complication that the expression of certain genes can in turn depend on environmental influences. In this respect, twin studies and adoption studies are particularly interesting .

However, intelligence and thus giftedness cannot be explained by a single master gene , rather a large number of genes probably play a role. Researchers identified a total of 47 gene segments that correlated with the development of cognitive abilities. However, none of these gene variants contribute more than 0.4 percent to intelligence. Taken together, the six most influential gene variants only contributed a little more than one percent to the development of an individual's intelligence. Some of these genes are also linked to schizophrenia .

While it is controversial to what percentage of intelligence is genetically determined, it is undisputed that genetic influences have an ever stronger effect on intelligence with increasing age. A study by Plomin and DeFries showed, for example, that the “Verbal Ability Score” (language skills, language intelligence) of three-year-old adopted children correlates both with the language skills of their birth parents and with the language skills of the adoptive parents. At such a young age, however, the correlation with the score of the adoptive parents is stronger. At the age of 16, however, the correlation with the adoptive parents 'score decreased and the correlation with the birth parents' score increased sharply. The verbal abilities of the birth parents of a child allow a far better prediction of its verbal ability score at the age of 16 than does the linguistic intelligence of its adoptive parents.

There is also a connection with gender : although the mean value of the intelligence quotients of women and men is the same, the intelligence values ​​of men show a wider spread. This means that there are more highly gifted men as well as more cases with particularly low IQs.

Influences of the environment

It could be shown that various environmental influences can influence the IQ value positively or negatively. Since intelligence is directly related to giftedness, these influences can also promote or hinder the development of giftedness. Some studies suggest that the influence of social environment is far greater than that of genetic factors.

The social origin , especially the socio-economic status of the parents, determines the intelligence development of the child more than any previously ascertainable risk factors before and during the birth. This does not take into account clear risk constellations before and during the birth, such as hypoxia , drug abuse, increased alcohol or drug consumption by the mother, pre- or perinatal infections. The average IQ of poor children is about 6 to 13 points below that of wealthy peers. Lower-class children not only lag behind middle-class children in terms of intelligence, but they even deteriorate over the years compared to their own previous state of intelligence. This emerges from many studies that have followed the school and intellectual development of lower and middle class children longitudinally . The social status of the parents of a young child even allows a better forecast of its intelligence in later childhood than the intelligence itself measured in early childhood. Social burdens in the lower social classes, for example a critical financial situation (including poverty ) or poor housing conditions can lead to the children's needs not being met, preventing them from reaching their presumed intellectual potential. Gifted children are therefore more likely to have parents with above-average incomes. However, other studies have shown that the poverty factor alone does not lower the IQ. Rather, this negative effect only occurs when other risk factors are present at the same time . Risk factors are often correlated , which means that they often appear together. One or two risk factors have very little effect on cognitive development, but if others are added, the effects are strong. Children who were affected by eight to nine risk factors had an IQ that was on average 30 points lower than children without risk factors.

The language environment also plays an important role and is closely correlated with the social status of the parents. One study found that parents from the middle and upper classes spoke to their children much more frequently and significantly more than those from the lower classes and that they also formed more complex sentences. According to the authors, this has an enormous influence on the development of intelligence, the IQ of disadvantaged children averaged 79, while the socially well-off children, with whom there was a lot of talk, averaged 117.

Breastfeeding apparently has a positive influence on intelligence development

The role of parenting behavior should not be underestimated. Longitudinal studies show that clear differences in intelligence between children whose parents value intellectual performance and children of parents who do not can be measured. The first group of children were more intelligent. Another study shows that the children of parents who showed a warm and democratic upbringing behavior were more intelligent than children of parents who behaved in an authoritarian and punitive manner.

Diet also seems to have an influence on intelligence development: Even during pregnancy, malnutrition in the mother (e.g. too little iodine ) can reduce the child's intelligence later on. Malnutrition , especially in early childhood, has serious consequences for the development of intelligence and social behavior. A 1972 study found an average IQ of 58 for children who were severely malnourished during the first two years of life. However, this influence can be compensated if the children come into a better environment (e.g. through adoption ) so that even severely malnourished children achieve an average IQ. It has also been shown that breastfeeding has a significant, positive influence on IQ - but apparently only if a certain variant of the FADS2 gene is present in the infant .

In extremely neglected children who have been placed in a foster or adoptive family, very strong changes in IQ can often be observed. The " wolf children " Andrei and Vanya as well as Isabelle are considered classic case studies .

Theoretical models

The triadic interdependence model according to Mönks shows which factors have to come together for giftedness.

There are a number of models of giftedness that mostly deal with the concrete processing of information and learning processes and are less interested in the exact causes.

The triadic interdependence model according to Franz-Josef Mönks (1994) is an exception . It names the most important factors for the development of giftedness on the one hand the social environment, especially family, friends and school, on the other hand the personal characteristics motivation , creativity and special intellectual abilities, commonly referred to as intelligence . It is only when these meet that giftedness becomes likely. In concrete terms, this means that the social environment must have a stimulating and encouraging effect on the child; Promotion and support are also important. Likewise, the child must have the will to consistently exploit his potential.

For further, more differentiated models see below in the section “Research on gifted students”: Models .

Diagnosis

Many gifted people are not recognized as such. Often times, the diagnosis is only made after social or psychological problems have arisen.

