[HPFGU-OTChatter] Gifted children

[Shaun Hately]

> Well, well, well.
> 
> I turn my back on both OT and main list digests for a couple of days, and look what 
> happens!  I peek tentatively at my latest OT digest and it's bulging with one of my 
> pet subjects: gifted children!  And begun by a post from a fellow Melburnian, no 
> less!  Well.
> 
> Shaun:
> > I work with profoundly gifted kids - kids for whom IQ tests, etc, are very important 
> for them to gain access to appropriate education. Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" 
> published just over 20 years ago has caused massive harm to these kids needs and 
> their chances of getting the education they need and they deserve. Gould couldn't 
> be blamed for this if the work was credible - but it's one of the most biased pieces of 
> literature I've ever encountered.<
> 
> I have read "The Mismeasure of Man".  In fact, it was required reading for me in the 
> "Intelligence" unit of my undergraduate psychology course.  Of course, that was a > long time ago, so I may be misremembering by now, but I'll risk making some 
> comments here.
> 
> IIRC, a major aim of this book was demonstrating how IQ tests and results on said tests 
> were commandeered by what could be termed "social Darwinists" to demonstrate 
> the "hierarchy of races".  That is, the finding that white people almost unfailingly 
> obtained much higher average scores than black people and somewhat higher 
> scores than 'yellow' people demonstrated proof of Darwin's theory mf evolution, 
> proving that 'black' people were the least evolved and the 'white' people were the 
> most evolved.  This view was, I believe, widely held among western intellectuals 
> at the time, and they were delighted that IQ tests provided such incontrovertible 
> evidence of their superiority to the savages.

Actually, this is the primary problem with Gould's book - it gives the impression that 
this occurred far more often that it did. Gould identified a problem that was quite 
rare and frowned upon by most of the people using tests and presented it as a 
dominant characteristic.

Genetic theory, and blood tests were misused in the same way - by a small minority 
of bigots to push their agendas. That's not a problem with the testing - it's a problem 
with the bigots. They chose to abuse the tests for their own political gain. Those who 
actually understood the testing, and designed the tests, generally (though not totally 
- there are bigots in any field) believed and showed that the tests showed how 
severe social discrimination was - from the 1920s onwards they were pointing out 
that the 15 point average IQ difference between blacks and whites on the test in 
America was *precisely* what was predicted by nutritional differences in childhood, 
and access to appropriate education, and that therefore any perceived differences 
were a creation of society rather than inherent.

> Hmmm.
> 
> The fairly glaring point said white intellectuals didn't think of was that, well, um, who 
> wrote those tests?  Western middle class intellectuals.  It seems pretty logical for 
> white intellectuals to invent an "intelligence" test which measured what Western 
> intellectuals considered to indicate intelligence, no?  And therefore hardly 
> surprising that Western middle class intellectuals scored the highest on it.  

They didn't - that's another misrepresentation from Gould.

The 'racial' group that actually scored the highest on average was middle and upper 
class Asians, followed by middle and upper class Jews, followed by middle and 
upper class Whites, followed by middle and upper class Blacks, followed by working 
class Jews, followed by working class whites, followed by working class blacks, 
followed by working class Asians. (And all the differences were within 20 points - as 
15 points was considered the range that could be affected by social and educational 
conditions on those tests, a 20 point difference indicated virtually no inherent racial 
difference - 5 points on an IQ test is not a relevant distinction, especially not at the 
100 IQ level where this difference was seen).

The largest single group to score highly were the upper and middle class whites - 
but that's because they were the group most tested. The way society was structured 
there weren't many middle and upper class Asians or Blacks to be tested - but those 
that were tested were found to have results very close to anyone else with a similar 
socioeconomic standard.

Gould has a political axe to grind - it's clear from the dedication of his book onwards 
- which I might add also shows the lack of quality of his research in this area.

"To the memory of Grammy and Papa Joe, who came, struggled, and prospered, 
Mr. Goddard notwithstanding".

A common misrepresentation by those opposed to IQ testing is that Henry Goddard 
used IQ tests to prove the Jews were intellectually inferior and should be kept out of 
the United States. Gould has apparently accepted this, hook, line and sinker.

