Giftedness in the Long Term

By Prof Joan Freeman [Part 2 - also see Part 1]

SOME FINDINGS FROM THE FREEMAN FOLLOW-UP STUDY

The label

As children, the labelled gifted were usually treated differently by their parents and teachers, whether positively or negatively, and naturally they were aware of adult expectations.

Parents might tell me, for example, that their child was too clever to play with others of the same age – in front of the child – and the child may indeed have found it difficult to have friends, but whether this was a personality feature of the child or a consequence of life experiences it would be difficult to say.

The forces from school and parents spurring the gifted on to greater advancement could be strong, as discovered in the rated questionnaire responses; several subjects rose to the challenge, obtaining doctorates in their early twenties.

Others, though, felt they could never live up to the expectations of giftedness and became big fishes in small ponds, as Zeidner & Schreyer (1999) have described.

Typically this would be like the student of extremely high IQ who chose a small college where her cultivated gifted image could shine unchallenged.

Some largely ignored their gifts, following their low SES parents into fairly mechanical work. Others, in spite of opportunity, never managed to fit comfortably into the cut and thrust of challenging work, eventually settling for modest but secure jobs supervised by others.

As so many other researchers have found, precocity, extremely high IQ scores and school grades, as well as grade-skipping were not a route to grown-up high achievements for this sample - except perhaps for those who continued in a similar path, becoming teachers and academics.

Emotional development

As children, the labelled gifted had a far higher incidence of emotional problems (p<1%) when compared with the unlabelled equally gifted.

Although in each triad, the labelled and unlabelled were in the same school class and thus experienced identical teaching, parents of the labelled children made significantly (p<1%) more complaints about school provision.

The long parental interviews in their own homes disclosed that the labelled gifted children with emotional difficulties had significantly (p<1%) more problematic domestic circumstances, such as parental divorce or experiences which would disturb most children.

One cannot imply that the distinctly higher level of emotional and behavioural problems measured in these labelled gifted children were caused by their parent’s pressure on them.

One can only report that this in-depth investigation discovered significantly more disturbing features in the home lives of the more problematic gifted children when compared with those of the non-disturbed equally gifted children.

Using both the Stamford-Binet IQ and the Raven’s scores along with the rated data from the interviewing it was possible to see that it was not intelligence as such that caused these disturbances, but other matters in the children’s lives, (e.g. divorce, moving home frequently), and parental attitudes to their children’s upbringing (e.g. TV, homework, punishment, parental behaviour and beliefs).

When asked why they had joined the NAGC (UK) for their children, most parents cited the children’s problems as typical of giftedness. The gifts often got the blame.

Fortunately, as the children grew up and became more independent, most of these problems disappeared, though not all. My impression of the labelled group in their forties is of more depression than in the other groups.

Grade-skipping

Only 17 of the whole sample had been grade-skipped, as this is not a common practice in the UK. 16 of them are now determined that they would not allow this for their own children: just one, who was tall and mature for his age, said it had been good for him, notably that he could leave school earlier.

As one of the fathers said of his adolescent son accelerated by two years in an all-male school, “I felt very sorry for him; he was still a boy and they were men”.

Influences on success in life

The most successful adults had been more robust and sociable as children, as seen in the group comparisons of the 1970s and 1980s.

Werner and Smith (1992) coined the term ‘resilient children’ to describe successful survivors in very poor conditions, but strangely the same personality factors seemed to benefit these relatively privileged youngsters, notably those who were 'engaging', with supportive adults, responsive schools, sometimes sincerely felt religion and well above-average intelligence.

In terms of conventional success in life such as high examination marks, rising up the corporate ladder or making money, the primary building blocks were always keenness and hard work, allied with sufficient ability, formal educational opportunity and an emotionally supportive home.

The literature review above shows that these factors are found over and over again.

High level creativity, as seen in adult careers, has demanded a particular type of personality which is relatively independent of other’s opinions, and at times great courage.

The successful gifted architect who was a regular school truant, for example, did not do well in his exams and did not show his talents until long after he left university with a modest degree.

Whether conventional and rule-abiding or constantly straining at the leash, the children have usually carried their personal style through to adulthood.

Maybe there were no tortured geniuses in this sample, because poor home circumstances, such as a constant change of “uncles” did nothing but harm to the possibility of adult success.

In general, it was true that poverty disables while wealth enables. The very rich highly gifted girl, for example, took her first degree at Harvard University as her rightful and natural progression before entering Cambridge University for her higher degree.

She then left for South America, and returned with a husband with little formal education. She now has a prestigious position at the Foreign Office while being the main financial support for her two children and her husband.

Yet many of the sample had accepted their parents’ views that some of the good things in life, such as a professional career, were not for them, even though they had the ability to do almost anything they could imagine, and more besides.

Many opted for modestly-paid clerking-type work and called it coming to terms with reality.

The 13 individuals who hit the top of the Stamford-Binet scale at IQ 170 have shown great variety of adult occupation, one became a professional gambler, another is a janitor to a sports club, one has a small business, another is a full-time mother, one died of cancer, one never uses his early PhD and works in IT, and so on.

Some outcomes were largely predictable and some were not, such as the handicapped boy who became a millionaire banker at 34 from an educationally and financially poor background.

Pressure

A clear warning against too much academic pressure on high IQ youngsters emerged from the research. Much of it came from highly academic schools aiming their pupils towards prestigious universities.

Some youngsters seemed to subdue their personalities while striving for perfect grades, so that their healthy emotional development, including the freedom to play and be creative, was severely curtailed. Such pressure could have the opposite effect from what was intended when school-leavers took unexpected life routes.