Some gifted people are recognized as children when their parents or other contact persons, such as teachers or educators , notice typical peculiarities, although many only encounter them when problems arise, for example in school or in the social environment. The psychological diagnosis generally consists of discussions with the person concerned or the parents, in which the main aim is to analyze the causes of the suspicion expressed, to solve any problems that may exist and to answer open questions. In the United States, elementary school children who are found by their teachers to be exceptionally gifted are routinely subjected to an intelligence test for possible subsequent admission to their school's gifted education program.

A detailed diagnosis of children consists of the interpretation of the behavior taking into account the social environment, the analysis of extraordinary achievements (e.g. in school or in competitions) and the intelligence test. A differentiated diagnosis is then made, which serves as the basis for any subsequent funding or further examinations.

Circumstantial evidence

There are various signs that are generally considered to be an indication of possible giftedness. However, since there is no clearly defined catalog, no reliable diagnosis can be made from such phenomena alone, but the evidence is also used during a professional diagnosis in order to obtain an exact picture and talent profile. Because most gifted people are discovered as children, many of the frequently cited indicators relate to children and adolescents, as they are intended to help parents and other caregivers with an initial assessment; however, they can also be applied to adults. In practice, all signs never appear together, and some are even mutually exclusive. It should also be noted that these are mostly problem-oriented indicators that only apply to a small number of gifted children.

Common signs are:

  • Abnormalities in relation to learning and thinking
    • high level of detailed knowledge and a very good understanding of relationships
    • unusually developed vocabulary and linguistic expression
    • early reading
    • (Early) interest in books that are well above the age level
    • Preferring independent work, high goals
  • Abnormalities in relation to work behavior and interests
    • deep immersion in certain problems
    • perfectionist claims
    • Boredom or even refusal to work for routine tasks
  • Abnormalities in kindergarten and school
    • constant boredom
    • no interest in age-appropriate activities or in school material for the year
    • Disturbing other children to get attention ( class clown )
    • Outsider position, the child feels misunderstood
    • is considered a nerd or know-it-all
    • noticeably good grades (there is a very strong correlation between intelligence and school grades, but not every gifted student is a good student and not every good student is gifted)
  • Abnormalities for the social environment
    • hardly any interest in age-typical activities
    • perfectionist and very critical of performance
    • Prefer verbal rather than physical arguments
    • Feeling of isolation
    • intellectually very well developed, emotionally but at the age-typical level
    • constantly questioning authorities critically
    • Choosing significantly older friends
    • very individualistic
    • Tendency to want to determine situations alone

External expectations of a child can influence whether the child is recognized as gifted. For example, girls from around the age of four may adapt to the gender-specific expectations of educators and playmates and hide their skills and interests in order to gain social acceptance. Realistic performance expectations, where success is possible and calculable, motivate children to make greater efforts.

test

In order to be able to unequivocally determine giftedness in the sense of the definition, a so-called intelligence test is carried out, which varies according to age and individual situation. The point at which a person is considered gifted depends on the test, but the threshold is always set at two standard deviations, whereby the standard measurement error of the test, which always makes up a few points up or down, must be taken into account.

Intelligence cannot be measured directly. The various tests available cover different sub-areas of intelligence, depending on the underlying theory. It is not uncommon for a person to achieve different results in different facets of intelligence.

Special tests for measuring giftedness therefore measure several facets of intelligence. The difficulty of the individual questions is also chosen so that an optimal differentiation is possible in the upper performance range (“normal” intelligence tests are usually designed in such a way that they differentiate optimally in the normal population and are too easy for talent diagnostics). Examples are:

  • MHBT-P Munich giftedness test battery for primary school
  • MHBT-S Munich giftedness test battery for secondary school
  • BIS-HB Berlin intelligence structure test for young people: gifted and gifted diagnostics

Results of the same test can also differ from one another if it was carried out at longer intervals to check a result obtained earlier. Most of the time, when the difference between two tests is very clear, an attempt is made to find the cause, such as poor mental or physical condition at the time of the test. Basically, people who have been diagnosed once are considered gifted throughout their lives. One study found that 15% of children originally classified as gifted were unable to achieve this result again after a period of 6 years.

The Flynn effect describes the fact that until the 1990s the results of IQ tests produced higher values ​​on average, i.e. the measured intelligence apparently increased. The IQ stagnated at the beginning of the 1990s and has been falling again since the end of the 1990s. This makes it necessary to regularly recalibrate intelligence tests. Until 1990 they had to be made more complicated, but the other way around they are now being made simpler again in order to keep the IQ average at 100 points.

The highly talented club Mensa offers its own test program for adults and young people from 14 years of age, which is carried out as a group test and is limited to determining the IQ value, i.e. it does not offer a differentiated talent profile or help with problems.

However, IQ tests are viewed critically by some scientists. According to Anita Woolfolk, all IQ tests, including the so-called “culture-free” tests, put students from minority groups at a disadvantage.

Etiology of intelligence over the life span

With age, children become more and more similar to their birth parents in terms of intelligence. This applies both to children who grow up with them and to children who grow up in adoptive families. This suggests that intelligence has a genetic component, the influence of which becomes stronger with age.

Intelligence diagnostics in young children

The intelligence value achieved by a child up to three years of age correlates only very weakly with his or her later intelligence. Exceptions to this are only extremely gifted or extremely poorly gifted children. For example, children who start speaking at an early age (and at the age of 20 months were already forming sentences typical for three-year-olds) still usually do not prove to be intellectually superior to their peers at a later age. It is only at the age of 4 that the intelligence test values ​​achieved by the children begin to become a predictor for the values ​​achieved in adulthood, although they are still far from stable. At the age of seven, the intelligence test values ​​usually begin to stabilize.

Stability of giftedness

So far there are only a few studies that explicitly deal with the stability of gifted people. The evaluation of the Marburg gifted project showed that 71% of the students who were diagnosed with giftedness in the third grade were able to confirm this diagnosis in the ninth grade. This gives a correlation of r = .85.

Interaction between intelligence and the environment

In the ideal case, there can be an interaction between intelligence and the environment, which in turn leads to a promotion of intelligence. Just like a basketball player who plays a little better than the others, is “chosen” more often, thus plays more often and becomes even better, so an intelligent child will ideally read more, ask more questions and have other educational opportunities.

Consequences

In principle, gifted people have the same emotional and social needs as other people and go through the same developmental steps as normal gifted people as children, although in comparison the cognitive and conceptual ones are significantly faster, which can lead to misunderstandings and therefore possibly to problems with the social environment. Nevertheless, gifted people have fewer social problems on average than other people. The prejudice that gifted children often show deficits in social behavior may arise from the fact that most gifted children are only recognized as such when problems arise and otherwise remain undetected.

The gifted child in the family

Investigations into the stimulation conditions usually show that many families with children diagnosed as highly gifted have many books, non-fiction books and encyclopedias. Visits to museums are more common than families with moderately gifted children. The climate of many families with gifted children is determined by intellectual and cultural activities; there is an atmosphere that positively values ​​learning and the pursuit of academic achievement. However, child effects can also be demonstrated, i. That is, the child demands intellectual stimulation from its parents. The prejudice that the parents of gifted children are over-ambitious has been refuted. It is more likely to try to slow down the child in some areas so that he does not feel underutilized at school.

Leisure time

It can be seen that gifted children are interested in active leisure activities. The gifted children ask more often than the average gifted about intellectual stimuli, about courses, etc. Gifted children spend less time in front of the television than other children. However, the parental style often plays a role. Gifted people often have a keen interest in reading. The interest in sporting activities, on the other hand, does not have to be higher than that of the normal

Problems with the social environment

Especially with gifted children and less so with adults, it can happen that they develop problems with their social environment, even if this is not typical. A distinction is made between problems that affect the environment and those that only affect the gifted.

However, when gifted people become outsiders, this (as with less gifted people) can lead to decreased self-esteem . This in turn creates a high level of psychological stress and makes those affected more susceptible to psychosomatic and mental disorders .

Present property Possible results
  • Quick and good understanding of new information
  • Interest in solving problems
  • Impatience with others
  • Questioning the teaching
  • No interest in routine tasks
  • boredom
  • Insufficient challenge
  • Need to organize everything
  • Looks dominant
  • Oppresses others
  • Big vocabulary
  • Vocabulary above age level
  • Provides detailed information on a wide variety of topics
  • Can easily manipulate
  • Is not understood by people of the same age, resulting in segregation / exclusion and boredom
  • Unrealistically high expectations of others
  • Misjudgment of others
  • Great creativity
  • Find your own ways
  • Breaks through group structures

Insufficient challenge

If the giftedness is not recognized or if there is no adequate support, it can lead to insufficient demand , especially in school. Younger children in particular can handle it poorly. While adolescents and adults tend to either demonstrate their boredom or engage in other occupation, some children begin to disrupt class in order to get attention, causing others to notice them negatively. Others try to adapt to their surroundings, seeing the blame for their situation on themselves. This, in turn, can mean that they deliberately work slowly or make mistakes and are therefore neither recognized as gifted, nor reveal their frustration to the outside world. Continuous under-demanding and the resulting lack of motivation can lead to complete refusal to perform.

Social reception

Society's view of giftedness is often heavily dependent on how gifted people are presented in the media. Two representations predominate, namely on the one hand that gifted people are child prodigies and geniuses and on the other hand that gifted people are a problematic phenomenon or even a mental disorder . The term is also often mixed up with over- performance and ADHD . As a result, gifted people sometimes experience rejection and incomprehension.

Comparable to: gifted in film and literature .

Relationship between giftedness and achievement

Giftedness does not necessarily have to go hand in hand with great academic or professional success. This can only come about when various basic factors come together in a positive way, such as motivation and a supportive environment.

It is often assumed that gifted also About Leister ( Overachiever , and high performance ) are, therefore, provide excellent performance in school and work. The studies carried out and published by the Marburg Gifted Project , however, show that only 15% of the students classified as top performers are gifted at the same time. According to this study, top pupils have an average IQ of 117 (standard deviation = 11.5), so they are above average gifted. 15% of them are highly gifted, another 15% have an IQ that is barely above average and still achieve top performance in the ninth grade. Rost suspects that this proportion will decrease significantly in the later grades. There are probably significantly more gifted students among the top high school graduates than among the top ninth grade students.

The reverse (also often assumed), namely, that most gifted so-called underachiever ( underachievers ) are, is also wrong. The same study found that less than a sixth of the gifted belong to this group. How many young people can be classified as underachievers depends on how underachievement is defined. The thesis that all gifted students have to attend secondary schools or special schools is undoubtedly wrong.

Giftedness should not be confused with scientific excellence. Lewis Madison Terman (1877–1956) initiated a long-term study in 1921 to research giftedness, the Terman Study , which is still ongoing today. He asked California teachers to name what they thought was the most gifted and second most gifted child in their class. Two boys named William B. Shockley and Luis Walter Alvarez were proposed to him, among others . Both could not qualify for the study because their measured IQ was too low, both were later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, Shockley 1956, Alvarez 1968. "Terman's gifted" were for the most part professionally successful.

Giftedness in connection with mental disorders

While Cesare Lombroso and Lange-Eichbaum still assumed that gifted people were more likely to suffer from a mental disorder than normal gifted people, today the opposite is assumed: gifted people are considered to be psychologically resilient , but are often exposed to greater stress. Giftedness also occurs in connection with congenital or developmental disorders , which seem to be in contradiction to this because they are defined by deficits.

The psychologist Andrea Brackmann sees giftedness as a greater sensitivity to internal and external stimuli, believes it is possible that giftedness could be a prerequisite for the development of a borderline personality disorder , but sees a need for further research.

ADHD

Giftedness can coexist with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is often the case, however, that the two diagnoses express themselves by very similar behavior, which is why it is often assumed that giftedness occurs regularly together with ADHD. It also plays a role that many parents would like to explain their child's restlessness in a positive way or that doctors and therapists make premature diagnoses in order to offer a solution to problems. There is no scientifically proven connection, which means that ADHD occurs neither less nor more often in gifted people than in normal gifted people.

If, instead, ADHD is incorrectly diagnosed when someone is genuinely gifted, this often has the consequence that the behavior in terms of motivation, work attitude and concentration deteriorates further, since the actual cause of the problems in these areas, the underload, is not taken into account .

Autism and Asperger's

Above all, Asperger's Syndrome , a milder form of autism , can occur together with giftedness. Often those affected can compensate their weaknesses relatively successfully thanks to their high intelligence, so that the syndrome often goes undetected. Even the "highly functional autism," whose definition is controversial, may be associated with giftedness. It can be found that people with Asperger's Syndrome achieve better scores in the verbal part of an intelligence test than in the action part, while the opposite is true for people with highly functional autism.

schizophrenia

The exact relationship between IQ and schizophrenia is not yet clear. In general, schizophrenia is rare in people of average intelligence. People with below-average intelligence and school difficulties are at increased risk of developing schizophrenia, but the same is apparently true for mathematically gifted people and their families.

The COMT gene , which is also associated with increased intelligence, is considered to be a jointly responsible gene in schizophrenia. In addition, connections between polymorphisms of the COMT gene rs 165599 and the performance in IQ tests could be demonstrated.

Giftedness in connection with illnesses

In general, gifted people are healthier than normal gifted people, but there are some diseases that affect gifted people more often than normal people. A correlation between mathematical giftedness and allergies could be established, but the causes remained unclear. Even epilepsy occurs more often among gifted children.

Various studies have shown an association between IQ and myopia . On average, nearsighted people achieve an average of 7 to 9 points more in an IQ test than normal sighted people. Gifted people are particularly often nearsighted. One study found that only 8 percent of Israeli low-IQ recruits were nearsighted, compared with 27.3 percent of high-IQ recruits. The reasons for this are unclear.

Mathematical, musical and artistic giftedness is often linked to particularly good visual-spatial abilities and particularly strong development of the right hemisphere. People with these characteristics are often left-handed. Speech errors are more common than among those with normal mathematical skills.

Gifted research

Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence test for children

At the beginning of research at the beginning of the 20th century, the investigations were limited to intellectual talent, especially its measurement and evaluation. In 1905, the founder of psychometrics , Alfred Binet , developed the first intelligence test for children, the Simon Binet test , together with Theodore Simon .

William Stern , founder and director of the Psychological Institute at the University of Hamburg from 1916 to 1933 , founded a working group on the subject of gifted students, from which the William Stern Society was to emerge in 1985 with the same goal. He had to stop working after the Nazis came to power in Germany.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the emphasis in research was mainly on genetic predisposition, in the 1960s the social environment was heavily included or, from today's perspective, overemphasized. As a result, learning processes were examined more closely and talent presented as its result. In today's research, both approaches are combined.

Studies

After Lewis Terman (1877–1956) had adapted Binet's intelligence test to the conditions in the USA ( Stanford-Binet test ), an accompanying study, known as the Terman study , began in 1921 . For this purpose, 1528 highly gifted children and adolescents (more precisely: a test showed them to be 'gifted') were selected in 1928; they have been extensively studied through tests, assessments, questionnaires, home visits, and physical and medical measurements. Data on their spouses and children were also collected. Both the initial examinations and the follow-up examinations (around 12, 24 and 35 years later) gave a positive picture of the educational successes of the group, their physical and emotional health and their social skills . Terman initially assumed that high intelligence was the only cause of exceptional professional performance; the results published in 1954 showed that high motivation and assertiveness were also causative factors. A study on gifted underperformers followed in 1974 . The study has long been heavily criticized (among other things because of the selection of candidates and other methodological errors as well as the narrow concept of talent).

In Germany, among other things, the Marburg highly gifted project (also known as the rust study ) is a long-term study that has also received great recognition worldwide. The studies on various topics carried out under the direction of Detlef H. Rost refute widespread prejudices and, based on a static concept of intelligence, provide a sub-area of ​​research (primarily through the exact methodology) with reliable data on some questions.

The Munich Gifted Study ( Kurt A. Heller ), which ran from 1985 to 1989, was supposed to take place nationwide - in fact, it took place exclusively in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Berlin. Data were only collected in 152 schools - 15% of the initial sample. As was the case with Terman in 1928, only those children who were teachers suspected to be “gifted” were tested. The quotas of boys and girls in the participating school classes are unknown because the gender composition of the initial sample was neglected. In addition, there was no control group .

Models

In contrast to studies that deal with statistical surveys and research into symptoms, talent models try to describe which factors can lead to giftedness under which circumstances and how these are related. A distinction is made between performance-oriented models , which determine talent based on certain performance, and cognitive models , which assess talent based on the ability to learn.

Performance-oriented models

talent
  • Intellectually
  • Creative
  • Socially effective
  • Sensorimotor
  • Others
Intrapersonal catalysts

Motivation:

  • initiative
  • interest
  • persistence

Personality:

  • autonomy
  • self reflection
  • Self worth
→ Learn, practice, practice →
Eco-psychological catalysts
  • people
  • Regions
  • Interventions
  • Events
  • Coincidences
talent
  • Arts
  • Sports
  • Economy
  • Journalism
  • Craft
  • trade
  • education
  • health
  • science
  • technology
The differentiated gift and talent model according to Françoys Gagné . A learning process that is influenced by the catalysts turns existing talents into talents in which the giftedness manifests itself.

These models are so-called factor or influencing factor models that establish a connection between different influences.

The oldest model of this kind, the three-ring model by Joseph Renzulli (1978), describes giftedness as a positive combination of motivation , creativity and special intellectual ability, which is commonly referred to as intelligence . It is only when these meet that giftedness becomes likely. This model, which was soon criticized for its narrow view, is extended by the triadic interdependence model by Franz-Josef Mönks (1992), which adds the social environment, especially family, friends and school, as a new important factor for the development of giftedness.

A much more extensive model is the so-called Differentiated Ability and Talent Model by Françoys Gagné (2000). It differentiates between intrapersonal catalysts (divided into motivation and personality ) and eco- psychological catalysts (also environmental catalysts ), the latter corresponding to the social environment. These factors have a positive or negative influence on the development of talent into talent . This development generally takes place as an ongoing learning process , which is also influenced by the support and activities that Gagné counts as one of the environmental factors. This model is far more differentiated and relates much more specifically to pedagogical practice.

The Munich giftedness model by Heller and Hany (2000) is also very differentiated and differentiates between different forms of giftedness and performance areas. This is where potentials (including abilities ) develop into achievements (according to talent and talent at Gagné), which is influenced by various factors that are referred to as moderators , including in particular the learning environment. This model is considered to be particularly clear and accurately reflects the current state of research, as it also takes modern intelligence models into account. It also shows the need for the promotion of the gifted.

Cognitive models

In the case of cognitive models, the focus is on information processing, especially the ability to absorb and understand new information ( knowledge acquisition ). The willingness to learn, the ability to concentrate and perseverance play a role, which can also be found in other forms in the performance-oriented models. Representatives of these models state that although information processing is also mentioned in the definition of giftedness, it is not sufficiently or not at all taken into account by the performance-oriented models. As a result, gifted people who deal very long and intensively with the questions and thus only deliver correct results to a limited extent in a short time would not be recognized as such. The common intelligence tests, however, primarily assess performance and thus only a certain partial aspect of giftedness. This limitation is described by the term test intelligence , which is not further defined .

Genomics

The Chinese Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) has set itself the goal of finding out the genetic origin of giftedness. Suitable candidates are selected from the best Chinese students through an intelligence test. The DNA of these is sequenced and analyzed . In the future, it should be possible for parents to choose the best neurogenic genetic material for their children.

advancement

Promotion of intelligence

Since many factors are known for the development of intelligence that can in principle easily be influenced, such as the language environment or diet, many attempts have been made to specifically promote intelligence, not all of which have been successful. The main aim of this is to avoid intellectual disabilities , but the results are of interest for gifted research.

In the Milwaukee Project , a study carried out by the University of Wisconsin on the possible influence of intelligence in childhood, it was shown that the development of intelligence can be positively influenced in early childhood through intensive support and social interaction. The participating children, whose mothers had an IQ of no more than 80, and who all came from a socially deprived area in Milwaukee , averaged an IQ of 120 immediately after the end of care, while a comparable control group only got a value of 87.

Possibly the Pygmalion effect can lead to an increase in intelligence up to giftedness. It is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy : If teachers are told that some of the children in their class are gifted, these students can see increases in IQ due to the more intensive care and increased attention, even if the "gifted" Children have been selected at random. The underlying study, however, has been criticized for methodological errors.

Promotion of the gifted

Historical

As early as 1916, William Stern , who headed a research group on this subject at Hamburg University, pointed out the need for gifted students. After the Second World War , the need for gifted education was generally recognized and included in some state constitutions. The grammar school was judged to be sufficient for this purpose, but in practice many gifted students could not attend this type of school because they were not recognized as such early enough. In the 1960s, access to the grammar school was made easier and this criticism was therefore no longer considered relevant. It was not until the 1980s that there was renewed interest in promoting talent, especially through experience from abroad, and it became apparent that there was a great need for improvement, which led to sometimes heated and ideological debates. A big problem was that the grammar school, which originally only a few percent of the students had attended, had become a type of school that taught 40% of a year. This resulted in a wide range of services, which makes it almost impossible for the teachers to respond individually to the students and thus also do justice to the gifted.

In the GDR there were special classes and special schools with different orientations: the special schools in mathematics, science and technology , the schools with extended Russian lessons , the schools with extended foreign language teaching and special schools for music that encouraged particularly talented students. These projects were accompanied by the Institute for Youth Research at the University of Leipzig . Some of these classes and facilities have survived to this day.

Concrete actions

There are many approaches to promoting the gifted and enabling them to develop their capabilities. In addition to individual support from parents, which is often unconsciously automatic, there are specialized schools, associations and other institutions that promote the gifted with different objectives and backgrounds. Most of the offers are aimed at children and young people, a few at young adults. One example is the Ford Funding Project , which is supported by the International Center for Talent Research. There are still no offers for older, gifted people.

Promotion in school

There are various funding models that are successfully used in practice and can be divided into the areas of acceleration (accelerated learning), enrichment (deeper learning) and mixed forms:

Acceleration Enrichment Mixed forms
  • Intensive courses
  • Shortening of school time ( express train classes , G7)
  • Mixed age classes
  • Bilingual teaching
  • Special schools or special classes

Even if the need for gifted students is recognized from many sides, only a few schools promote gifted students and rarely use the full range of possible measures. For a successful promotion, the student must also always be addressed individually, as it often means a greater, also emotional, burden for the student, for example to skip a class. Therefore, support measures should be accompanied by school psychologists .

Schools for the gifted
Schools like the LGH in Schwäbisch Gmünd specifically promote highly talented students

In addition to private schools, which often charge high tuition fees, some federal states in Germany have set up schools run by them, which are often designed as boarding schools . In Hesse , this is the Schloss Hansenberg boarding school , which is specifically aimed at super-providers, to which only some of the gifted are included, and not at the highly gifted ( see also the connection between giftedness and performance ), in Baden-Württemberg the state high school for gifted Schwäbisch Gmünd , in Saxony-Anhalt the state school Pforta and in Saxony the state high school Sankt Afra . In Rhineland-Palatinate , attempts are being made to systematically promote the gifted, and grammar schools with special gifted classes have been set up in Kaiserslautern, Koblenz and Mainz, for example. There are also other projects of individual federal states or schools that cooperate with external institutions for the promotion of gifted children for this purpose. In the area of ​​the former GDR there are still a few schools and special gifted classes that go back to the promotion of gifted students in the GDR ( see Promotion - GDR ).

In Austria there is the Sir Karl Popper School in Vienna, which is an experimental school which is developing a high school concept for the gifted. It is particularly important that the students are accompanied emotionally and have a say in the design of the school and the offer. For the lower grades there are model classes at the Bundesgymnasium and Bundesrealgymnasium Franz-Keim-Gasse . Here, highly talented pupils can complete secondary level 1 in three instead of four years and then enter an upper level with individual focus.

Private schools with a focus on the promotion of gifted children are, for example, the Galileo Gymnasium Berlin, the schools of the Christian Youth Village Association in Germany ( CJD Braunschweig , CJD Rostock , CJD Königswinter ) or the Schloss Torgelow boarding school . In Switzerland, the Talenta school in Zurich has existed since 1998 , a primary school aimed at pupils in grades 1–6. Since 2005 there has also been a private primary school in Hamburg, and since 2010 there has also been a private high school.

For gifted children and adolescents with behavioral disorders there is the Oswald-von-Nell-Breuning-Schule II in Offenbach am Main, a special needs school for educational assistance that works at grammar school level. It takes children from all federal states from the age of ten to the secondary school examination and the Abitur. The carrier is the Theresien Children and Youth Welfare Center e. V., Caritas Association of the Diocese of Mainz. In general, a referral by a youth welfare office is a prerequisite for admission.

School and summer academies

Student academies are organized by various providers during the school holidays and offer participants the opportunity to deal intensively with a topic outside of the constraints of school. For highly gifted students, for whom attending a special school is out of the question for financial or personal reasons, they often offer one of the few opportunities to communicate and work together with other interested students. Well-known academies are the German Schoolchildren's Academies or the Hessian Schoolchildren's Academies , and participation is often financed through grants through foundations. The Hector seminars (initiated by and named after SAP founder Hans-Werner Hector ) follow a similar approach , with a particular focus on interdisciplinarity in the fields of mathematics , computer science , natural science and technology .

Many gifted clubs and associations also offer their own summer academies , which are sometimes open to non-members.

Competitions

Even if they are usually not specifically aimed at gifted people, competitions such as Jugend forscht , Jugend musiziert , Mathematics , Chemistry , Geography and Physics Olympiads as well as various national competitions offer opportunities for them to pursue their interests and use their talent regardless of strict guidelines .

Grants and foundations

Many foundations, some with a political orientation, support talented schoolchildren, students and young professionals financially in order to enable them to study , internships or further education . A well-known example is the German National Academic Foundation .

Criticism of the promotion of gifted children

Often institutions that are involved in the promotion of gifted children are accused of making selection and denying this opportunity to other people who would also benefit from the promotion. Many institutions, especially those whose offers are aimed at children, therefore repeatedly emphasize that they are fundamentally interested in supporting all children who have a particular interest in the program. Only certain clubs, such as the cafeteria , exclude non-gifted people from membership.

Other critics see the problem in the special promotion of gifted people that they would not learn to find their way in the real world, in which they are a minority. Furthermore, as with any intensive support, there is also the risk that other important areas will be neglected when promoting the gifted. These can be reasons for gifted children or, in the case of children, their parents, to consciously forego certain forms or any special support.

High intelligence is not seen as a sufficient reason for school psychological support. Ernst Hany ties the need for special support to the presence of a psychological susceptibility. Only a small part of the highly gifted students bring them with them and therefore need school psychological support.

Gifted Associations

Mensa is the world's largest association for the gifted

There are a number of gifted associations that have different objectives and different criteria for membership.

For some it is the intention to promote the exchange of gifted students with one another, often worldwide. Associations such as Mensa , Intertel and Triple Nine Society only use the IQ value as an admission criterion and only accept people as members whose value can be proven to have a certain percentage rank. Mensa can only join 1 in 50 (2%), Intertel only 1 in 100 (1%) and the Triple Nine Society only 1 in 1000 (0.1%) people. Their offers are mainly aimed at adults who are their primary target group. In addition, the gifted clubs are increasingly offering target group-oriented information with advisory services for parents of gifted children (such as the Mensa Kids and Mensa Juniors offers from Mensa in Germany ).

Other associations try to provide information and support to the gifted and their parents. They are usually open to anyone who is interested. The largest association of this kind in Germany is the German Society for Gifted Children (DGhK), which also has local groups in various cities and communities.

Criticism of the concept

Critics often point out that giftedness, as well as intelligence, is a construct that is opened up through operationalizations . This raises the question of whether giftedness is not just an artifact that represents nothing but a statistical phenomenon that results from the assumption that intelligence is normally distributed and does not exist in reality. Against this, it is argued that in the group of people classified as highly gifted, particular similarities could be found.

It is also criticized that it is arbitrary to say that the most intelligent 2% are highly gifted (and not the most intelligent 3, 5 or 7%). When someone is to be described as gifted is ultimately as difficult to determine as when someone is to be described as “very tall” or “very fat”.

In addition, the term giftedness builds on the term giftedness , which in turn is controversial. In general, the same points of criticism that are expressed on these topics also apply to gifted people.

The construct of giftedness has been criticized by some prominent sociologists, such as Pierre Bourdieu, as being classical because it prefers children from the middle and upper classes. The conditions under which poorer children grow up did not allow an equal development of intelligence. According to Bourdieu, the discourse of the less easily measurable value of talent or giftedness is to be seen as a science of legitimation of the “ruling class”. Bourdieu advises not to even get involved with the problem of the biological basis of intelligence, but to investigate the problem of what the social conditions are for the occurrence of such a question and to examine the associated “racism of intelligence” or “class racism” .

Arthur Jensen

Psychologists Hans Jürgen Eysenck and Arthur Jensen also agree that aptitude tests do not treat working-class children fairly. Unlike Bourdieu, they are of the opinion that aptitude tests provide information about a genetically determined ability, but, according to Eysenck, they do not measure all a person's abilities. Abilities are measured in intelligence tests that are particularly pronounced in middle-class children. However, skills that are particularly pronounced in working class children tend not to be measured. Jensen and Eysenck also point out, however, that these differences only exist in the cognitive (so-called level II performance ), but not in the associative performance (the so-called level I performance ).

“Ordinary IQ tests are not to be viewed as“ unfair ”in the sense of having an inaccurate and invalid measure of the many disadvantaged children who score low. If they are unfair, it is because they touch only part of the spectrum of mental faculties and do not reveal what may be the real strength of the disadvantaged child - the ability for associative learning [...] as the traditional methods of classroom teaching were developed in sections of the population who had a predominantly medium-sized example of talent, they put greater emphasis on cognitive than on associative learning [...] to the great disadvantage of many children, whose learning style is predominantly associative. Many of the basic skills can be acquired by a variety of means, and a lesson scheme that unduly emphasizes a single style of learning must produce poor results in all of the children to whom that pattern is inappropriate. "

- Arthur Jensen :

In the discussion about tuition fees that should no longer be paid from an IQ of 130, the argument was raised several times that the construct of giftedness disadvantages people from lower social classes. This has been criticized as being classical . In the meantime, a court has stopped the “IQ discount” as illegal.

Others believe that intelligence tests would favor people belonging to mainstream European culture. Ethnic minorities and people from other cultures would be disadvantaged. Anderson notes: The very concept of intelligence has to be viewed in relation to the respective culture. What is considered intelligent in one culture can be judged very differently in another. […] It is an extremely difficult question to judge which outweighs: that intelligence tests are a valuable service in assigning students, or that they are merely enforcing arbitrary cultural beliefs.

Criticism of the concept of giftedness mostly feeds on the critique of the concept of intelligence . One such example is presented by Stephen Jay Gould in his book The Mismeasure of Man . Gould is of the opinion that people have very different cognitive abilities and that these are very different in people. It therefore makes no sense to combine them into a general intelligence (usually simply called g). Rather, one should rely on a theory of multiple intelligences , as it has been advocated in recent years by Howard Gardner in particular . Gould sees the intelligence test in a racist tradition. Intelligence tests are constructed by scientists who are members of mainstream culture. They would not be useful for measuring the actual skills of people of other cultural backgrounds. The tests have been misused in eugenics and immigration debates.

Gifted in film and literature

Kim Peek

Gifted children in works like Matilda by Roald Dahl and films like The Wunderkind Tate by Jodie Foster show the cliché of a child prodigy who has performed amazingly from an early age.

  • In the film Vitus by Fredi M. Murer , the dichotomy is problematized that the differences between children's needs, abilities that exceed those of most of their peers, and parental ambition can mean for a gifted child.
  • The series Young Sheldon also represents the dichotomy of the gifted Sheldon Cooper between intellectual development as a child prodigy and his environment. This plot is continued in the series The Big Bang Theory .
  • In the film Good Will Hunting , a juvenile offender is discovered as gifted and initially defends himself against the social consequences, namely the abandonment of his comfortable life.
  • The gifted mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. , suffering from schizophrenia, is the main character in the film A Beautiful Mind .
  • The history of the Savant applicable Kim Peek was the model for the film Man Rain .
  • Who Am I - No System Is Safe accompanies a gifted hacker suffering from multiple personality disorder.
  • The film Gifted - The Equation of a Life addresses the parents' conflict of having to let go of their gifted child in order to make them happy. Instead of “sheltered childhood”, seven-year-old Mary demands intellectual support.
  • The decoding of the Enigma by the mathematician Alan Turing is the subject of the film The Imitation Game
  • In the Münster crime scene , the team of investigators consists of Commissioner Thiel and forensic doctor Karl Friedrich Boerne, who is portrayed as highly gifted and narcissistic.
  • In the American television series Scorpion , a group of gifted people solves tricky cases for the American government.
  • The film The Accountant (2016) is about an island bookkeeper who launders money for organized crime.
  • The child prodigy Tate tells the story of Fred Tate and the conflict between his mother Dede and the scientist Jane Grierson, both of whom are looking for the best way to raise himself.

See also

Portal: Education  - Overview of Wikipedia content on education

literature

  • Christiane Alvarez: Giftedness: Tips for dealing with almost normal children. 2nd Edition. dtv, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-423-40532-4 .
  • Behrensen, Birgit / Solzbacher, Claudia: Basic knowledge of giftedness in school. Theore and Practice. Thought inclusive - made inclusive. Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 2016, ISBN 978-3-407-25748-2 .
  • Andrea Brackmann : Very normally gifted. Life as a gifted adult. 4th edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-608-86100-6 .
  • Andrea Brackmann: Beyond the norm - gifted and highly sensitive? 8th edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-608-89014-3 .
  • Kurt A. Heller , Albert Ziegler (ed.): Being gifted in Germany . Lit, Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0766-5 .
  • Timo Hoyer , Rolf Haubl , Gabriele Weigand (eds.): Socio-emotionality of gifted children. How they see themselves - what moves them - how they develop. Beltz, Weinheim u. Basel 2014, ISBN 978-3-407-25714-7 .
  • Rüdiger Hossiep among others: Connections between giftedness and job-related personality traits. (PDF; 1.7 MB), research report. Bochum 2013.
  • Joëlle Huser: bright spot for bright minds. A guide to the recognition and promotion of high skills in children and adolescents at all school levels . Lehrmittelverlag des Kantons Zürich, Zürich 2007, ISBN 978-3-03713-054-4 .
  • Bettina Mähler, Gerlinde Hofmann: is my child gifted? Rowohlt Taschenbuchverlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-499-60499-X .
  • R. Plomin, TS Price: The relationship between genetics and intelligence. In: N. Colangelo, GA Davis: Handbook of Gifted Education. 3. Edition. Pearson Education, 2003, pp. 113-123.
  • Franzis Preckel, Wolfgang Schneider, Heinz Holling (eds.): Diagnostics of giftedness. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8017-2281-4 .
  • Franzis Preckel, Tanja Gabriele Baudson : Gifted. Recognize, understand, promote. Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65333-9 .
  • Sabine Rohrmann, Tim Rohrmann: Gifted children and young people. Diagnostics - funding - advice. 2nd, completely revised edition. Reinhardt, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-497-02189-5 .
  • Detlef H. Rost (ed.): Gifted and high-performing young people. New results from the Marburg gifted project . Waxmann, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-89325-685-7 .
  • Aiga Stapf: Gifted children. Personality, development, advancement. 5th edition. Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-50252-1 .
  • Thomas Trautmann: Introduction to gifted education . Schneider, Hohengehren 2005, ISBN 3-89676-985-5 .
  • Thomas Trautmann: Gifted - what is wrong? Help and considerations for dealing with children . Lit, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-8258-7214-4 .
  • Klaus K. Urban: Gifted. Tasks and opportunities for education, school and society . Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-8246-2 .
  • James T. Webb, Elizabeth A. Meckstroth, Stephanie S. Tolan: Gifted Children, Their Parents, Their Teachers. A guide. 5th updated edition. Huber, Bern 2007, ISBN 978-3-456-84367-4 .

Web links

Wiktionary: giftedness  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

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