It's not true - Goddard, if anything, went the other way - he claimed that studies 
showed Jews were smarter than Gentiles, and he worked tirelessly to help Jews 
immigrate to America following the rise of the Nazi's in Germany. (He's not beyond 
reproach by any means - he was a eugenicist who believed that the 'mentally 
retarded' should be prevented from having children -but he wasn't anti-Semitic - 
those claims come from one piece of work he did in 1917, where he found 83% of 
Jews arriving at Ellis Island tested as 'Feeble Minded' - and that is precisely what he 
found, and he pointed out to others that it showed the tests being used were 
*severely* flawed - mostly because they assumed the refugees arriving from Europe 
could speak fluent English. He was one of the earliest proponents of 'culture-free' 
testing to avoid problems like this. Gould's research seems to have been very 
limited. It really isn't surprising that he came to the conclusion he did about 
Goddard, because he's been attacked on this basis for a long time - but deeper 
research shows it's not true.

> My Intelligence lecturer (Ted Nettelbeck) used the book as a starting point for 
> discussing the attempt to develop a "culture-free" measure of intelligence.

Yes - and that's the ideal, certainly - they are getting closer to it. The SB-V (due for 
release sometime next year, and currently undergoing norming studies) is much 
closer to culture-free than any previous clinical test.

> > It's a work of political theory - not really the scientific work that Gould claimed it was. 
> >
> >He certainly raised some good and valid points - he showed how testing could be, 
> and has been, used to discriminate unjustly. The trouble is, he threw the baby out 
> with the bathwater.<
> 
> I think making those points about how IQ tests were used in this way was a very good idea, 
> myself.  I could rant for pages on the difficulties of using psychometric tests
> across cultures and languages, and have in fact been called in to give advice on 
> this very subject to grad students writing questionnaires for comparing cultural 
> groups.  Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic equivalence is a very, very complex 
> issue, yet a worrying majority of psychologists, including very senior respected 
> psychologists, still have this blithe notion that all they need to do is translate their 
> tests and they will still work exactly the same in another culture.  Anyway, that's a 
> side issue.  If we're using a well-standardised IQ test like the WISC or the 
> Stanford-Binet to test children within the same cultural group this shouldn't be too 
> big a concern.

Some of the points, Gould raised, about the misuse of tests at times, were important 
ones. But Gould wasn't the first to raise them, and others did so in a far less biased 
(you don't fight bias by using bias) and scientifically more credible way - 'The IQ 
Controversy' by Block and Dworkin, 1976, and 'Science and Politics of IQ' by 
Kamin, 1974, both predate Gould's book, and are far better works on these issues, 
having been written by people qualified in the areas. The best, IMHO, is 'The 
Intelligence Controversy' which takes the form of a debate between Kamin and 
Eysenck.

> I'm curious, though, to hear the definition of "profoundly gifted".  Should I assume 
> the MENSA definition of an IQ over 150?  Or something else?  What percentage 
> of children fit into this category?

The Mensa definition is actually IQ 130 (Wechsler) or 133 (Stanford-Binet). That's 
about 1 in 50 people.

EG/PG kids - Exceptionally gifted/profoundly gifted - sometimes just referred to as 
profoundly gifted - are those with an IQ of over 160. It's around 1 in 5,000 kids - or 
around 1% of gifted kids. These are the type of kids who benefit, educationally, from 
radical acceleration at school - skipping multiple grades, etc.
 
> My, my, but we're getting close to home here.  I am a serial collector of underachieving 
> "gifted children".  They comprise about 30% of my social circle, and two of the 
> most significant of my past relationships.  I was also identified as one of this gifted 
> children category myself, having the usual high IQ, social difficulties in primary 
> school, placed in the gifted children class at secondary school to be extended and 
> so forth.  Once upon a time I was absolutely gung-ho about the whole gifted 
> children education business, trumpetted the cause from the rooftops.  These days 
> I'm not so sure.

