How to Identify a Gifted Child

How can parents determine if their child is gifted? Assessing a child for giftedness can be a complicated process, given the conflicting views that surround the topic. Some educators argue that every child is gifted, which can also be taken to mean that no one is gifted.

While parents may wonder what a gifted child looks like to see if their child looks similar, categorizing a child as gifted is difficult because not everyone defines "gifted" the same way. Yet, psychologists and educators have researched gifted children enough to provide a profile of the traits these children tend to have. The more one learns about gifted children, the easier it becomes to identify them.

IQ tests can be used to determine giftedness in some children. Depending on which test is used, mildly gifted children score from 115 to 129, moderately gifted from 130 to 144, highly gifted from 145 to 159, exceptionally gifted from 160 to 179, and profoundly gifted -- 180.

These ranges are based on a standard bell curve. Most people fall in the range between 85 and 115, with 100 the absolute norm. This range is considered normal. The farther away from the absolute norm of 100 a child is, the greater the need for special educational accommodations, regardless of whether the distance is on the left or right of 100.

Exceptional talent is the ability to perform a skill at a level usually not reached until later years, sometimes as late as adulthood. A 3-year-old may be reading like a third grader or a 9-year-old may be playing the piano like an 18-year-old who has studied for years. If the exceptional talent is in a non-academic area such as music or art, the children may not be identified as gifted by the school because most testing for gifted programs is based on academic ability or achievement.

Gifted children are usually, but not always, high achievers. Even when they don't achieve good grades, they tend to score high on achievement tests, most often in the 95-99 percentile range. They love to learn and their love of learning, good memories, and ability to learn quickly and easily enable them to succeed. However, if a gifted child has lost the motivation to learn, he or she may not do well in school, although achievement test scores will usually remain high.

Whether or not a gifted child excels in school, she has the potential to do so. Many gifted children are intrinsically motivated, which means the motivation comes from within. They become motivated by interest and challenge. When these children are interested and appropriately challenged, they can and will achieve. Even though a gifted child may not be achieving in school, she may still be learning and achieving on her own at home.

Although heightened sensitivity is rarely, if ever, used to identify gifted children in school, it is so common among gifted children that it is one of the characteristics that set them apart from other children. They may be emotionally sensitive, crying over what others considered trivial. They may be physically sensitive, bothered by tags on shirts or seams on socks. Psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski called these "over-excitabilities."