Underachievement rates among those gifted children

[cindysphynx]

Just when I think this discussion can't get any more fascinating, it 
does!  I hope no one minds if I address a few additional points that 
others have raised.

*****************

Naama wrote:

> If I understand Shaun correctly, I think that when he refers to 
> underachievers, it is in the context of academic achievement. So, 
>for him, a child (or an adult) who wishes to reach a certain level 
>of knowledge (or master some specific subject matter) and has the 
> ability to do so, is an underachiever if he doesn't do so.

That could very well be a correct reading of Shaun's remarks 
(Shaun?).  

I'm not sure that limiting the question of underachievement to an 
evaluation of academic achievement fully addresses my concerns, 
though.  After all, if an IQ test reveals a child be profoundly 
gifted but the child does not obtain certain grades/academic 
honors/degrees/advanced training or other measures of academic 
achievement, we still have the same obstacles I identified earlier 
in our effort to determine whether the child is "underachieving."  

It does seem to me to be possible to constrain the inquiry to 
academics so that you could come a great deal closer to extracting a 
meaningful judgment about whether the child is achieving.  For 
instance, if you test a child's mathematical ability and find it to 
be tremendously advanced, but if the child is flunking elementary 
school math tests, well, yes, you have an issue there.  That is 
because there is such a direct link between the test and the child's 
academic performance.

But I thought that Shaun's statement (about 50% of gifted children 
underachieving) was addressing something more – whether the child 
achieves certain goals, either the child's own subjective goals or 
objective goals others have set for the child.  Academic goals, 
professional goals, and the like.  That's where I start to have a 
problem. 

If the statement really is intended to be limited only to academic 
goals and only those academic goals closely tied to the child's 
demonstrated intellectual gifts and interests, then I think it would 
be possible to make a determination about underachievement.  I just 
am not sure that the studies Shaun and Elkins discussed (or possibly 
even the smaller body of newer, unpublished, incomplete studies with 
which Shaun is familiar) are limited in this fashion.  

In any event, the 50% statistic has not been cited in this 
discussion only for that limited proposition, I think.  

Naama:

>Certainly for research purposes, I would think that 
>underachievement can only be defined in 
> relation to a specific, isolable sphere of activity (e.g., 
>academy, athletics, etc.).

Maybe so.  Even in athletics, where achievement is objectively 
measured (with titles, rankings and the like), I would be wary of 
labeling people as underachievers.  

Let's use tennis star Anna Kournikova as an example.  She has 
*never* won any professional tennis tournament.  Not one.  The fact 
that she keeps showing up for these tournaments suggests to me that 
she has a subjective goal of winning one.  I doubt she would admit 
that she shows up so that she can lose in the first round.  But she 
has, without question, failed to win.  Failed to "achieve" titles, 
as it were.  

Has she "underachieved"?  Well, who can say?  We can't say because 
we don't *know* if she has the ability to win.  There *is no* test 
that tells you who has the most ability in sport.  Under the 
subjective definition of underachievement that Shaun provided, Anna 
Kournikova might be viewed by some as an underachiever.  After all, 
she might arguably be a "person who is not achieving at a particular 
level, who is known to have both the ability and the desire to 
achieve at that level."  

I personally wouldn't say she is an underachiever under that 
definition, however.  I would say that we just don't know.  She has 
achieved whatever she has achieved so far, she has failed to achieve 
other things she has tried to achieve, and she has not even tried to 
achieve other things she might try to achieve, perhaps.  In my eyes, 
that's really the end of it.  If she needs to work harder or change 
something about her approach, fine.  I fail to see how it benefits 
anyone to try to take it the next step and decide whether she is 
an "underachiever."
 
The difference with gifted children is that some people believe 
there *is* a test that will tell you if the child has the *ability* 
to achieve – various IQ tests.  The problem for me, of course, is 
that I don't buy the notion that a person's IQ is a reliable 
indicator of ability to achieve much in life beyond the ability to 
score well on an IQ test.  Or, at least, I haven't seen anything 
compelling in our discussion so far to demonstrate that it is.  As a 
result, I do bristle at the idea that IQ tests provide a meaningful 
insight into *ability*, or by extension that a person who has the so-
called ability to achieve something in some aspect of life but does 
not achieve it can benefit from being labeled an underachiever.

Mary Ann wrote:

>But yet again, the actual *label* of underachievement is being 
>meted out by people other than the labeled person him/herself. What 
>right does anyone have to do such a thing to another person?