My background, so you can see where I am coming from. I was a PG child, who had 
to go through his schooling where no programs existed for gifted children, especially 
not for those who were in the higher ranges of giftedness. It's because the decisions 
on education were being made by the lovely Mrs Kirner. Joan Kirner was herself a 
gifted child - she was accelerated through school, and went to University early. And, 
for some reason, she wound up very hostile towards gifted children, and was 
opposed to special educational provision for them (interestingly, the only program 
she *didn't* actively opposed was University High School's - the one she'd gone 
through). Most programs were shut down, or at least had to be run 'unofficially' while 
she was involved in Educational decisions (from 1982-1992, basically - first as Chair 
of the Curriculum Committee, then as Education Minister, and eventually as 
Premier).

So I went through a period where access to such programs was, even more than 
normally, limited and largely a matter of luck. I needed access to such programs - 
and they weren't available - programs survived in a few schools because their 
principals thought they were important enough to continue running them, without 
special funding, but there weren't many.

I've seen first hand the damage done by there being no support. I was one of a 
cohort of 12 EG/PG kids studied by Melbourne Uni from 1987-1997 (aged 12-22)

Of the 12, 3 managed to get reasonable support - all have had generally happy 
lives, and are employed in decent jobs.

2 managed to get some sort of accomodation outside the state system (this includes 
me). Both are successful, but both suffered significant psychological trauma as a 
result of their experiences.

Of the remaining 7 who had no support relating to their giftedness, 3 didn't survive 
to 17, having taken their own lives. 2 more attempted suicide on at least one 
occasion. One of the other 2 became heavily involved in drug use (though 
thankfully has got off it over the last three years), mostly as an attempt to deal with 
depressive illness. 1 has had no real problems - she seems to have handled 
everything fine.

But out of a group of 9, who weren't supported properly, 8 wound up with depressive 
illnesses, 3 to the extent, they killed themselves and two more tried.

That's only one study group - and it's not entirely reprentative - a suicide rate of 
25% is unusually high. 10% is more commonly found.

And bear in mind, the fact we were being studied, probably reduced the rate 
somewhat - experts were watching, and if they noted problems, there were attempts 
to deal with them.

> It's not that I no longer believe that children with very high IQs have special needs which 
> are handled very badly by the standard education system.  I do.  It's more that I
> have become increasingly convinced that the way "giftedness" is typically handled 
> by well-intentioned parents and teachers is a disaster, and contributes massively 
> to the sort of life breakdowns I have witnessed.  (What is the current plan for 
> gifted children in Melbourne, Shaun?)

Plan? There's meant to be a plan? (-8

There really isn't one. From 1993-1998, the Bright Futures program was in place, 
but that's been more or less shut down as a proper organised plan. 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.

The program I volunteer in takes place outside the school environment simply 
because most 
schools don't handle things at all well. That's becoming more and more common.

> Precisely.  It's as if that IQ score is magic.  The hapless child, typically 
> aged 4-7, is suddenly told that s/he is a genius, a creature superior to other 
> mortals, who is, and this is the worst bit, Destined For Greatness.  Yes, by 
> the time you're 25, little one, your name will be up in lights, because you 
> are SUPERIOR!  You are Better Than Other Children!  You have magic 
> powers which guarantee you success in any field of endeavour you choose!  
> You will be rich, famous, a rocket scientist, a brain surgeon!  And, all too often,
> the terribly chuffed parent is delighted at this new symbol of status.  
> "They did these tests at school and found that Katie's *gifted*, you know!"

This shouldn't happen - and in well run programs, it doesn't. Kids are told what 
giftedness (another term I wish hadn't been used, but we're stuck with it - CHIP is 
the term I favour, Child of High Intellectual Potential) is. It means that they have
a great potential to achieve very high standards in academic and intellectual realms 
*if* that is what they want, and *if* they are willing to work at it. But it has to be what 
they want. and they shouldn't assume it's going to be easy. In fact, one of the first 
problems we generally have to deal with is that they don't know how to work hard - 
most gifted kids aren't identified to around age 10 or 11 at the moment, because 
testing is only commonly used when problems start to develop. And it often means 
they've been through 5 years of school without ever breaking a mental sweat. They 
don't know how to put effort into schoolwork, because they've never had to. The first 
step is generally to teach them this, by giving them a level of work that actually 
requires them to think and put some effort in. Generally no more than their 
classmates are doing, but hopefully no less - they need to learn that if you want 
success, you need to put the effort in. And schools often don't teach them this at all.

And the parent who treats giftedness as a form of social enhancement is actually a 
minority - but where they do exist, decent programs will disillusion them of that 
attitude pretty quickly, as they are told precisely what giftedness can mean. It 
means a greatly heightened risk of psychological problems *unless* the parents take 
it seriously. Often it means, the parents will have to spend extra money and time 
ensuring their child gets what they need educationally, given that schools really 
don't provide it a lot of the time, etc.
 
> Now, they mean well.  They mean to be encouraging and inspiring.  They sincerely 
> believe what they say.  But the problem is, life doesn't actually work that way.  A 
> high IQ score is *not* magic, and does *not* guarantee anything other than an 
> easy ride academically until one's mid-teens or so, and it certainly doesn't 
> guarantee success or happiness.  The problem is, by the time the child has 
> cruised to his or her mid-teens, they take effortless success and adulation for 
> granted.  It is their right.  It is *normal*.  It is their identity.  And then, all of a 
> sudden, a new and terrible element enters the success equation: effort.

Yes, this is a real problem - but it's one of the primary problems that decent 
programs set out to address. One of the primary 'mottoes' in out program is 'The 
Prize Cannot Be Won Without the Effort.'

Schools, without gifted programs, are actually disastrous in this regard - when a 
gifted child is simply expected to do the same work as everyone else, they will often 
find it *incredibly* easy. And that means they will not learn the skills and discipline 
needed to deal with schoolwork when it starts requiring more than just the ability to 
think fast. The schooling I went through for example, was meant to require 15 
minutes of homework per night from age 5-8, 30 minutes from 9-11, 1 hour at 12, 
90 minutes at 13, two hours from 14-15, and two and half hours from 16-17.

For most kids, these numbers were accurate - for me, no way. From age 5-13, I 
very rarely needed to do more than 5 minutes a night. Suddenly at 14, the work load 
increased dramatically - I had about an hour to do a night. It was still less than most 
were doing - but where they had had a gradual chance to develop the skills and 
discipline needed, I didn't. I had to make a big jump. I did it - but a lot don't.

With the kids I work with now, we encourage them to work to their potential. We 
encourage them to develop decent skills that will help them learn to work - not just 
to cruise. That's what properly designed programs do.

What you've described here is not a good, or well designed program. Unfortunately, 
there's a lot of those around.

> Then we have the social element, on which other people have already commented.  
> Giving a child special attention is hardly going to endear him or her to the
> other children.  It creates resentment among the "not-gifted".  What to do?  Turn
> the child into a recluse, or a bored troublemaker who either still does brilliantly, or 
> deliberately underachieves?  Put the child up a few grades where the academic 
> gap is narrowed, but the social gap is almost unbridgeable?  Put "gifted" children 
> together so they have each other to talk to?

The last is actually the best solution, according to dozens of studies and years of 
research. Grouping gifted children together and then educating them based on that 
grouping works incredibly well if it is done while they are young enough.

If it's done while they are young enough, other kids don't realise what is happening, 
and so the resentment issue doesn't arise - and by the time kids are old enough to 
realise the difference, it is normal to them, not worthy of resentment (the bigger 
problem is potential resentment by parents, not the kids). The kids in the gifted 
program have a much better chance of making friends within that program, than 
they do in an aged based classroom, and this allows them to develop their social 
skills to the extent that they are more likely to make friends from all groups later on.

As for putting up grades, for EG/PG kids (though often not for others) this often 
decreases the social gap, as well as the academic gap - a EG/PG 5 year old is more 
likely to make friends, especially close friends, in a class of 10 year olds than one of 
5 year olds. This is a very specific group - not necessarily representative of gifted 
children in general - but for them it works.

> I think the real issue here is the Western education system.  After all, I believe that 
> Binet specifically *invented* the IQ test as a test which would predict performance 
> within this system, and subsequent tests, though more sophisticated, are 
> presumably designed along similar lines.  Therefore, in terms of Shaun's need to 
> identify children whose *educational* needs will not be met effectively by this 
> system because their aptitude is too high, an IQ test is a pretty good indicator.  
> OTOH, I think Amy is looking at a broader issue: 
> that of the child as having a full range of needs outside and beyond the scholastic
 > domain in which s/he has been identified as exceptional.  How does picking out 
> children on the basis of only one domain, and defining them by it thenceforth 
> benefit the child as a whole person, not just as an academic achiever?