The worst affected were the accelerated boys specialising in science, eyes on microscopes, who missed out on social relationships. Most of them now say they regret the loss of childhood fun.

Sometimes far too much of the gifted young people’s energy had gone into fighting their school regimes and their teachers, supposedly there to help them. Too many had dissipated their time and energies into wrong channels because of poor educational guidance.

At times, the youngsters told me that they knew exactly what they wanted to do, but were thwarted by reasons of school time-table or teacher opinion, and went into areas for which they were less well suited.

One girl at a high-powered school, for example, was told that biology was not for her. Defying the school’s advice, she secretly entered a competition with her own biological research and won. Only then did the school recognise her potential and permit her to study in the subject area of her choice. She is now a research pharmacist.

The social pressures which can diminish a growing child’s feelings of worth were not helped much by the universities they attended. For example, there was neither adequate preparation from her school, nor support from Oxford University for the gentle sensitive girl of IQ 170 from a financially poor family.

The social hurdles were too much for her and she soon left to take a modest but emotionally secure job. Of course, no institution should have the power to direct the lives of its students, but without some help, especially for those whose home cannot provide it, the final link in a delicate situation can be lost.

Other ways

There are, of course, many non-scholastic routes to satisfaction in achievement, such as the woman of IQ 170 who I had described thirty years earlier as empathetically gifted.

Throughout school she was effectively the class counsellor, the one to whom the others brought their troubles. She gained a psychology degree and further qualifications, and in 2005 cares with love and deep satisfaction for the down-and-outs of her city, being neither well paid nor recognisably a high-flyer.

Most subjects with an exceptionally high IQ, whether labelled or unlabelled as gifted, did much better in life then those with an average score, whatever their original socio-economic level.

The most successful had found ways of organising their powerful mental abilities: they were more aware and made more efficient use of their personal learning styles.

This not only helped them to in examinations, but they could elaborate on their learning and take it into adult life. Most high achievers in adulthood has enjoyed a mutually rewarding situation both at home and school, a feeling of comfort with their desire to learn, based on their parents early pride and support as individuals.

The less successful, even with high IQs, had remained with less mature and less efficient, shorter-term techniques, like rote-memorising their lesson-notes.

To support the development of gifted potential most effectively throughout life, it is important to follow indicators such as personal interests (Hany, 1996).

Using children’s precocity as the prime identifying feature of gifts and talents, with the expectation that precocity would last, could be responsible for their later apparent loss, often called ‘burn out’. This may be due to age-peers catching up or the gifted losing interest in the area of their exceptionality.

Drawing on my own and others’ work, I propose the following system of keeping the door to opportunity open for all giving giftedness a chance to develop in its own manner and time.

Freeman’s Sports approach

Freeman’s Sports Approach works on identification by provision, by providing a “smart context for learning”. It advocates that given the opportunity and with some guidance the highly able and motivated (features recognised as essential for building excellence) should be able to select themselves to work at any subject at a more advanced and broader level (Freeman, 2000b).

This does not necessarily mean grade-skipping, but in the same way as those who are talented and motivated in sports can select themselves for extra tuition and practice, they could opt for e.g. extra foreign languages or physics.

Of course, such facilities must be available to all - as sport is - rather than only to those pre-selected by tests, experts or money. It is an inclusive formula. This is neither an expensive route, nor does it risk emotional distress to the children by removing them from the company of their friends and age-peers.

It makes use of research-based understanding of high ability, notably the benefit of focusing on a defined area of the pupil’s interest as well as providing each one with what they need to learn with.

To practice the Sports Approach, teachers need training in differentiated teaching methods, in addition to a variety of specific techniques for bringing out high-level potential, such as helping pupils to collect information for a portfolio.

Most importantly, education authorities should coordinate and share the approach and facilities. Recognition of gifts and talent in this way would also include recognition of the provision to which the students had access.

This could be done by a rating scale so that children who were excelling within their context would be seen to be doing so and not penalised because they had poorer provision than others to teaching and material to learn with.

An overview of the Approach is presented below.

Freeman’s Sports Approach

• Identification should be process-based and continuous

• Identification should be by multiple criteria, including provision for learning and outcome

• Indicators should be validated for each course of action and provision

• The pupil’s abilities should be presented as a profile rather than a single figure

• Increasingly sharper criteria should be employed at subsequent learning stages

• Recognition should be given to attitudes possibly affected by outside influences such as culture and gender

• The pupils must be involved in educational decision making, notably in areas of their own interest

Postscript

After innumerable hours of interaction and investigation with the individuals in this sample as they grew to adulthood, I had to conclude that many influences on happiness and success are like love – it is possible to say how it feels and what happens because of it, but there is no sure recipe to apply to others.

For the rest we do have very clear information about what the gifted and talented need by way of support towards self-fulfilment– an education to suit their potential, opportunities to flourish and people who believe in them.

References

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Ref: Freeman, J. (2006), ‘Giftedness in the Long Term’, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 29, 384-403.

Joan Freeman is a Professor at Middlesex University, London, UK; Founding President of the European Council for High Ability (ECHA); and was Editor-in-Chief of High Ability Studies. She has conducted and supervised substantial research, notably her continuing study of gifted children since 1974, and has published widely in this area, including 16 books.

She has been honoured with The Lifetime Achievement Award for 2007 from the British Psychological Society.

See longer bio and cv on her site: joanfreeman.com

Also see pdf version of this article.

Article republished here with kind permission of the author.

This is Part 2 - see Part 1

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