Raising a gifted child is as tough as raising any other child. At the same time, there are unique characteristics that require attention. After watching this video, explain how it matched the information you read in Giftedness in Early Childhood: The Search for Complexity and Connection article. Included in your response, write three questions for Cathie Harrison (author of the article) that focus on the social/emotional needs of young gifted children.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
4-year-old with an IQ of 140
Raising a gifted child is as tough as raising any other child. At the same time, there are unique characteristics that require attention. After watching this video, explain how it matched the information you read in Giftedness in Early Childhood: The Search for Complexity and Connection article. Included in your response, write three questions for Cathie Harrison (author of the article) that focus on the social/emotional needs of young gifted children.
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The video aligned with the information in “Giftedness in Early Childhood…” in some ways. In the 4-year-old, we see abilities emerging from infancy, as Harrison describes. He is also highly focused on interests such as sports, reading, and music. Harrison would agree that the intricacies of the boy’s knowledge in his areas of interest would never be factored in, were we only relying upon standardized tests to gather information about his capabilities. This was achieved through interview and presumably, parental input. Three questions for Harrison:
ReplyDeleteHarrison makes excellent points about the fact that parents are essentially “experts” on their own children and that the value they could potentially add to research studies is underutilized. However, there are a few problems with relying on anecdotal evidence, from a skewed sample, to make broad claims about an entire subpopulation.
1. It appears that kids were only included in your experimental sample if their parents were able and willing to heavily participate in the study: meaning, only those parents with enough leisure time, interest, and motivation to complete what sound like very involved tasks were included. How can you account for the fact that this prevents random sampling within the gifted population?
2. How does “ongoing contact with parents over 8 years” prove the authenticity of parental reports?
3. If your method of finding participants is to accept those who have sought you out because they think their child is gifted, how can you know that they are not going to interpret behaviors or selectively report data based upon their own interests, preconceived notions, and biases? Even accounting for the researchers’ analyses of parent-provided data, if the researcher did not actually gather the data himself, isn’t the data’s validity ultimately subjective?
The video of Kyler Lim is the visual representation of Harrison’s article, "Giftedness in Early Childhood: The Search for Complexity and Connection." Harrison, not surprisingly, documents that within the study, “The characteristics of curiosity, intrinsic motivation, and the ability to undertake and pursue independent investigations were clearly evident” (p. 81). In just the short time this video was playing, Kyler displayed all of these. Curiosity – at 18 months, Kyler’s parents found him reading magazines. When asked what he does at home, Kyler responds that he reads all his books. And his interests are not just “academic” as he enjoys playing sports (his favorite tennis player is Nadal) and watching TV (Tom and Jerry). The opening shot of Kyler is him reading and explaining scientific concepts. He displays a thirst for knowledge in all areas of this life. Intrinsic motivation – at 18 months, picking up a magazine and reading it is not something someone could or would force him to do. He is a very busy four year old, so curious, but motivated to seek out the answers to his questions. Independent investigations – knowing tennis enough to describe his favorite player as Nadal or the sound the racket makes as he hits the ball as “explosions” – those both came about through independent investigations. Throughout the interview, Kyler was constantly “fidgeting”. Yes, he is four, but the fidgeting was in an effort to explore and further understand the world around him. On his truck that held a bucket full of small toys, he separated it from the truck and touched them each to explore and understand.
ReplyDeleteHarrison’s article goes on to further say that, “Creativity is clearly evident within both observation and work sample” (p. 81). The tunnel system for his toys that was displayed behind him when he was playing with his truck was extremely creative. His ability to describe the sound of the racket hitting the ball as explosions and then associate that with why he likes Nadal, is creative understanding for a four year old. His ability to understand and comprehend advanced texts and then explain the concepts back to someone is incredibly creative as he uses his words to demonstrate the understanding of the material.
The search for complexity and understanding as well as the advanced and detailed visual representation demonstrated by Kyler as he speaks about any number of subjects, represents these concepts in Harrison’s article very well. Kyler likes Nadal because of his “explosions”; he enjoys reading books, all his books; Kyler reads complex texts and then retells the information to anyone who will listen – he is most certainly seeking to understand concepts well beyond his years, but through the social and emotional lens of a four year old. As I think of the connections between Harrison’s article and the video of Kyler, my three questions for Ms. Harrison are as follows:
1. Once identified, what are specific ways a parent can help to sustain the level of curiosity and independent action and thought that highly gifted children often exhibit at such a young age?
2. In young children who are highly gifted, what challenges do you see in providing a learning environment that will challenge the child pre-kindergarten, and how can we look to meet and overcome those challenges?
3. How much of a correlation has there been in the longitudinal study of highly gifted students with respect to their ability before entering formalized schooling and after they finish? What factors contributed to their success in school and in life? What factors contributed to their failures?
4. How different are highly gifted students from the gifted students?