Because, for some kids, addressing that domain leads to *major* improvements in 
other areas. If you take a 5 year old with an IQ of 170, and place them into a class 
of 9 year olds, you won't just be addressing their intellectual and academic needs.

You will be addressing their need to learn decent study skills, and self discipline, by 
actually requiring them to put effort into the work expected of them.

You will be addressing their social needs by putting them in a group where they 
have a lot more in common socially than they would with the five year olds - a group 
for whom friendship is more sophisticated, for whom games are more sophisticated, 
etc, a group the kid fits into more than they would the 5 year olds. This is what all 
the evidence concerning these kids shows.

There's not a lot of them - 1 in 5,000 kids - but these are the ones I deal with. 
What's required for more moderately gifted kids can be very different - generally 
their needs can be addressed in regular classes if the teacher is willing and able to 
make suitable accomodations to deal with differences - which hopefully any teacher 
is willing and able to do.
 
> This, I think, is the crux of my problem with the gifted children issue.  What I see 
> happening is children building their entire identity around the fact that they score 
> better than other people on IQ tests, and in the long-term, once they get out of the 
> system in which they have superior aptitude, this can become a serious problem, 
> because the truth is that IQ score magic does not provide everything you need to 
> be happy and successful and to build yourself the adult life you want.

With decent programs, this doesn't happen. Unfortunately, a significant number of 
these programs are not decent ones.

> After years of buying into the IQ magic philosophy (easy to do: when being 
> superior to others is central to your identity, of course you want to believe that 
> what you're good at is the best measure of personal worth), watching what 
> happens to gifted children *after* they leave school has convinced me that what 
> really counts is not "intelligence" at all.  

What you've seen - what you've watched - is anecdotal, basically by definition. And 
I'm sure you are aware that anecdotal evidence has serious limitations.

What the detailed research shows is that when gifted children are given access to 
*appropriate* and *well designed* programs, when they are adults, they are far more 
likely to be succesful in their chosen fields - and what is more significant, by far - 
they are far more likely to be contented with their lives, to be happy, to avoid 
significant psychological problems.

If the programs aren't well designed, and aren't appropriate, things are very 
different. And unfortunately a *lot* of programs aren't - most are a matter of schools 
playing lip service to a need.

> I now plump for the first quality Amy listed: resourcefulness.

I think resourcefullness is more important than IQ. So is self discipline and a variety 
of other things.

I also thing sight is more important than hearing - but that, of course, doesn't mean I 
don't think deafness needs to be addressed.

Just because something is more important, isn't a reason not to address other 
issues.

You mentioned you are a Melbournian, so I'll use Aussie material - are you aware 
that since 1988, it has been formally acknowledged within Australian education that 
it can "be argued that gifted children are currently among the most disadvantaged of 
(educationally disadvantaged) groups."

This isn't because giftedness produces worse issues, per se, than those that afflict 
other groups, such as the disabled, etc. It's because these other groups have 
received so many more resources, and assistance over the years that their issues 
are now addressed far better than those affecting the gifted. It hasn't improved since 
1988, either - none of the recommendations of the Senate Committee that arrived 
at that conclusion, were ever acted on. And given how poorly some disabled issues 
are dealt with, it does point to how badly in need the gifted are.
 
> My dope-smoking ex had plenty of intelligence.   All the IQ tests said so.  But was 
> he happy, or successful, or even functional because of his high IQ?  Not at all!  
> What he completely lacked was resourcefulness.  One day he was busy 
> proclaiming his intellectual superiority, and I said yes, but if you're so intelligent, 
> why haven't you figured out a way to get the kind of life you want to lead?  He got > very upset and angry with me, and I backed down (no stomach for the fight, me), > but on the inside I was unrepentant.  It's not what you got, it's how you use it, and > IQ tests only measure what you 

Yes - but what you got, is still important. Especially when what you got, creates 
special needs.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in
common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter
the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen
to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who:
The Face of Evil | Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia