Talk:Intellectual giftedness/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Early topics

I think this entire article has major issues. I will be proposing a major rewrite. Sources will include Annamarie Roeper and Maslow. Suggestions here as well as on main article please--Tznkai 06:10, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

This page seems to assume that all gifted children have high marks and are academically successful. I remember reading that the picture in a bit darker, as about half of gifted students are failing high school miserably (at least in France, where the system is based on cramming and repetition). Sprotch 8 Apr. 2005

The page DOES NOT assume that all gifted children have high marks. Check out the "Underachievement" part of the article. There are many reasons why a Gifted child could have low marks. The kid could have ADD or some other mental illness or disorder. He could be depressed, or simply have no interest in school work.

very true--Tznkai 06:10, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I am in a Gifted class, and one of the kids almost got held back a year. He constantly gets failing grades on papers and projects. Mgw854 4:03 PM June 28, 2006

I can personally attest to this. I was in a graduating class of over 600, and my class rank was always in the mid-400s, despite the fact that I have an IQ above 145 (99.9th percentile). I was barely able to graduate from high school with an 83% average. Just because you're smart, that doesn't mean you care. Also, it's important for it to be noted that many gifted individuals who are highly gifted in their right brain have difficulty displaying the kind of performance that their overall IQ leads peope to expect. Soulsrocker 23:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

"Just because you're smart, that doesn't mean you care."

Yes, it enables some people to work out just how useless some school subjects really are. Tabby (talk) 13:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Use plain language

Might I suggest that the following passage, "Einstein's genius and his delay in speaking were developmentally intrinsic to one another," taken from the opening paragraph could be rewritten in a way that is more plain-spoken for the ordinary person. Marty55 (talk) 03:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest the counter-proposal that the "ordinary person" in question learn how to avail themselves of a dictionary if any words in that sentence should prove beyond their grasp.

Please Clarify

There seems to be a lot of spontaneous concepts and terms being spout out without any rhyme or reason. Where do these values used to determine IQ, traits considered "intellectual", etc stem from? Without any backup, it just sounds like cultural hype based on what people think is intellectual giftedness.

As a side note, "according to research" is too vague of a reason to describe the cause or reason of a concept. Tobaifo (talk) 00:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)Tobaifo

Gifted adults?

Shame that this page only deals with gifted children. --BradBeattie 16:20, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Probably because all "gifted adults" are considered either geniuses or just high-functioning ... but I agree. Some longitudinal studies (Terman?) would be nice on this page. --zenohockey 03:04, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe there could be a request for a seperate article for gifted adults?Michael Cook 03:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed! I'm 52 years old and I was just tested and found to be at the 98th %tile in the Verbal Comprehensive index (with some subtests being at above the 99th %tile) but due to apparent cognitive defits (my working memory is 38points below verbal memory) I have always had problems with achievment. I didn't realize I would be considered gifted in some areas, any maybe would be generally if not for the cognitive deficit (due, I am assuming, to my childhood epilepsy).

Asperger's and Giftedness

Is there proof that gifted people are more likely to have Asperger's? Perhaps it seems that way because the less intelligent people with Asperger's are more likely to be tagged with autism? Simfish 19:55, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

 This may develop into High-Functioning Autism (HFA) later in life.

What kind of nonsense is that !? The only agreed-upon difference between HFA and AS is lack of delay in the development of childhood verbal/cognitive skills in AS. --Congruence 19:25, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

May develop into High-Functioning Autism? (Don't forget the cooties and insanity, too.) C'mon. HFA and Asperger's Syndrome (AS) are independent phenomenae from intelligence (which should be emphasized). AS got attention when it became popularly known that hyperactivity or ADHD was a common misdiagnosis of exceptional intelligence-- somehow the treatment for AS (Ritalin and behavior modification) is often the same as with hyperactivity/ADHD.

In the article is written: This ability is tempered by the fact that experts, including Linda Kreger Silverman and Dr. Fernidad Eide, have estimated that between 20-40% of gifted individuals have a learning disability, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or some other neurological disorder. * This is unsourced, for one, but is it above average, is my main question?

• Some people seem to think that giftedness is related to Asperger, ADHD, Dyslexia etc. Can something be said about what is causing what? I guess that gifted people get bored easy and respond in several ways. They can fight or flee. First is to try to change the situation(fight); this can be labeled; ADHD. Another respond is to get away from the boring peers (flee) and concentrate on more interesting things. This can be labelled; autism.

But maybe it is the other way round. ADHD people can be very sensitive to the environment they can see and hear a lot. All this experience adds up to a lot of giftedness, or people that have the ability to concentrate (Autism) are making more effective hours resulting in higher scores on tests trying to measure giftedness.

• And for Dyslexia. A possibility is that these people have found beter ways to cope with there life; ways that score positive in tests trying to measure giftedness. Maybe are written words not the best way to understand things and are pictures better. It might be an advantage to have dyslexia.

Another possibility is that dyslexia and giftedness is all inherited and that only very gifted people having dyslexia manage to get children resulting that their children are both gifted and having dyslexia. (survival of the fittest). Is there any research in this area or is it just common sense? --Freek Verkerk 20:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe its just that its a mistake to believe that dyslexia brings only disadvanages. If one believes such a thing (assumes it) then the above questionable interpretations easily follow.

Nothing proven though. Tabby (talk) 13:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

"Is there proof that gifted people are more likely to have Asperger's?"

There is some degree of overlap between the classic markers for Aspergers and HIQ, though the common points are caused by different things and manifest in different ways. Hence one is sometimes mistaken for the other. Tabby (talk) 13:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization

I've been working on a reorganization of this material. My reformatted page can be found at http://www.scvgifted.org/public/index.php?title=Gifted (also a wikimedia page, but on the site of SCVAGT -- the local gifted and talented organization for Santa Clarita, CA.) If the reorganization looks worthwhile, I'll be happy to bring it over to here. Phillip 22:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I like the look of the reorganization; the stuff on various forms of twice-exceptionality, especially, needs to be separated out from the rest of the article. Also, I hope we can add some more detailed information and links about topics like asynchronous develpment, various acceleration and enrichment strategies, and Kazimierz_Dabrowski's theory of overexciteabilities (which has been used to explain the heightened sensory awareness experienced by many gifted people). Many other potential topics/links will spring to mind tomorrow when I'm more awake, I'm sure. AdelaMae 08:36, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Savants?

Excuse me, but I think that just "savant" is a misnomer for what the savant section is describing. Would this not be what's called an idiot savant? I'm extremely sleepy at the moment, but if I can recall correctly, a savant is simply extremely gifted in a certain area of intelligence and not "retarded" (as this article so delicately puts) in every other area. Thorns Among Our Leaves 03:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The phrase "Idiot Savant" has fallen out of favor with the Politically Correct crowd. The preferred term nowadays is "Autistic Savant." The former is tantamount to using the word "dumb" in reference to a mute individual. Soulsrocker 23:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Grade Acceleration

"Grade acceleration has not been found to be an acceptable solution, especially if the grade acceleration is "radical" (more than 2 grades), because the child is often found to move ahead again."

It's late at night and I don't have the time and energy to dig up all the research on this, but I have two major complaints about this statement. 1) It's just plain inaccurate - studies have very consistently shown that grade acceleration, especially radical acceleration, IS an effective strategy in gifted education. Like I said, I don't have the relevant research to hand but I will try to return tomorrow with more information, and in the meantime you can Google "grade acceleration" and I'm sure you'll find evidence to confirm what I say. 2) It doesn't make any sense. It's incoherent to say that gifted children are MORE likely to "catch up" if they are radically accelerated than if they are only accelerated a year or two.

AdelaMae 08:24, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I will delete, most persons in the gifted and talented community would strongly oppose this viewpoint.

It looks like this was dealt with a while ago, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was a problem. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 09:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Major edit

I've just done a major overhaul of this article in the process of merging in a big chunk of text from Social and emotional issues in the lives of gifted students. I moved a lot of things around but the majority of the text is still there, just in a different order. Here are the changes I've made:

• Condensed the introduction down to a concise definition of giftedness.
• Converted about half of the old introductory material into a section on identification, merging it with the information on IQ and levels of giftedness that used to be at the bottom of the article.
• Kept the Savant section, but rewrote it to bring it in line with savant and autistic savant.
• Converted most of the rest of the old introductory material into a section on characteristics of giftedness, eliminating a few redundant sentences.
• Got rid of the highly dubious bit about giftedness being linked to Asperger's which "may develop into high-functioning autism," as the potential relationship between giftedness and autism is now addressed in the Savant section.
• Added a mention of Dabrowski's theory of Positive Disintegration, on which I hope to someday soon write an article (or see one written), and a link to an article that explains its connection to giftedness and "overexciteability".
• Added a section on social and emotional issues with content largely taken from the article mentioned above. Removed redundancies and improved transitions.
• Removed two external links - a recently added link to a psychologist's home page and a link to a Russian "gifted television station." I'm sure the TV station is quite fascinating, but the website has no useful English content and this is English Wikipedia. The psychologist's page looked like it had some good links, but I replaced it with a link to another, non-commercial page with resources for gifted adults.
• Expanded the links "by country," changing the title of the section to "by region" because of the inclusion of the ECHA and WCGT.
• Merged in the References section from the social/emotional article.
• Systematically edited the article to avoid conflating "gifted children" and "all gifted people". As the article already mentioned before my edits, people do not magically stop being gifted at the age of 18. I tried to make it pretty transparent where we are specifically addressing children or school situations and where we are talking about gifted people in general. Also, I culled a few phrases and sentences that would have been relevant to Gifted education but not to Giftedness in general. Discussion of specific educational strategies belongs there, not here.
• Requires more sources, especially rigorous academic sources, preferably from multiple disciplines, not just psychology. These should include neuro-science, statistical analysis, and sociology.
• Requires an overview of fundamentally different theories of development of giftedness and matured giftedness. Should not use sociological factoids or "interesting anecdotes from my Mensa group" in this approach.

Hope that helps you all in figuring out what exactly has been changed and why. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 11:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Advertising for therapists

An edit was made which provided several links to gifted-adults.com, the business website of a therapist specializing in gifted adults. The articles linked to were largely entirely unreferenced, as was the edit. This is also the second anonymous edit of this article aiming to insert a link to gifted-adults.com. I have reverted this edit and left the following note on the anonymous user's talk page:

Thank you for your contributions to the article Gifted. While it was nice to see the article's information on gifted adults expanded, I have removed the information you added because the entire section seemed designed as an advertisement for a particular therapist. Also, your statements about the incidence of depression and suicidal ideation in gifted populations are extremely misleading, perhaps deliberately so. As evidenced by the scientific studies cited in the section on depression, gifted individuals are no more likely to suffer from depression than anyone else.

It appears from your writing that you know a lot about this topic, so I would encourage you to continue editing the article - just please refrain from linking to websites such as gifted-adults.com that aim to advertise the services of a particular therapist. Perhaps you could write a section on the misdiagnosis and dual-diagnosis of gifted individuals using evidence from the scientific literature? - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 16:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Article rewrite / merger discussion

I have an interest in seeing this page updated also. Unfortunately, right this minute I don't have time to check out everyone's suggested edits, but I'd like to contribute the following to general discussion:

1) I don't think "gifted" should be merged with "gifted education" because "gifted" has a much larger scope (eg education, parenting, models of, identification techniques, experiences of the, social/behavioural correlations, societal response to, etc). Many of these topics may be applicable to educators of gifted children/adults, but I do think "gifted" (or "giftedness" ?) warrants its own entry.

2) At a glance over this discussion page, it seems like a lot of work is going in to the article's rewrite. (I'm only a newbie to article maintenance, but) is there a point at which you say it's better to start the rewrite, and get some changes in, even though all your intended changes may not be ready? Alternatively, should the article have a "prelude" attached at the top which explains that it is under consideration for a major rewrite? (These are probably properly wikipedia etiquette questions, but given I'd like to contribute to this particular article I thought the others with an interest might like to consider the suggestions - and provide me with the answers! :) ).

youcantryreachingme 01:38, 24 February 2006 (UTC)youcantryreachingme

Historical Controversy?

Does anybody know more about the history of giftedness as a concept?

See my recent discovery about "talent" under the John Lydgate article.

[A different user than the person above:] My two cents: Um, I was labeled "gifted/talented" as a child but I reject the way the label is used/abused. (I was also labeled as "mentally retarded" early on. I think there should be a "Criticism"/"Controversy" or similar section because there is significant debate about the use of the term "gifted" and the concept in general. This article is pretty skewed, too, probably because there are so many (purportedly) "gifted" people who've had a hand in its creation/evolution. Some of the more flattering assertions are more than a little self-serving, don't you think? ;}

Also, not just about "giftedness" as a concept but also the change of terminology over the years. In my day I heard "g/t" for "gifted and talented" but it wouldn't surprise me if more politically correct terms are in circulation nowadays in the U.S.

By the way, is it just me or are there a helluva lot of "gifted" minors editing this entry? What about people with a more balanced/neutral and less self-aggrandizing take on the subject? What say you guys?

Iguana Scales 21:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

What matters on Wikipedia is not who is doing the editing, but what they're writing and whether it is verifiable and NPOV. Which parts of the article do you think need to be toned down? I certainly think there's room for a criticism section, but I think it's important to distinguish between criticism of intellectual giftedness as a concept, criticism of the behavior/attitudes of gifted people or the "gifted community", and criticism of gifted programs/educational strategies. If you have the information, go for it! - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 21:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Characteristics of Gifted Individuals

The claim the gifted people are "physically and emotionally sensitive" seems more like a loose generilization than a fact (or even a universal observation). It's one step short of claiming they all wear glasses and play Dungeons and Dragons. I vote for its removal. 24.16.53.132 21:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Gifted people are physically and emotionally sensitive - it's a matter of finding the proper research to quote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.50.88.171 (talk) 00:05, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Giftedness itself is just a loose generalization so what do you expect?--67.183.132.49 12:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Whole paragraph is now labelled with "citation needed" flags. That should be enough for now. Looking at the low activity levels on this article, I would not remove the material unless four months have passed without references being added. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

"Gifted" vs "Gifted Education"

The very prominent flag at the top of the "Gifted" article indicates that there is still active indecision (?!) about keeping this as a separate article. Therefore ...

While there is overlap between these topics, there is enough difference to justify separate articles. One clear difference is that "giftedness" affects adults as well as children, while "gifted education" is aimed only at children.

Another clear difference is the "gifted education" aims primarily at the academic development of gifted children. Their emotional and social well-being is not necessarily a primary goal of "gifted education". This well-being is also an important topic-space for gifted adults, of course.

Finally, it is important to have a place where adults can go who discover they are "gifted" after their formal education ended -- who never encountered "gifted education" as students. Such adults can glean a little information about themselves in articles about gifted children; but articles that begin and end with children as subjects will always be of limited use to such adults.

Having looked over the article, I think it is pretty good, overall, for now at least. However it took me several readings to get to this point. My first impression was fairly negative -- I had the initial impression that it was mostly about gifted ed.

So I'm going to be so bold as to recast the "Overview of gifted child identification" in terms of identifying gifted *people*, not just gifted *children*. When I read the article for the first time, that section cast the rest of the article in a very strong "gifted ed" light.

I'm also going to remove some external links that seem to focus only on gifted education (or that link to adult-giftedness sites that are already on this article's list of external links). Lists such as this are easy to glance through to assess the gist of an article's focus.

Hope those (relatively minor) changes will help future readers.

Dana 04:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll remove the merge tag. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Isolation

Isolation is one of the main challenges faced by gifted individuals, especially those with no social network of gifted peers. Hoping to gain popularity, gifted children will often try to hide their abilities...' Complete nonsense. I am thirteen and in a gifted class; we have good social connections with the rest of the school and among ourselves. This article needs a major rewrite. Fredil Yupigo 23:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It is not "complete nonsense" as you put it. Being in a gifted class, maybe you should have analyzed more. Outstanding ability shown by gifted students sometimes causes insecurity among some of the gifted's peers. This insecurity may cause them to behave in a hostile manner to the gifted, he may be bullied or isolated by his peers. So there you have it. in order to be more "acceptable" he may hide his abilities or underachieve. It may not be happening in your school, but it happens.

Seconded. Ostracisation happens wherever gifted people are in the minority. Which is most places on this planet, by definition. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Isolation can come from the gifted individual through hubris/arrogance or from others who are threatened or have difficulty relating to the gifted individual. Beyond this, your personal experiences may guide you, but are not sufficient for inclusion in the article as it would be original research.Robovski 01:30, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with the article, from personal experience. I also must add that, at least in my own case, that it's a mixture of both personal inability to connect with peers and also my peer's unwillingness to connect with me. I've been IQ tested four times with results ranting from 142-167, but I have no friends. It's not that I don't try, I simply never saw social things as everyone else did. I liked being in company of those older then me from a very young age and thus gained and impressive vocabulary for my age and I was naturally very interested in politics. Going into a room full of my peers and trying to talk about politics using my vocabulary scared them, so I was left to myself. Being left to myself, I never learned those little subtleties of the social world. I have no clue how long to hold eye contact, I don't know when it's appropriate to laugh at a joke, or even know if what somebody just said was a joke. So most of my peers think I'm a nutter and I have a very hard time connecting with them. This has already been much longer than I meant it to be, but in conclusion, the article is fairly accurate, both from my personal standpoint and from a standpoint that does tend to be the general consensus of gifted individuals. --Lowland Piper

There's an old saying don't discuss politics or religion which applies if you're not very familiar with the people you're talking with. They just cause trouble. People should try talking about something the other person is interested in, for instance racing car games or football I'd guess at that age. Intellectual giftedness doesn't mean people are good at everything and social skills need practice for everyone. That said of three very gifted children I've known two were quiet and ran down their own abilities to some extent whereas the third is not in the least worried about stepping forward and saying they're the best and yet is quite popular. Dmcq (talk) 00:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You all seem to be putting all the blame on "normals" here for the isolation of gifted people. This is a two-way street. Isolation may also come from the hubris/arrogance of the gifted individuals themselves, many of which suffer from a partial or complete lack of social skills, mostly as a result of never having gotten the chance to develop such skills to begin with. Isolation among the gifted may also stem from autistic or schizoidal personality characteristics, which make social connections very difficult for some gifted people to achieve.108.69.161.166 (talk) 18:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Examples

Is it possible to link to some gifted people. Real life examples? A lot of people are present in the wikipedia. How gifted was Churchill, Einstein, Mozart, Bush?--Freek Verkerk 20:15, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

From what I've read about Einstein he's either severely gifted or severely autistic. It's not so much intelligence, as it was a completely different mindset than that of the time. Adolf Hitler was a gifted public speaker as well, as for Bush, I don't want to go POV.....(I don't think highly of him)Michael Cook 03:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

For gifted individuals, just search for anyone that has made a big achievement. A list of such people would be excessively long. Tabby (talk) 13:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Not so (actually much of the achievements in science came very much by happy coincidence/accident). You need to be careful how you use the definition of "gifted". Just because someone has "achieved" something is not proof of "giftedness". Most achievements have not been produced by ppl who would be considered gifted or who would have been admitted to gifted schools as children--and most gifted ppl, besides giving their parents a source of vicarious pride when they're young, do not produce any significant achievements whatsoever in their lifetimes.108.69.161.166 (talk) 18:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Removed white supremacist link

Someone had nested in a link to Volkmar Weiss, a noted white supremacist from Germany whose research focuses on the supposed genetic superiority of white, Anglo-Saxon people. His "research" is primarily published in a German white supremacist journal. He claims to be a PhD but does not cite where his degree came from. The table and link purports to be a study of highly gifted Nazis, not the incidence of gifted relatives to gifted adults. I.e. the data comes from a self-selecting, limited population (you know, people who met the Nazi standards back in 1945... "Aryans" only, people who followed Hitler only...), and even if it was a statistically valid sample in terms of diversity, this source appears to be a review of articles - i.e. extrapolating facts by cooking the numbers from various papers (but note that they are poorly footnoted)... which means, if any of those studies are biased, it would affect the review's accuracy. This is not a reliable, NPOV, much less peer-reviewed article. The fact that no one bothers to check these links after they're added, to see if they're actually peer-reviewed, scholarly sources ... is one of those things Wikipedians should be deeply embarassed by. It really throws the entire quality of the article in doubt. 70.128.157.3 07:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Three paragraphs of lead

I've just moved three paragraphs from the lead into their own section after hopefully clarifying the Tolan position and the sentence structure that suggested that Tolan was making the claim that ADD could not be diagnosed beyond mere observation. The three paragraphs should not be in the lead, since their are not a summary of the article. The lead - as should hopefully be clear - should be just that: a summary of the rest of the article. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I did not read all the references. If there are further objections, please raise them again. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following proposal is copied from WP:RM:

• Intellectual giftedness → Giftedness— Gifted children are children who score in the top one percent of the population on IQ tests. People who have special talents, creativity, or leadership ability are also gifted as well. I think giftedness in adults should be separate from children. It gets confusing when it is merged together. Intellectual giftedness is only about people who do really well on IQ tests. There are people who don't do well on IQ tests but are good at other things. Are you saying that these people aren't gifted? By changing the name to giftedness it would be neutral because it reflects to people who are good at other things but don't do well on IQ tests. —MrsMacMan 17:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• You seem to be looking at things backwards. Perhaps the redirect from Giftedness should point elsewhere (the Talent dab?), or Giftedness should be an article, but the fact that the title of this article is specifically Intellectual giftedness allows us to explain the variety of giftedness that you suggest at other titles in the future (e.g. Artistic giftedness). Moving the article from the current title to Giftedness would result in an article at that location that would be only about the intellectual type of giftedness, and that seems to be what you wish to prevent. Since this proposal was incomplete, I'm not going to close it officially. However, I'd suggest rethinking your strategy and possibly starting a new article instead. Dekimasuよ! 01:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The user MrsMacMan is an abusive sockpuppet of User:Random account 39949472 and a longtime disruptor of education related articles. You may safely close or even delete anything she has initiated at Wikipedia. --Fire Star 火星 02:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The 1st quote of definition of Intellectual Giftedness includes talent in one or more areas, but also they require something the school cant provide. Whilst the talent is undefined, understanably it is talking potentially about any area of expertise(and this wiki article remedies this somwhat under the section "Identification methods"), the part refering to services or activities is fundamentally subjective. Lets say a person gets moved to a facility that can provide what they need. Hey presto, no longer gifted. The quote seems motivated from the perspective of: gee they are smart but they are so demanding.

“' The term "gifted and talented" when used in respect to students, children, or youth means students, children, or youth who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities." (P.L. 103–382, Title XIV, p. 388) '” My emphasis added.

It is sad that the 1st definition is used throughout the USA. I would be in favour of removing this quote from this article. The second quote is far more objective.KommisarCPU

Depression

"As Reis and Renzulli mention, "With the exception of creatively gifted adolescents who are talented in writing or the visual arts, studies do not confirm that gifted individuals manifest significantly higher or lower rates or severity of depression than those for the general population..."

This contrasts strongly with the data presented in 'The Outsiders' by Grady Towers. Tabby (talk) 13:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Towers tracks "maladjustment", not depression, and the data he uses include no non-gifted control group, so it's impossible to compare rates of depression between gifted and non-gifted individuals based on the data in his article. - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 07:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Testing under 10s

I removed

"Younger children need to be assessed by an educational psychologist to determine their IQ score."

because although there are significant issues with IQ test results for under 10s, there is no reason why such tests would only be able to be administered by an educational psychologist, or the results interpreted by them. It may well be policy in the US education system, but its not a fact, because its elementary to administer an IQ test to an under 10 and simple enough to understand the issues with the results.

This is just promotion of professionalism, which is widespread today. Tabby (talk) 13:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Racism or discrimination section needed

Under social issues, one needs to include the bias towards white people as the tests are inadvertently designed to have lower percentages of "giftedness" in african-americans and a couple other minorities. The IQ distribution is not favorable towards african americans (on a percentage basis) and as result, much less of them receive a gifted education. The NAACP newsletter addressed this issue years ago, and I have not been current with this issue. Could someone respond as to whether this section is warranted or should it be ignored? Sentriclecub (talk) 12:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I just saw that there is a section on the giftedness_education page that talks about the race-issue I brought up, but does it in a very poor style, and they cite no sources. I guess having it on both pages might be redundant since one would reason that if african americans have lower percentile scores, due to the tests, that they also receive disporportionately less resources allotted for gifted students, and eventually less opportunities. ~Sentric —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sentriclecub (talk • contribs) 13:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no need for "giftedness" to be in quotes my friend. It is quite real.

I agree that the fact that IQ test have historically be biased towards the cultural sensibilities of the majority. However since those bad old days test have been redesigned to eliminate such bias's. So the issue you raise is more of a historical question than a current issue. Even then it is more of an issue for the article on IQ testing I would think.

As of right now I'll weigher that what keeps black children from scoring as gifted on IQ test is that the test are never offered to them by public schools. Bad public schools where the teachers cannot get over their inferiority complexes.--Hfarmer (talk) 03:59, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Multiple intelligences perspective

So some text was added today about Gardner's multiple intelligences theory. The formatting was a mess, and the writing style needed improvement, so I cleaned it up and put it into plain English, and here's what I got:

Some people try to explain intellectual giftedness through the theory of multiple intelligences model, which was proposed by Howard Gardner in his 1983 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Colangelo, 2003). In this approach, "intelligence" is an attitude towards learning, instead of techniques or strategies (Cason, 2001). Garnder claims eight independent areas of intelligence, and academic failure is blamed on the teacher's failure to adapt lessons to each individual student's learning style.

The refs were:

• Cason, K. (2001). Evaluation of a Preschool Nutrition Education Program Based on the theory of multiple Intelligences [Electronic version]. Journal of Nutrition Education, 33, 161-166.
• Colangelo, N. & Davis, G. (2003). Handbook of Gifted Education. Needham Heights, Massachusetts

When I got to the end, I realized that there wasn't a single word in this paragraph about intellectual giftedness. In fact, this theory is most often tossed around as a sort of consolation prize for the kids that aren't intellectually gifted. "Your son is very highly gifted in kinesthetic intelligence" is just educationist bafflegab for "He can't read yet, but he sure can throw a baseball."

If there's actually anything concrete to be said about intellectual giftedness from this everybody's-gifted-somehow theory, then I do favor including it in this article. I just haven't seen any evidence that there is anything relevant to include. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I agree that the passage was poorly written. However, I disagree with your removal based solely on what seems to be a personal vendetta against MI theory. Yes, Gardner does speak to the whole range of giftedness, not simply intellectual giftedness. However, I believe that a description of intellectual giftedness would be incomplete without mentioning MI theory, which does encompass intellectual giftedness. I believe that we should give CDEV5170 the chance to revise this to better describe how MI theory is relevant to intellectual giftedness. Furthermore, I am shocked by your ill-conceived opinion of MI theory. It is often construed by some well-meaning, but ill-informed teachers to mean that "everyone is gifted", but that is not the intention of Gardner or the theory. Instead, what MI theory does promote is teaching in varied ways to reach a larger audience so that we might find some gifted students who might be underachieving or twice-exceptional, which is more prevalent than some educators realize. Therefore, I say let CDEV5170 revise and include. Sunshine9701 (talk) 18:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, I do favor including anything that MI has to say about intellectual giftedness, even though I personally have very little respect for the idea -- or, at least, for the idea as it's understood and implemented by the average elementary school teacher in the real world, which is doubtless a significant corruption of the actual idea, but it's the version that actually affects real kids in the real world.

CDEV5170 so far has declined to provide information that connects this idea to intellectual giftedness. If you wanted to write something, I'd be happy to have it. My only requirements are that the information actually say something specifically about the concept of intellectual giftedness, and that it be written with a reasonably professional standard of grammar and punctuation. If you think that's too high a standard to set for this article, then please let me know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Related accounts

We appear to have five new accounts editing this article. CDEV5170 presumably represents a child development course number at a university. Those editors may wish to review the sockpuppet/meatpuppet policy to prevent accidental problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Gifted Adults and Leaders

This section is poorly sourced, violates NPOV, and is unrelated to sections around it. It focuses more on character than intellectual giftedness. If no one objects, I would like to delete it.

According to Chapter 6 in the Handbook of Gifted Education, many of the leaders of the cooperate America would be considered gifted. The author states, "... leadership is a necessary condition for the creation of social capitol" (Colangelo & Davis, 2003). Leaders, in this context may be referred to CEO's, presidents of large companies, executive directors, etc. The fact that these men and women would be considered "gifted" is two fold. The first being these executives have to have a innate ability to effectively and efficiently lead large corporations. These leaders must 1. Have the knowledge to run the company effectively and 2. The gift of being able to lead the people who work for them. Neither of these are easy tasks to accomplish.

In chapter 6, the authors give a glimpse into the life of a leader--one who will probably grow up to lead a national company in corporate America, or even something smaller, but important none the less. This young girl in the story was part of a gifted education class.She met a young boy one day on the bus who had low vision. The little boy was upset about other children making fun of him because he wore thick glasses and other things, however the part that bothered him the most was the inaccessibility of the materials he was interested in because of his disability. This young girl, Melanie decided she would take the initiative to make school more accessible to him as well as helping others to accept him with his disability. Not only did she help him with the accessibility issues he faced, she also helped others to see this little boy, Tony for who he is, she also taught tolerance! Whatever this young girl decides to do in her life, her giftedness qualities will surely shine through.

Now, imagine a school without any children like Melanie, or without any programs that allow children to develop and carry out ideas to make the world a better place. If Melanie had gone to such a school, the other children would still be mocking Tony, and he would still be the sad young student on the bus. Since colonial times, affective, or character development as it has frequently been referred to, has been a facet of American school learning. John Dewey's early influence on the American education system provided some of the philosophical basis for character education in today's schools. It was Dewey's belief that "... moral education in school is practically hopeless when we set up the development of character as its supreme end" (Dewey, 1916, p. 354). Instead, Dewey believed that character education should enable students to learn how to act, so that in any situation they will behave morally. Research conducted by Hartshorne and May in the 1930s supported Dewey's aversion to the direct teaching of character education and found that participation in character education in school had little effect on moral conduct (Leming, 1993). More recent research has found a greater correlation between character education participation and moral conduct (Rushton, Brainerd, & Pressley, 1983; Wynne, 1989). [16]

It doesn't belong in an article on gifted education. MarianKroy (talk) 13:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, this article isn't about gifted education, but I don't see the relevance to intellectual giftedness. It's a sappy, poorly written advertisement for "character education". I guess it makes me feel a little better to know that it's only been in the article since September 14. - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 00:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about my error. Thanks for deleting that. MarianKroy (talk) 01:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out! - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 02:22, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

This was added for a class project that I believe is due tomorrow. A good deal of what was added needs to be pruned and copyedited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Tips for contributors

Now, I don't 'own' this article (in fact, I've rarely edited here), and I certainly wouldn't consider myself an expert on all things Wikipedia, but I've noticed that a few common problems have been cropping up here lately, and I thought it might be nice to throw a little guidance out there so we can all be on the same page. It's easier for us to understand each other if we follow the same editing conventions, and mutual understanding makes everyone happier! So here goes.

• Please, please, please proofread your contributions before adding them to the article. It's not that hard, and it's difficult to understand and evaluate the content of an edit that's littered with spelling and grammatical errors.
• Use either parenthetical citations or clickable footnotes, not both, and be consistent throughout the article. The majority of this article uses footnotes, so I think we should probably stick to that for now.
• Don't leave a space before a footnote - put the <ref> tag directly after the text. That keeps the footnote from breaking up the flow of the text.
• If you are using <ref></ref> for citations, you don't need to type out a list of references in the body of the article, or even add them on as bullet points. They will show up in an automatically generated and formatted list in the References section at the bottom of the article.
• Wikipedia style is that only the first letter of the first word in a header is capitalized.
• A properly formed subheading looks like this: ==Subheading== It is not necessary to add additional bolding, and doing so makes the page very hard to read. Also, don't forget the =='s, or the heading won't look like a heading and won't be included in the article table of contents.
• One blank line between sections is enough.
• Long blocks of text should be broken up into shorter paragraphs for easier reading.
• Any content added to this article should be a) directly relevant to the article topic (intellectual giftedness), and b) not redundant with information already in the article. Contributions should be situated within the existing structure of the article rather than tacked on like an afterthought.
• Please listen to other Wikipedia editors and respond to them on the talk page if you have a disagreement about what should be included in the article, rather than repeating an endless and futile cycle of adding and removing the same material over and over again.

I think most of these principles are either common sense or have a clear basis in Wikipedia style conventions, but I'm open to the possibility that I may be wrong. If I am, please correct me. In any case, I think if you read through these you can understand why the style of an edit can have a huge impact on how well that edit can be integrated into the article, and how well it will be received by other editors. Please edit with care so that other editors can care for your edits. - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 07:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Took out the old rating scale, its absurdity is revealed

Some IQ testers use these classifications to describe differing levels of giftedness. The following bands apply with a standard deviation of σ = 15 on a standardized IQ test. Each band represents a difference of one standard deviation from the mean of a standard distribution.

Standard deviation illustration

• Bright: 115+, or one in six (84^th percentile)
• Moderately gifted: 130+, or 1 in 50 (97.9^th percentile)
• Highly gifted: 145+, or 1 in 1000 (99.9^th percentile)
• Exceptionally gifted: 160+, or 1 in 30,000 (99.997^th percentile)
• Profoundly gifted: 175+, or 1 in 3 million (99.99997^th percentile

The problems with using words in front of gifted is that it changes the meaning. As an analogy (and I know you guys are good at analogies),

• Late: 2 weeks, or one in six (84^th percentile)
• Moderately pregnant: 10.5 weeks, or 1 in 50 (97.9^th percentile)
• Highly pregnant: 19 weeks, or 1 in 1000 (99.9^th percentile)
• Exceptionally pregnant: 27.5 weeks, or 1 in 30,000 (99.997^th percentile)
• Profoundly pregnant: 36 weeks, or 1 in 3 million (99.99997^th percentile

For those with 130 IQ, you are not just "moderately gifted". You have the full rights and benefits as someone with 190, and possibly even more net benefits, such as you will reach existential crises at a much later age. Plus your money is multiplied, it has more purchasing power. Biologicithician (talk) 12:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a sufficient justification. The social problems experienced by a person with an IQ of 170 are typically more severe than a person with a "nearly normal" IQ of 130. The educational prospects for these people are different. I'm willing to remove the word "moderately", since just plain gifted is more descriptive, but let us not pretend that six year old with an intellectual age of eight is exactly the same as a six year old with an intellectual age of eleven. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

That analogy isn't accurate at all. Oddity- (talk) 22:52, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ditto WhatamIdoing and Oddity-. This article is about intellectual giftedness. Therefore, it uses appropriate and widely accepted descriptive terms to distinguish between different levels of intellectual giftedness. Acknowledging that there are variations within the intellectually gifted population does not deny anyone their human rights, nor does it imply that some levels of giftedness are morally superior or otherwise preferable. All it does is make distinctions, without which we couldn't even discuss issues like the relative purchasing power of profoundly gifted people. - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 18:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

break

"Therefore, it uses appropriate and widely accepted descriptive terms to distinguish between different levels of intellectual giftedness."

Oh, really? Where, then, is the citation to all the sources that would prove this scale to be "appropriate and widely accepted". I don't see any. Please add the citations that support your otherwise naked assertion (and the naked and unsupported assertion in the article). Otherwise, I am deleting it. Pernoctus (talk) 02:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I've added one source; many exist. I'm sure that if you took the trouble of, say, asking Mr Google, you'd be able to find many more. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

And I am sure that if the mere assertion had been properly documented in the first place, Mr. Smart-Ass, this exchange would have been unnecessary.

By the way, a quick search for the term "profoundly gifted" did not reveal "many more" sources for this statement--at least, not reputable sources. The search quickly uncovered the Miraca U. M. Gross article that is cited, and which I gather you added, but little else of value. Also, Gross cites no authority for the table of different IQs and levels of giftedness that appears in the article. In addition, Gross makes the patently ridiculous assertion that "in the realm of intellectual capacity alone, a profoundly gifted child of IQ 190 differs from his or her moderately gifted classmate of IQ 130 to the same degree that the latter differs from an intellectually handicapped child of IQ 70". The authority, or even competence, of anyone who would make such a statement seems highly questionable, and that is an understatement.

Despite all this, I suppose that there are enough such references to qualify that "some" researchers use these classifications of giftedness, as the article states.There remain, however, several undocumented and highly dubious assertions in this section of the article--for instance, "Many working in the field of the profoundly gifted consider still the Stanford Binet L-M a meaningful test to identify these children". The entire section needs re-writing, so I far as I am concerned, but I lack the patience to fight over these edits, especially when dealing with individuals who somehow think that sarcasm and condescension enhance levels of discussion and debate.Pernoctus (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

My response was meant in all mildness: many such sources exist, and it's not hard to demonstrate that. You might try to assume a little good faith.

You might want to try a more complex search, like "profoundly gifted" "standard deviation" "moderately gifted" -wikipedia -blog, which will give you several high-quality sources while also eliminating most blogs and Wikipedia mirrors. Those that quote Gross demonstrate that her work is widely accepted and therefore a good source for us to use; those that provide slightly variations demonstrate that the concept has been independently confirmed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

back to original discussion

I abandon my previous method, but my argument is that intellectual giftedness has a gray-zone (between 120-140) a white zone (n<130) and a black zone (130<n). This article is about a trait, not about intelligence itself. The article on intelligence should carry that IQ crap over there. For this article, someone is intellectually gifted if they meet some dynamic criteria at a point in time. I am not more intellectually gifted than someone with 130 IQ. I was selected by my teachers in elementary school and placed into Gifted education. How can an intelligent person argue (or even allow the implicit suggestion) that "just ordinary gifted" is only for 130-145. IQ is quantized, and let some of you say that intelligence is quantized. But intellectual giftedness is NOT fit for your numerical extrapolations. Maybe a compromise is in order? Can someone put my POV into the article that intellectual giftedness is either 1 or 0, its either there or its not there. A person can't be somewhere between pregnant and unpregnant, but our limitations are how you define the microsecond between fertilization which creates a zygote and implantation which secures a chance at life. If you agree that there's a continuum and quantizable levels of "degrees of intellectual giftedness" then you fall for all sorts of trouble (such as having to explain IQ, and what constitutes accuracy, and culture biases in IQ tests and that the difference between 129.999 bright and 130.001 points to grain-sand fallacy) and you open pandora's box. Just try & undo the POV that you can order members of a set based on intellectual giftedness. Its not correct. In set theory, you have set A and set B and those with the I.G. trait goes into set A, all else into set B. Why not fill in the range 85-100 and show how unintellectually gifted the other half of the continuum (your continuum POV) is? This is afterall the encylopedia that anyone can edit, but I expect a little bit more care here than on the newest metallica album. Biologicithician (talk) 04:45, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not represent the points of view held by its editors. It is supposed to represent the points of view held by relevant experts in the field, as shown in reliable sources. Therefore, we can't just add your personal opinion to the article (unless you can produce appropriate sources to support it). As it stands, that particular part of this not-very-impressive article is reasonably representative of the current mainstream thinking about identifying gifted children.

Even if we could just add your personal opinion, I don't think I'd want to. Why are you so convinced that intellectual giftedness is a discrete entity? Couldn't a person be significantly gifted in mathematics, and below average at language skills, such as story-telling? Mathematics and language are both intellectual areas, and that would be a person that is both "A" and "not A" in your scheme -- and yet these people exist, and they are identified as being intellectually gifted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Excellent counterpoint. Although my reasoning that a person can't be both intellectually gifted and not intellectually gifted was preliminarily well reasoned, that simple example cut holes through my belief like swiss cheese. A year ago I wouldn't have thought this article exists, a week ago I would have supported a merge with gifted_education, but now I see how good this article could be and how this topic warrants encyclopaedia-like coverage. If only it weren't for the threat of vandalism... Biologicithician (talk) 20:47, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

404

^ "Characteristics of Gifted/Creative Children". Retrieved on 2007-07-03. this links to 404 like page. There is something, which might be similar (quick google lookup;)), but i would not recommend it much - http://www.ri.net/gifted_talented/character.html 84.16.123.194 (talk) 15:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

What I'd really like to see is the equivalent from a Handbook of Gifted Education or some such formal text. Does anyone have any really good resources on gifted children? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

giftedhaven.net deleted?

May I ask why? Everyone time we post the URL, it gets deleted. On *no* occasion has an explanation been given. Gifted Haven is a perfectly legitimate organisation, and provides support to more than 300 people. By getting our name out in the open, we can provide support to more.

The link repeatedly gets deleted, apparently without good cause, and it is hindering our attempts to provide support to teenagers who need it.

Answers?

.<max>.

Admin, Head of Design, Gifted Haven Enterprises —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gifted Haven Enterprises (talk • contribs) 21:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia External link guidelines. If you review, you will find that links to forums are not considered appropriate. TastyPoutine ^{talk (if you dare) _]} 00:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, Wikipedia is not an advertising opportunity for organizations, even if they have a noble cause. See also WP:SPAM and WP:NOT#LINKS. You might also want to investigate the conflict of interest rules and the "How do I subvert Wikipedia to promote my organization" FAQ as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

If you review, you will find that what I listed there was not just a forum- it was also a website, which happens to have a forum attached- but, if you are will persist... Gifted Haven Enterprises (talk)

True: you linked to the front page, with its prominent message, "The heart and soul of Haven are the forums..."

Your website doesn't actually provide any information about intellectual giftedness. External links are generally expected to provide concrete, specific, detailed, encyclopedic information that will interest the general reader (i.e., not an intellectually gifted reader). The website simply does not meet the requirements of this encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:58, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Very well, we will subvert your noble cause no longer Gifted Haven Enterprises (talk)

Two sources

Two possible sources for improving this article:

• Nauta, Noks and Frans Corten. Gifted adults in work. “Tijdschrift voor Bedrijfs- en Verzekeringsgeneeskunde” (Journal for Occupational and Insurance Physicians), TBV 10, no. 11 (Nov. 2002): 332-335. Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum, Houten, The Netherlands
• Corten, Frans, Noks Nauta, and Sieuwke Ronner. Highly intelligent and gifted employees - key to innovation? International HRD-conference 2006 Amsterdam, October 11th. 2006

I haven't finished reading them yet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

"Gifted" in Jesusland

This term is not an objective one and has an implicit religious assumption. A gift implies a intentional act and a giver (seldom intended to be and due to the nature of genetic recombination, in general, not even in principle the individual's parents). "Exceptional" referring to an exceptional range for some attribute is objective. It's shit like this that makes me depressed, suicidal, isolated, etc. 32.139.225.102 (talk) 14:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

We have to follow the terminology used by high-quality reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, the Isolation §, which I presume would be the place where mention was made of how the intellectually superior perceive others and society in general, fails to mention what specifically causes the isolation. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 13:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

complaint?

I apologize for the location of this complaint, but i am unaware of not only the proper placement but, additionally, how i would go about putting it there. I also feel compelled to file it, especially so, because of the way in which the nature of the wikipedia endeavor has been presented and understood by me. Anyway, I was going through this article (which is quite nice, by the way) and ran into this: "which other authors have argued has not been proven to exist by any means other than subjective behavioral analysis", which I found in the "Professional attitudes towards giftedness" section. I would usually ignore a statement such as this, but was exceptionally irked by the sheer brazenness of its idiocy and the effect that such opinions have on people with mental disorders. I also hate whining and long-winded, obsequious appeals to a speakers own pretentiousness. I am sorry for the nature of this grievance for those reasons, but feel that it must be done, so. Nevertheless, were such an opinion relevant to the subject matter in which it was placed, i would suck it up, but it is not. The fact that some people believe adhd to be a pseudo-illness is completely irrelevant to the fact that laymen hold opinions that connect gifted children to adhd. When I read this, I thought, "How the hell did they let this get through?" and quickly realized that this reason could be found as the little blue exponents representing citations. Now, ignoring the decrepit logic behind these claims and my obviously scathing opinion of them, two of these links have seemed to expire and the remaining one is a pdf file that anyone capable of operating a keyboard could have created. Moreover, this statement is completely irrelevant to the surrounding subject material. It reads as though some jackass scours this website for mentions of adhd and tacks on that quaint little addition. Now, this may not be an intentional bowdlerization, but if i find three articles supporting the creation of a cannon to destroy ufo's, I should not necessarily place an advertisement for them next to every mention of spacecraft. Anyway, I am sorry if this is somehow inappropriate or against "regulation". I am unfamiliar with this whole system. I would greatly appreciate if my claim would at least be considered. . .I suppose I am lobbying for a removal of just this single sentence. . .Oh well, half an hour is a small price to pay for the satisfaction of dissembling a denigrator's peremptory prestidigitation. Hopefully, if we are all very lucky, the world's incommensurate ignorance will wane, if just by the tiniest amount. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Korgisborg (talk • contribs) 23:29, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You have run up against Wikipedia's requirement for verifiability not truth. Your job as an editor is to boldly edit articles to help improve Wikipedia. But removing referenced material is normally frowned upon and reverted. It can be considered vandalism. Yes the PDF file is not the best source to cite but would probably be accepted as it is well referenced itself. Lame Name (talk) 10:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, the ability to produce a citation for something doesn't make that statement WP:DUE, especially since the sources don't appear to have anything to do with ADHD in intellectually gifted people.

Korgisborg, I suggest that you boldly improve the article by adding a few really stellar sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I removed one bit

I removed this line: "The arguments of critics who say racism or discrimination are present in the programs are undermined by this fact." This came after: "For example, statistics from 1993 indicate that in the U.S., Black students represented 16.2% of public school students, but only constituted 8.4% of students enrolled in gifted education programs. Similarly, while Hispanic students represented 9% of public school students, these students only represented 4.7% of those identified as gifted.[14] However, Asian students make up only 3.6% of the student body, yet consitute 14% in the gifted programs."

Unless we have a cite to a credible source that people do regard that as an undermining of arguments of critics, we shouldn't draw that conclusion ourselves. It is entirely possible that there is racism of the very simple form that school administrators assume that Asian and 'White' students are more likely to be smart than Hispanic and Black kids. The acceptance of Asians alongside Whites doesn't disprove, in and of itself, racial discrimination.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Thank you for noticing and fixing the problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)