Characteristics and Intellectual Needs of Gifted Children
Verbal Characteristics and Needs
To challenge verbal abilities, gifted students
need to do the following:
Have a large vocabulary and are able to
 Use their full vocabulary and develop it
use advanced terminology correctly
further with intellectual peers
Read early and may be self-taught; read
 Read books at an appropriate intellectual
enthusiastically and widely, often above
and emotional level
grade level; select reading material
 Be introduced to books that represent a
purposefully and enjoy challenging books
variety of literary conventions and styles
Understand language subtleties and use
and that use language gracefully
language for humor
 Express ideas verbally and in depth by
Write words and sentences early, and
writing or speaking with other who
produce superior creative writing (poetry,
challenge and thus refine their views and
stories, plays)
concepts
Display verbal ability in self-expression,
choice of colorful and descriptive
phrasing, and ease in learning a second
language
Gifted children in general:
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Thought-Processing Characteristics and Needs
As a group, gifted children display the
To develop thought-processing potential,
following traits in thought processing:
gifted students need to do the following:
 They enjoy experimenting and can
 Consider alternatives and possible
generate original ideas and solutions
consequences of choices in an accepting
 They give evidence of divergent thinking,
environment
offering responses that are atypical,
 Be exposed to a great variety of vicarious
rather than the convergent answers
experiences
expected from most children and found in
 Test new ideas without required
the teacher’s answer book
conclusions or products
 They accept open-ended situations and
 Discuss ideas with intellectual peers
questions at an early age and do not
 Be exposed to many ideas at different
require immediate solutions; they can
levels
accept ambiguity (and thus can enjoy
 Take plenty of time for incubation of ideas
novels that do not have clear-cut
endings)
 They enjoy complexity and may try to
create it – for example, by adding rules to
games
 They have unusual power to process
information using logic, abstract thinking,
and symbolic thought
 They show flexibility of thought and seek
alternatives; they are able to see all sides
of an issue
 They synthesize well, seeing
relationships others miss; they transfer
past learning to new situations and draw
generalizations
Performance Characteristics and Needs
In their performance, gifted children:
To enhance performance characteristics,
gifted students need to do the following:
 Show great curiosity and unusual
 Have curiosity met with exposure to
persistence in efforts to gain answers
varying styles of life, values, and
 Possess a wide range of interests and
approaches to problems
information
 Be exposed to new information and new
 Comprehend new concepts rapidly at an
issues
advanced level; they have little or no
 Be presented with material at their own
need for drill
rate of learning
 Display creativity and imagination, enjoy
 Develop skills in creative thinking and
fantasies and science fiction, may have
problem solving
an imaginary playmate in their preschool
 Pursue interests beyond the time desired
years, can develop a variety of solutions
by most students
to problems, and generate original ideas
 Learn skills for dealing with intensity by
 Are persistent and goal-directed; they
exploring ways by which others cope with
have a long attention span and may want
it
to spend more than the time allotted to
complete a project
 Show unusual intensity regarding school
projects, political or environmental
issues, religion, world events, intellectual
inquiry into an area of special interest,
interpersonal relationships, and abstract
values
Taken from
Halsted, Judith Wynn. Some of My Best Friends are Books. 2002. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press.