Gifted

This page is reserved for work on the topic of intellectual giftedness and motivation.

Giftedness or Intellectual Giftedness is characterized by intellectual development in children that surpasses those of their same age. Gifted children often show greater ability at grasping harder academic concepts and at times greater creativity than those of their same grade level.

Measuring Intellectual Giftedness

Though all measures of giftedness attempt to classify students with intellectual ability higher than their peers, it continues to be heavily debated. In the United States public school system the classification of gifted individuals is reffered to as:

a child or youth who performs at or shows the potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment when compared to others of the same age, experience or environment and who:

1) exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area

2) possesses and unusual capacity for leadership or

3) excels in a specific academic field

(74th legislature of the State of Texas, Chapter 29, Subchapter D, Section 29.121) Identifying Gifted Students

Yet even if the US public school identifies various factors as playing a part in giftedness, the IQ test is still considered to be the central tool in diagnosing giftedness. This is due to its consistency and high level of development, which allows for a particular student's scores to be measures against a very large sample's score.

Within studies that use IQ tests, the The common cutoff for giftedness is one standard deviation above the mean, or 84th percentile and above.

Giftedness and Motivation

Motivation is considered as playing a large role in giftedness due to it's role in gifted behavior. Is giftedness an innate talent for certain individuals, devoid of motivation, or is the expression of gifted behavior a mixture of motivation and talent?

One theory holds that giftedness is in large part due to a mixture of intellect and motivation.