Yes, that is the heart of the matter, as I don't think anyone has 
claimed that *any* underachiever studies are premised on a self-
assessment (a self-labeling, if you will) by the gifted child.  I 
think the disconnect here is that the people using these studies to 
demonstrate that gifted children underachieve may not realize how 
hurtful it might be even to suggest such a thing.  

I also find myself wondering whether the statement is offered 
primarily for shock value.  It sound dramatic to say that 50% of 
gifted children achieve.  But what is the relevant comparison among 
the general population?  I imagine that if you ask most people 
whether they have the ability and desire to accomplish more in some 
aspect of life (or even with respect to academic or professional 
success) than they are, many would say that this is true.  Heck, if 
you asked the question on this board, I suspect a great number of 
hands would fly into the air.  

That suggests to me that perhaps, just maybe, gifted children and 
adults are about the same as the rest of us in this regard.   If it 
really were true that half of gifted children are underachievers (a 
statement I still find precious little support for at this point in 
the debate), then perhaps this merely means that gifted children are 
perfectly normal in this respect and are no different from anyone 
else.  Better yet, if 75% of the general population underachieves 
but gifted children underachieve at only 50%, then the 50% statistic 
wouldn't indicate an underachievement problem among the gifted at 
all.  

No matter how you slice it, though, I wonder whether the 50% rests 
on the belief that the gifted *ought* to be functioning closer to 
their maximum level of ability than the rest of us.
 
I wrote:

> > It seems inherently unfair to me to measure a child's ability to 
> > reason, to then acknowledge that many other qualities influence 
> > success and achievement, but to label gifted children who have  
> > not  been proven to have these other qualities 
> > as "underachievers" if they fail to achieve.
 
Shaun replied:

> Not, if you also look at the other qualities, IMHO.
> 
> If all that was done, involved testing a child, and then assuming 
their IQ score 
> defined every part of their ability, that would be very unfair. 
And that can and does 
> happen sometimes.
> 
> But what we do - and what increasing numbers of programs, etc, do -
> is look at IQ 
> as only one part of the child. Because that's all it is. One part 
>of the child.
> 
> In many ways, it's easier for us dealing with PG kids than for 
those dealing with the 
> gifted in general - we have a lot fewer kids to deal with. We can 
look at them in 
> more detail than schools, etc, often seem able to manage.

Maybe we are in agreement on this point.  It isn't fair to look at 
something like IQ to decide which children are gifted and then make 
assumptions based on IQ about the extent to which they have the 
ability to achieve.  A much more individualized assessment of 
ability would be required, if I read your remarks correctly.  That 
makes sense.

If, however, this sort of individualized assessment of ability has 
*not* been done in connection with (1) the older studies that use an 
objective definition of achievement, or (2) newer studies that use a 
subjective definition, then those studies don't address my concerns 
very well at all.  In other words, they have *not* made an 
appropriate assessment of the child's ability to achieve the goal in 
question, so the conclusion presented (that half of these children 
underachieve) is inherently suspect.

Shaun:

> The value in asking the question is that for many of these kids, 
>underachievement is linked to their future happiness, and unless we 
>ask the question, we will not see the early signs of it, and that 
>will make it a lot harder to help them with it.

Hmmm.  "Underachievement is linked to their future happiness."  
Although this does have some intuitive appeal, I don't fully 
understand how we can know this.  After all, it might not be 
the "underachievement" (i.e., failure to reach subjective goals the 
child could reach) that is truly bothering the child.  It might be 
the label of "underachiever," the life-long pressure to achieve 
more, the implicit judgment that whatever the child has achieved is 
not good enough, and the emotional baggage that the label carries, 
that might be the real impediment to happiness.  How can we know 
which it is?  

Also, I have to admit to being confused about how one looks 
for "early signs of" underachievement so that it can be addressed to 
prevent future unhappiness.  What does this mean, exactly?  If 
achievement (and therefore underachievement) is defined as 
*reaching* an attainable goal, then how can we know in advance 
whether a child is on a path to underachievement so that they can be 
redirected?  And if I complicate matters by raising issues about 
whether the child is merely changing goals, down-sizing goals, 
delaying goals, taking longer than initially anticipated, or lacking 
in opportunity, then are we anywhere close to establishing that 
being on the lookout for "underachievers" will help adults in the 
child's life assess and meet their needs?
 
I wrote:

> > If the [adult] child is just a lawyer instead of 
> > a federal judge, has he objectively failed to achieve?  How 
> > about if he is a document clerk in a law firm?  <snip> How about 
> > if he attends law school for  one year, decides he hates law 
> > after all, drops out, and happily begins teaching in a pre-
> > school?  
 
Shaun responded:

> It depends on the situation. It's not as simple as what job did 
>they wind up with. As I've said before, our primary aim is to 
>ensure they have a relatively happy life.

On the goal of helping gifted children lead happy lives, we surely 
agree.  

I remain puzzled, however, about how the ongoing effort to identify 
large numbers of underachieving gifted children contributes to the 
goal of helping them be happy.  If anything, I would think that the 
best way to ensure gifted children are happy would be to accept 
their accomplishments, support them through their challenges, and 
appreciate their efforts.  Pointing out that they 
are "underachieving" seems somewhat superfluous by comparison.  

Shaun:

>There are people who define achievement by status, 
> prestige, compensation, type of job, whether you have a big house, 
>etc. But in our case - and this is increasingly the case, 
>thankfully - our primary measure is based on how satisfied the 
>person is with their final choice. If they are content with who 
> they are - well, that's automatically a victory. 

Then why not simply ask whether the child is content/happy/satisfied 
with their final choice?  Why stack up their achievement against 
their alleged ability and declare them wanting?  After all, if a 
child subjectively believes he or she is underachieving, and if this 
bothers the child to the extent it interferes with happiness, then 
exploring the child's happiness directly ought to ferret out the 
problem, right?  

I wrote:

> >So what do we hope to gain by labeling the child as 
> >an "underachiever?"
 
Shaun replied:

> What we gain is an insight into what we need to do to help them. 
>If they are underachieving because they lack particular skills - 
>study skills are a big area - we can help them learn them. 

In the limited world of academics, this idea might have some merit.  
If a child wishes to achieve a certain grade in a subject or mastery 
of a certain subject, and they are being frustrated by poor study 
skills, then helping them learn appropriate study skills sounds like 
a good idea.

But again, why frame it with the term "underachievement" in this 
example?  I would think that parents and other professionals could 
determine whether a child has poor study skills without reaching the 
question of whether child is or will be an underachiever.  If it is 
simply a matter of augmenting the gifted child's skill set so that 
they wind up where they want to be, can't the inquiry be framed in 
exactly that way?  

As a parent, I frequently help my children learn skills they may 
wish to have later or that their program of study requires.  I do 
not, however, point out during the process that the reason the child 
should learn the skill is that they either are or are at risk 
of "underachieving."  The reason I do not frame it this way is that 
it is a judgment, an unhelpful one, and an insulting one at that, 
even if I don't mean it to be.

Shaun:

>  It also helps us to find systemic problems - system wide 
>problems, wide group problems, etc. Take the 50% underachievement 
>figure, and consider the implications of that (assuming it's true). 
>That number points to a major problem *somewhere* - something is 
>causing such a high rate of underachievement. It helps 
> us to know there is a problem, because then we know we need to try 
>and figure out what it is, and that's the first step to fixing it.

Well, if you *assume* that the 50% figure is true (and I'm sure 
you've gathered that I find the statistic suspect on a number of 
grounds) and if we further *assume* that this figure is an 
aberration (an assumption I find unsupported), then there could be a 
problem.  I said as much in my last post.  I think where we differ 
is that I'd be very reluctant to label children as underachievers 
and risk undermining their self-esteem unless I was awfully sure 
that the 50% figure was both true and unusual and therefore 
indicative of a problem.

Shaun wrote (about a gifted math whiz who opts to be a pre-school 
teacher):

>Most experts in giftedness would not question such a goal. 

I genuinely hope this is true.  I suppose gifted children themselves 
who have chosen goals that strike adults as beneath them would 
welcome having advocates to help beat back that assessment.

Shaun (on my own underachievement):

> Actually you're not a textbook underachiever under our definition 
>from what you have said. First of all, we don't generally link 
>achievement to a particular job - 'particular level' does not refer 
>to a particular job *except* in cases where there is 
> only one job at that level or even close to it. I guess that could 
>happen. 

I guess I don't understand at all, then.  Under the subjective 
definition of achievement you provided, what does it mean 
to "achieve at a particular *level*"?  I would imagine that, since 
we're talking about the child's subjective goals, the child decides 
what the "level" is, i.e. job, degree, field of study, grade in a 
course, etc.  If I get to be the gifted child in our discussion, 
the "level" at which I wish to practice is as the decision-maker – 
the judge.  So, yeah, under the subjective definition 
of "achievement" used in the newer, smaller, unfinished studies, I 
think I would fall squarely within the 50% of underachievers, if I 
were gifted.

I think we get the same result if we move away from job-related 
goals and consider academic-related ones.  Obtaining a certain 
internship.  Obtaining admission to a certain program of study.  Or 
am I missing something about the meaning of the term "level"?

Shaun:

>Secondly we don't base things on 'one thing about (a person's) 
>life. 

Again, I am confused.  Are we trying to decide whether the child is 
an underachiever in their life as a whole?  Or are we trying to 
decide whether they are an underachiever in their ability to reach a 
certain tangible goal that is allegedly related to their alleged 
ability as measured primarily by IQ tests?  I thought it was the 
latter.

Shaun:

>Also, if a person has chosen  to raise children, to put their 
>profession on hold, to do so, then we wouldn't regard  that as 
>underachievement - simply that their 'desire' has changed - either  
>permanently, or temporarily.

I guess that assumes that there won't be a disconnect between the 
desire and the person's circumstances.  I can tell you that my 
*desire* hasn't changed, believe me.  My *circumstances* have 
changed, not the desire.  I'm simply not in a position to pursue my 
goal and the clock is ticking, so the realistic prospects for my 
achieving my goal are poor and getting worse each day.  So, sadly, I 
think we're stuck with the idea that I am an underachiever under the 
subjective definition of the studies you cited.  Which is a 
surprise.  Because I don't *feel* like an underachiever at all.

Shaun:

> Personally I would prefer a definition which also 
>mentioned 'opportunity' - "A person  who is not achieving at a 
> particular level, who is known to have the ability, the 
> desire, and the opportunity to achieve at that level," which would 
> avoid some of the external factors - such as political 
>connections - that can also apply. But I haven't 
> been able to get that adopted yet.

Yeah, this is quite a mess, isn't it?  After all, we all create our 
own "opportunity" to some extent, don't we?  So we could decide that 
lack of opportunity is no excuse to underachieve, perhaps.

Or maybe, just maybe, we could decide that the question ("What 
proportion of gifted children are underachievers?") is unknown and 
possibly unknowable and that our efforts are better spent on simply 
deciding how best to provide gifted children with an appropriate 
education and a suitable learning experience without needlessly 
undermining their self-esteem.

Shaun (about whether advocates for gifted children might overstate 
the case to secure a greater share of educational resources):

> No, we're not overstating the case. Besides anything else, we 
>don't need to. <snip>  As for competing with average children - 
>gifted kids generally don't need extra resources. They simply 
> need their share of the normal educational revenue to go to their 
>needs.

Hmmm.  The skeptical side of me thinks that when it comes to funding 
and resources, there is no such thing as a bottomless pit, so I have 
trouble accepting the idea that gifted children have all of the 
educational resources that they need in Australia or anywhere else.  
In fact, your statement above that gifted children "simply need 
*their share* of the normal educational revenue to go to their 
needs" suggests to me that educational resources are in fact limited 
and that gifted children need advocates to ensure that they receive 
their share of those resources.  

Part of my confusion stems from the suggestion that Australian 
schools seem to be doing a dreadful job with educating gifted 
children (Shaun in Message 10,887):

>Individual schools have programs in place, but these range from the 
>totally pathetic (the school where the gifted program involves 
>making ice cream) to the very good (University High's Extension 
>Program, MLC's Compass Centre. Most school programs are very 
>rudimentary and not very good.

If Australian school gifted education is this bad, perhaps this is a 
sign that gifted children *are* in competition for educational 
resources, and they are losing this competition quite badly.  It 
does seem logical to me that well-funded (including resources to 
hire and train appropriate educators for gifted children and so 
forth) programs could go a long way toward meeting the needs of 
gifted children in Australia and elsewhere.

So we're still left with the possibility that some less-than-
scrupulous advocates might – just might – value a statistic that 50% 
of gifted children underachieve because it is a useful, headline-
grabbing tool to argue for a re-allocation of resources toward 
gifted children – to ensure that they receive their "share".  I have 
no problem with the goal of re-allocation, but I do question the 
means.

Cindy