Characteristics of giftedness in different age groups
Whether young people benefit or suffer from their giftedness depends, among other things, heavily on the support they receive in their earlier school years.While they usually enjoy learning new skills, they often find the pace in a normal school too slow and are bored with repeating and practicing new material. They concentrate unusually well and intensively on things that interest them, but the necessary learning of less exciting topics is much harder for them. As a result, many highly gifted teenagers even have poor grades in school and problems in their social environment, which makes it much more difficult to recognize their high intelligence.
Therefore, if they are not diagnosed in childhood, they often fall through the ranks as teenagers. They often suffer from social exclusion and find it difficult to make friends because their high intelligence also influences their behavior and they do not always get along well with their peers. So while highly gifted teenagers with the right support can show enormous achievements at an early age, they suffer enormously without professional supervision.
Special schools and boarding schools that specialize in highly gifted teenagers can help those affected to deal with their giftedness. In early childhood, giftedness is usually noticed for the first time. It is particularly noticeable through accelerated development, such as the early learning of differentiated language and the questioning of many things that peers are not yet interested in.
Some children even skip entire developmental phases, e.g. they start walking directly without having crawled in front of it. Highly gifted children have good powers of observation, show great interest in their surroundings and ask many questions to satisfy their thirst for knowledge. They have an excellent memory and can concentrate on things they enjoy.
On the other hand, many highly gifted children have a low tolerance for frustration and patience is not one of their strengths. They are often stubborn, want to be independent at an early age and are irritable when they find activities boring. Many highly gifted children also have a pronounced sensitivity, which makes it difficult for them to cope with rejection (e.g. from other children in kindergarten) and makes them feel excluded and “different”.
If not adequately supported, giftedness can be lost, especially in young children, and early support is therefore recommended. Highly gifted adults are capable of enormous achievements if they have learned to use their talents. To do so, they must have received appropriate support and training and enjoy their work.
If, however, they have not been promoted because, for example, their giftedness was not recognized or was recognized only late, or if they are working in a profession in which they cannot use their talents properly, they have more disadvantages than advantages due to their high intelligence. Because not every highly gifted person is conspicuous, the people concerned do not necessarily have to be “geniuses”. Many do not consider themselves to be particularly gifted because they often perform below average and ascribe failures to lacking rather than extraordinary abilities.
They cannot exploit their potential and are therefore so-called “underachievers”, i.e. underachievers who achieve less than they could actually do. At this stage, it is not easy to think of giftedness as the cause of the problems. But if giftedness is still identified, there are various offers from doctors, associations and other bodies that help the person concerned to realize his or her potential after all.
It is almost impossible to determine a high level of intelligence in babyhood, and most of the developmental steps at which high giftedness would become apparent are still ahead of the children. It is therefore very difficult and in many cases not feasible to detect giftedness in babies. However, with hindsight, many children show common abnormalities already in infancy.
Parents report a low need for sleep and the constant cry for attention. The babies do not like to be alone and want to be continuously amused. They maintain intensive eye contact at an early age and are very attentive, but due to their high need for attention they are often perceived as strenuous.
It would be advantageous to recognize the high talent already at this age, because this way an early support could be guaranteed. However, a developmental advantage can also be lost again and effective support can in any case begin at kindergarten at the earliest, which is why intelligence testing in infants is not very important.Related to the measurement of the intelligence quotient with appropriate test procedures, about 2% of the examined persons of a comparison group (= same test, same age) are in the range of IQ 130 and higher. The 2 % refer to the examined persons and not to the total population.
Roughly estimated and purely statistically, it is assumed that about every 2nd grade of elementary school has a highly gifted child. The intelligence quotient (= IQ) determined by means of an intelligence test is not a generally valid result. It reflects the intelligence that a person possesses at a certain point in time and in relation to his or her peers.
External factors in particular influence further development in a special way. Symbolically, an IQ – similar to a person’s body weight – can increase or decrease due to external factors. The gender distribution in the area of giftedness is equal. Girls are just as often highly gifted as boys.
