Julia is a second grader who reads at a sixth grade level. She listens and enjoys books on tape that are at a high school level on a variety of topics such as earth science, evolution and astrology. For her class project she chooses ‘The Process that Resulted in the Formation of the Rings of Saturn’, a subject she knows everything about. Yet a week before the project is due, she’s having a complete meltdown. Why? It’s because of the Asynchrony going on inside of her. She knows all of the information as well as any high school science student but her writing skills and her expressive ability are not nearly as developed and she has no way of getting this information out the way she wants to. We believe that gifted children ‘have it made’ academically when in fact they are often full of brilliant ideas that are trapped inside of their minds. This can often lead to anxiety, depression or a disinterest in school.

There are some common myths about gifted children that need to be dispelled:

• Gifted students are all high achievers.
• Gifted students do not need help. If they are really gifted, they can manage on their own.
• Gifted students have fewer problems than others because their intelligence and abilities somehow exempt them from the hassles of daily life.
• Gifted students are self-directed; they know where they are heading.
• The social and emotional development of the gifted student is at the same level as his or her intellectual development.
• The gifted student's family always prizes his or her abilities.
• Gifted students can accomplish anything they put their minds to. All they have to do is apply themselves.
• Gifted students are naturally creative and do not need encouragement.
• Gifted children are easy to raise.
• Gifted children are a welcome addition to any classroom.

If you have a gifted child, the myths don’t surprise you because you observe the opposite of these behaviors everyday. You may also recognize the following truths about gifted children:

• Gifted students are often perfectionistic and idealistic. They may equate achievement and grades with self-worth, which sometimes leads to fear of failure and interferes with achievement.
• Gifted students may experience heightened sensitivity to their own expectations and those of others, resulting in guilt over achievements or grades perceived to be low.
• Gifted students are asynchronous. Their chronological age, social, physical, emotional, and intellectual development may all be at different levels.
• Some gifted children are "mappers" (sequential learners), while others are "leapers" (spatial learners). Leapers may not know how they got a "right answer." Mappers may get lost in the steps leading to the right answer.
• Gifted students may know more than half the curriculum before the school year begins which can result in low achievement and boredom.
• Gifted children are problem solvers and big-world thinkers. They benefit from working on open-ended, interdisciplinary problems; for example, how to solve a school problem involving a shortage of resources.
• Gifted students often refuse to work for grades alone.

Gifted students often think abstractly and with such complexity that they may need help with concrete things like studying and test-taking skills. They may not be able to select one answer in a multiple choice question because they see how all the answers might be correct.

Gifted Children are ranked in similarity by achieving an IQ of 120 all the way up to amassing more than 200 IQ points on standardized testing. As a group, gifted children are intensely sensitive to feelings and care strongly about life’s problems; they are empathetic and have great moral concern. But also as a group, they can have Learning Disabilities such as Attention Deficit Disorder, Social Skills deficits, language disorders, Dysgraphia, Auditory Processing problems and Visual-spatial deficits.

The facts on the coexistence of Learning Disabilities in Gifted children come from research conducted over the last two decades. Here is a sampling of that research.

Gifted Children with ADD/ADHD:

• Goldstein and Goldstein (1998) reported that children with AD/HD tend to fall at the high end of intellectual functioning. Chae, Kim and Noh (2003) found that 9.4 % of gifted children have been diagnosed with AD/HD and Lovecky and Silverman (1998) claim 10% of the 3000 gifted children they have treated have AD/HD.
• Barkley (1997) described the delayed internalized speech mechanisms in AD/HD children. Internalized speech is the voice that keeps our world organized and keeps us aware of rules. Children who are less able to use internalized speech have problems in:
• Planning and Goal Setting
• Self-direction and self-instruction
• Changing courses with behavior and problem solving
• Learning to generalize rules over all situations
• Persisternce in difficult tasks if the first try results in failure

• T.E. Brown (2000) described emotional control as necessary in order to pay attention. His studies found that AD/HD children these children react first and think second. They don’t tolerate frustration as easily, don’t recognize their own feelings and they often accept their negative self-talk as truth.

Gifted Children with Visual and Auditory Deficits:

• Visual-Spatial learners and thinkers are often quite intelligent. West (1997) describes this ability by listing history’s great minds and points to many great leaders, scientists, inventors and poets. Silverman (2002) agrees that they also have creative language ability but lack language fluency. West in his same 1997 article talks about the pitfalls of being a visual-spatial learner. He concludes that VSL have more difficulty with auditory processing and dyslexia. Silverman saw that VSL have increase learning problems caused by Central Auditory Processing Disorders. This means poor ability in processing sequential auditory material, poor auditory memory, and difficulty with auditory attention to directions, trouble focusing on the exact meaning in complex sentences and trouble prioritizing auditory information as relevant or irrelevant.
• Silverman (2002) explained how children who are Auditory-Sequential Learners may have strengths in using words and logic, have great skills in memorization and categorization tasks, be above average in convergent thinking and recalling conversations, they also will struggle. The weaknesses of an Auditory-Sequential Learner are: Reading maps, deducing how far away something might be, remembering what they see, using inductive means to problem solve, and struggling with mental rotation tasks.

Gifted Children and Other Learning Issues:

• Asynchrony is the newest buzz word for Gifted/LD children. