Intellectual giftedness

Intellectual giftedness is the characteristic of individuals who have significantly high intellectual ability. The gifted individual has higher levels than the average aptitudes established in the different IQ assessment scales, as well as elevated parameters detected through other professional measurement or reference practices. Intellectual giftedness is generally understood as an innate aptitude, which cannot be acquired through personal effort. It differs from specific skills in that these can be obtained through learning or through acquired behaviors.

There are numerous theories on the definition, development, and methods of identification and treatment of intellectual giftedness. Although previously there was no unified definition of giftedness, advances in the theory of multiple intelligences have created a new model, which distinguishes between people with one or more talents —that is, specific giftedness. in people who excel in one or several types of intelligence—and general gifted people, who excel in general in all types of intelligence (polymathy) and also present high creativity and several characteristic personality traits.For extension, gifted or polymath is the term used to designate those people who possess this characteristic. The expression person with high intellectual abilities is often used as a synonym.

It is widely accepted that giftedness is hereditary, although there is debate about it. Some scientists propose that it is inherited through the X chromosome, which would explain the statistical difference between men and women in the tests of IC.

Definitions and controversy

The exact definition of intellectual giftedness has been the subject of controversy over the years. There is no unified definition, but rather different versions with more or less defenders and associates, sometimes opposed to each other.

The concept of giftedness has evolved in a parallel and dependent way to the theory of intelligence (Castelló, 1992). Two predominant trends in the last century that condition the concept of giftedness are clearly differentiated. On the one hand, the psychometric approach and, on the other, the cognitive paradigm. In the psychometric approach, giftedness was only related to a high IQ. The monolithic models of intelligence made reference to learning ability as the main manifestation of intelligence, establishing four qualities closely related to academic learning; verbal aptitude, memory management, logical reasoning and transfer ability (Guilford, 1967). These constituted the main criteria for the diagnosis of the gifted. Therefore, and according to these criteria, the gifted could only be found in contexts where the child population was educated, excluding in all cases children from more disadvantaged social contexts or belonging to other cultures.

Currently, students with high intellectual abilities are defined as those who manage and relate multiple cognitive resources of a logical, numerical, spatial, memory, verbal and creative type, or else stand out especially and exceptionally in managing of one or several of them.

The concept of giftedness is currently reserved for the moment in which the subject has matured biologically. In the same way, the age factor is the one that will determine and delimit the terminology to be applied in each case. The gifted will be diagnosed as such from 12-13 years of age, since that is when the development period ends and intelligence crystallizes. Therefore, one cannot speak of gifted children, since giftedness is an adult condition, boys and girls have high capacity (Pérez, 1998). It has also been shown that high abilities are not a static factor that remains in the subject, but that they can evolve positively if the environmental influence is adequate, or negatively, if adequate support or interaction conditions are not received. the environment are not conducive to their development (Herce and Sanchis, 2014). Therefore, children with high abilities (traditionally called gifted), require an Intervention Program that allows the development of their abilities, through an enrichment program. There are questions about the use of the term.

Currently, the term High Intellectual Capacities (ACI) or High Capacities (AC-AA. CC.) is used with more frequency and acceptance.

In English-speaking countries, the term is defined as intellectual giftedness.^{[citation required]}

Definition according to IQ

Traditionally, giftedness has been identified with a high intelligence quotient (IQ) since Lewis Terman published the intelligence scale (Stanford-Binet, 1916). According to this definition, a gifted person would be anyone who achieves a score of more than 130 points on an IQ test. This perception persists today, being a very widespread way of identifying giftedness.

Following this line, some educators and psychologists present the following classification to describe different levels of intellectual giftedness, with IQ as a reference point:

• Bright intelligence (does not achieve intellectual overlap): from 116 to 129 CI. It represents approximately 14% to 3% respectively of the population.
• Moderate intellectual strength: from 130 to 134 CI. It represents 2 per cent of the population.
• High intellectual surplus: from 135 to 144 CI. It represents 1 per cent of the population.
• Exceptional intellectual: from 145 to 160 CI. It represents 0.1 per cent of the population and 0.01 per cent respectively.
• Deep intellectual overtake: More than 160 CI. It represents 0.001% of the population.

The most common criticisms made of this model are identical to those expressed against the very concept of IQ in general: they only measure one factor of the individual (logical-mathematical intelligence), without taking it into account in its entirety, and the test may contain questions that introduce social and cultural factors that manipulate the result (a test of advanced mathematics for someone who has not received such training, or about knowledge of a specific social environment).

However, other researchers have suggested since the first half of the 20th century that the intellect cannot be expressed in such a unitary way, giving rise to other broader approaches to the concept of intelligence. In this line, research carried out in the 1980s and 1990s has provided data that supports the concept of multiple components of intelligence, which has led to the theory of multiple intelligences. From this point of view, giftedness is not only attributable to a high IQ, but other elements must also be given, multiple qualities of which not all are of an intellectual type. In this context, identifying giftedness with IQ is perceived as a misconception and an inappropriate simplification.

In this context, most authors distinguish various cases that, following the traditional definition, would all be identified interchangeably as intellectual giftedness, depending on whether the individual is outstanding in one, several, or all possible forms of intelligence:

• Simple Talent: percentile equal to or greater than 90 in a given capacity: numerical calculation, verbal aptitude, verbal creativity.
• Talent complex: percentile above 80 in at least three capacities: academic (verbal + logical + memory management), artistic (space + logic + creative), mathematical (numeric + logical + space).
• Intellectual overdoing: percentile above 75 in all capacities related to traditional intellectual abilities, together with creativity.

Included within a more current paradigm, the different talents would be specific forms of high intellectual capacities, different from giftedness, and therefore with different characteristics and problems. Following this line and given the technical difficulty of performing IQ tests on very young children, it is preferred to speak of "intellectual precocity" in the cases of children with high intellectual capacities, delaying a more exact definition until the moment in which the corresponding tests are reliable (between 8 and 12 years of age). In any case, the problem at these ages is the same, and the same approach is suggested in terms of education, without distinctions.

Definition based on performance

The three rings of Renzulli Joseph Renzulli proposed in 1978 another definition, "giftedness in three rings." This develops a model of gifted behaviors that of gifted people. He proposes that such gifted behaviors reflect an interplay between three sets of human characteristics:

• Ability above average.
• High levels of commitment to the task developed.
• High levels of creativity.

Gifted individuals in this definition would therefore be those who possess or are capable of developing this set of skills, and apply them in any potentially valuable area of human performance. It is important to emphasize that, according to Joseph Renzulli, these human characteristics will emerge simultaneously only in certain people, at certain times and under specific circumstances.

Definition according to performance areas

Application of the "Theory of multiple intelligences"

The theory of multiple intelligences has often been associated with giftedness in the field of education as an ideal response to the needs of gifted children. This theory is not specifically designed for these types of children, but, as it defines an attitude towards education more than a set of techniques or strategies, is perfectly applicable and it has been shown that this approach eliminates the vast majority of learning problems associated with giftedness.

According to the theory, there are eight intelligences, in which people assimilate or learn about the world around them: interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily kinetic, musical, spatial, logical-mathematical, linguistic, and naturalistic. In some cases, emotional intelligence is also taken into account. When this approach is applied to education, providing curricula in which students are free to develop their interests, not only is the learning process enhanced for all students, but gifted and gifted students are allowed to advance at their whim without being corseted in a system that oppresses them, thus eliminating the main factor of stress and demotivation at school for them. Thus, a situation is generated in which everyone advances, each one at the pace set by their possibilities and encouraging collaboration between colleagues (reaching higher levels of learning).

Child intellectual giftedness

Features

All the characteristics that will be mentioned do not occur in all children with high intellectual capacity, but they do respond mostly to the general profile presented by these children, which are characterized by:

• In less than 1% of cases they usually have eidical memory, although the fact that this happens is rare. However, it is more common in children overwhelmed than in a case within normal intelligence.

• They have a wider and deeper knowledge than the rest of their peers, being able to acquire knowledge in a faster and more effective way. This allows them to master new strategies with unusual speed, which allows them in many cases to be early readers.

• They are able to generalize the concepts learned to other fields and demonstrate a broad level of planning.

• They are able to select the information that will be useful to you to define a problem and to locate or design the strategies necessary to solve it, being in turn able to determine criteria with which to evaluate their own performances.

• They show a great curiosity about tasks that pose a challenge to them. On the contrary, they are bored and show disinterest against simple, repetitive or with little difficulty. They persist in the task until they are able to reach the end if they feel interested in it. ^{[chuckles]required]}

• They usually begin to speak before the usual, using a complex vocabulary and well-built prayers. Moreover, since their understanding of language is very high, they are able to understand from small conversations between adults, allowing them, in turn, to broaden their own knowledge.

• Other signs of advanced language are the use of metaphors and analogies, the elaboration of stories or songs spontaneously, the modification of their own language when using it with younger children, etc. It also relates to language its ability to grasp irony and the sense of humor, although sometimes its own humor is not understood by others. From very small they have a great imagination and fantasy.

• Their thoughts and ideas are flexible and able to provide new solutions to problems. They are generally more sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. They can identify the emotional situation of people, and deduce what can be the cause of their behavior in a simple way.

• They usually present ease for learning, easily retain information and can apply it in various situations and contexts, with alternatives to the problems presented in everyday life.

• They use their imagination, produces a large number of ideas and can even invent games.

• They generally show leadership capacity, which is usually presented in certain aspects such as accepting responsibilities, preference for leading the group, communication capacity, adaptability, flexibility, group leadership capacity, etc.

• They tend to have a broad sense of morality and justice, while they develop the self-concept before, which accelerates the recognition that they are “distinct” of others.^{[chuckles]required]}

• Generally their high persistence in the task makes them perfectists, setting very high goals in their own performance, even higher than those proposed by parents or teachers.

• They sleep much more or less than the average, feeling the same energy as those sleeping the usual.

• They begin to read and show an interest in reading from a very early age, since their level of learning is much higher than that of other children. On average a superdoted child usually learns to read about four years. In some extreme cases they learn to read below three years. They can learn with help, or alone.

• Some of these overcrowded children may have serious anxiety problems due to the educational situation in schools where they are, among other possible factors depending on the child and his/her situation.

Identification

Identification systems, or rather educational systems, must be proactive and not reactive. Frequently, they act in an auxiliary way, detecting and acting in the best of cases when the problem arises, in a family or in a group of students, at school or outside of it. These types of actions, which we call reactive (the system reacts when a problem arises that must be solved), are often based on an erroneous conception of giftedness, perhaps linked to several of the most common myths.

Educational systems have to promote optimums, not ensure minimums. This means that it is necessary to establish systematic and regular search procedures that, adequately linked to various educational programs, make it possible to identify all those potential students who, due to their personal characteristics, are not going to be adequately stimulated by regular programs.

This policy would lead us to an active and determined promotion of all kinds of talents. For this, it is necessary to recognize that gifted students are gifted in a potential way, that is, that giftedness is developed and projected in productive activities of the most diverse type as a consequence of a systematic and systematic training. Thus, without such actions we run the risk of depriving students of specific aid who would need learning at a different pace and with different characteristics and level of challenge.

Given the emergent nature of giftedness, identification should also be seen as an ongoing process, not as a single process that says once and for all whether a child is gifted or not. Talents emerge and grow evolutionarily, and for some they do not emerge because there is no adequate stimulation at school and in the family. It is therefore imperative that all those who work with young people see talents and potentials as something teachable and emergent, and not something fixed and immutable.

Therefore, it seems evident that without actions systematically aimed at developing talent, of the most diverse talents, we run the real risk that they could be lost due to a lack of attention to them.

Development in the child with High Capabilities

Intellectually gifted children may develop asynchronously: their mental development is often more advanced than their physical growth, and specific cognitive and emotional functions often develop differently or at different levels at different times of development. Although this asynchrony does not always manifest as an acceleration. An often-cited example of asynchrony in child development is that of Albert Einstein, who did not begin to speak until he was four years old, although his later fluency and achievements clash with that initial delay.

In this regard, psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker has theorized that, in the cases of Einstein and other gifted individuals known to be late-talkers, rather than seeing adult achievement as overcoming an initial disorder, it may well be that giftedness and developmental delay are intrinsically related.

Highly capable children can progress more quickly through the stages of cognitive development, established by post-Freudian developmental psychologists such as Jean Piaget. Gifted children also perceive the world differently, resulting in certain social and emotional stresses. Kazimierz Dabrowski's work suggests that gifted children have greater excitability in the psychomotor, sensory, imaginative, intellectual, and emotional realms.

Education for students with High Abilities

Having high intellectual capacity is not an educational problem; however, inadequate attention to it can -although not always- turn it into a problem.

The reality, in general, that these students experience daily in their schools is that they do not receive the intellectual stimulation they need, because the teachers, due to lack of training and resources, focus on serving the majority, suffering the extremes: students with learning problems and those who acquire knowledge at a faster rate. As a consequence, the intellectual and affective development of the most capable can seriously suffer and something that initially was not a problem can become a problem. A considerable number of gifted people fail due to the few external stimuli they receive due to a very delayed detection of giftedness, and school failure can result.

In some cases, giftedness can present disadvantages or problems:

• Some superdoted children do not have better academic notes than the average, since a number of them fail school because they learn and understand differently. However, it is an unfounded topic of the belief that most of the superdotes fail and have problems.

• The mental age of the overdocted child is sometimes in defamation with his or her physical age disincrony syndrome and his or her affective needs are sometimes greater than those of any other due to their hypersensitivity and hyperreceptivity both sensory, emotional and intellectual.

• Some superdoted people are mistakenly attributed problems of attention. They learn quickly and soon get bored and get distracted by other things that capture their interest, which makes them seem "in the clouds." This behavior sometimes leads overdose children to be confused with children with hyperactivity.^{[chuckles]required]}

• Superdoted children can often present behaviors that may be considered annoying by some people, such as asking questions from morning to evening (it is typical the early age at which these children begin to use the question "Why?"), question the rules that are intended to impose "because yes" and do not accept behaviors that they consider unfair (do they and others).^{[chuckles]required]}

• Since they are perfectionists, they are casually correcting poorly structured prayers or spoken by their teachers, parents or anyone who has a conversation with them. That leads them to seem upset or they intend to irritate these people, but in reality they simply try to correct them. It can also generate a problem in activities such as architecture, painting or sculpture where the result can always be better and this ends by delaying the work and obsession of perfection never leaves the individual satisfied.^{[chuckles]required]}

• Because of current education systems, many of these children often stand out in some areas without having previously studied them, as their understanding so quickly quoted earlier helps them to structure it in their minds from the very beginning.^{[chuckles]required]}

There are different ways to carry out an educational intervention. Within the Educational Centers, there are various types of measures of attention to diversity such as acceleration, horizontal and vertical curricular enrichment, different types of groupings in the classroom. Outside the educational system, Specialized Extracurricular Enrichment and Cognitive Stimulation Programs are carried out.

Education by country

United States

In the United States, the education system has spent decades working around the concept of gifted education [3], which is why they have a legal definition of the term. Most states have fully or partially adopted the Federal Definition of Gifted and Talented Students:

The term "Datas and Talents" when used in reference to students, children or young people who show high-performance evidence in areas such as intellectual, artistic or leadership skills, or in specific academic fields, and which require services or activities not usually provided by the school, in order to maximize such abilities.

Distribution of the population with intellectual giftedness

Diagram that shows the two curves of both sexes compared after processing the information generated by Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery - G factor (ASVAB-g). In pink the curve (the most acuminated) of women (mean = 8.45 sd = 2.8), in blue the curve (the flatest) of men (mean = 8.66 sd = 3.2). You can see a greater variability in the results obtained by men as well as a very slight advantage in the average.

Giftedness according to sex

In general, men and women have similar results in terms of average intelligence level. However, intelligence in the male population is more distributed at the extremes of the Gaussian bell, with a greater variability of results, having a relatively larger population of men with both intellectual disabilities and intellectual giftedness. This phenomenon is due, according to Lehrke and supported by Gillian Turner, to the fact that the probability of inheriting the X chromosome in men is decreased to one (XY); while in women a combination of two probabilities (XX) can occur, reaching an average of an intelligent X chromosome with an unintelligent X chromosome, resulting in a more average intelligence.

Horst Hameister, a researcher at the University of Ulm in Germany, argues that there is an advantage in the female average (statistically not significant) but there is more variability in the male population, saying the following:

“Women tend to be better in general in intellectual quotient tests, which on average are around 100 points, while men have an average of 99 points.”... “Moreover, more men are mentally retarded. But when you look at the intellectual quotients of 135 points or more, you will see more men than women.”

Oxford University neurophysiologist Susan Greenfield points out that above 145 points only one woman appears for every eight men in the statistics.

In research by Hameister, Ulrich Zechner and other colleagues at the University of Ulm found a particular group of genes within the X chromosome related to the development of cognitive abilities, arguing that during the evolution of human intelligence intelligence The selectivity exercised by the woman when looking for a sexual partner has had significant importance.

Gifted by Ethnicity

Richard Lynn, in addition to proposing that the male average is greater than the female average, goes further. also proposing that there are differences between the different racial varieties, this after some studies carried out by him, producing a list of the variation of the average intelligence quotient by country.

Lynn argues that this phenomenon could be due to the fact that migratory movements during the last ice ages are intricately related to the development of intelligence in different human groups during the last decades of thousands of years. In other words, when early humans migrated from Africa to Eurasia they found it difficult to survive during the freezing winters. This problem was most noticeable during the ice ages. Plant-based meals were not viable for most of the year, and survival required the hunting and dismemberment of large prey, as well as the ability to make tools, weapons, and clothing, the construction of shelters, and the better fire control. These problems require better intelligence exerting greater selective pressure to improve it, particularly in oriental breeds.

These studies have found many critics, especially those who have also worked with populations from the African continent, for which Lynn gives a mean of 70, in some African countries with less than 60 points. They argue that in these towns such a ratio is equivalent to mild to moderate mental retardation ^{[citation needed]} and contradicts the behavior of the groups of young people studied by such researchers, such as Robert Sternberg, a scientist of Jewish origin, which racist groups find disqualifying, in those countries. Another criticism is the denomination of race to the ethnic and geographical varieties of the world by the author of such thesis, the definition being more The term clinal variation is correct, so it is said that from the outset this theory could reflect a tendentious attitude.

Theories on intellectual giftedness

X chromosome theory

Mathematical justification of the X chromosome theory
Applying Tchebichev's theorem and the central limit theorem^{[citation needed]} to the case of the "intelligence gene" of the X chromosome of pair 23, it turns out that males present a Gaussian distribution of said gene with the same mean and the same standard deviation as the world genetic population, since in males N=1, they have only one X chromosome. On the other hand, females have two X chromosomes, so N=2. With the same mean, the Gaussian distribution of his intelligence presents a lower standard deviation, when divided by 1.4142 (the square root of 2). In other words, the average intelligence of men and women is approximately the same, since it is an extraction of X chromosomes from the same global genetic mass. But the dispersion of intelligence is greater in men, while in women, it presents values that are closer to the average, since they are averages of N=2.

In a very simplistic case, and for your understanding, we can exemplify a "balanced" marriage where the man and woman both have an intelligence of 5 points out of 10. The man has an intelligence gene with a necessarily value of 5. The woman, for example, could have two genes with values 3 and 7, in its two X chromosomes, so it would have an intelligence of 5 points on average. Suppose you have four children; 2 boys and 2 girls. If the mother's X chromosomes are distributed equally, one would have:

• Child 1: chromosome X of the 7-point mother.
• Girl 1: chromosome X of the mother of 7 points plus chromosome X of the father of 5 points. Average intelligence 6.
• Girl 2: chromosome X of the mother of 3 points plus chromosome X of the father of 5 points. Average intelligence 4.
• Child 2: 3-point mother chromosome X.

The four siblings have different intelligences, even when the parents are equal to 5, and also the boys will be at the ends and the girls in the center.