Understanding Gifted Children

This book is about exploring and finding the best ways of matching educational and psychological means and methods for each gifted child. The book tries to help the reader understand the different educational, emotional or social needs of various gifted children, those considered "highly-gifted" and the others who are perceived as "mildly-gifted"; children who are interested in science and others who tend to the humanities or to arts; chess Olympic champions or child-musicians or actors. The first chapter offers an extended case study of the early life of a gifted girl, born to an Orthodox family in the early 50's: "my own life story from birth to adulthood. I describe the origins of my own giftedness, my educational and social path that helped me to become a giftedness expert in spite of all obstacles." The second chapter describes the different ways gifted education is applied in the educational systems of three German-speaking European countries, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and offers ways to improve them. Creativity is the subject of the third chapter; gender differences in creativity have been a major concern of hundreds of scholars - both feminists and giftedness researchers - for many decades. This chapter summarizes the most updated knowledge in this area. The fourth chapter is about gifted children with ADHD. The high occurrence of them stresses the need for more research and more case studies available to teachers, headmasters or mistresses, scholars, psychologists and psychiatrists. The chapter is a substantial contribution providing accessibility to such needed knowledge. The fifth chapter is aimed primarily at teachers, but it can also be useful to mental health professionals. It unravels the innovative concept of future thinking, elaborating on the suitable learning space proposed for gifted and able students at elementary and secondary schools named LIFTS centers. It then addressed teaching-learning using a Multidimensional Curriculum Model (MdCM) explaining its conceptual framework, construction and components, thinking skills developed, and curriculum design. The last chapter describes all families seeking my help for their gifted daughters in the year 2014. All girls described in this chapter had the opportunity to participate in gifted classes or other activities for the gifted, but most of them chose not to. This chapter is a "closing comparison" between the first chapter describing an Ultra-Orthodox girl whose family did not prevent her from doing what she wanted to in spite of social prejudices, financial difficulties, fears and even shame. Most girls described in chapter 6 had not materialized their potential due to lack of parental support needed in order to "have it their own way".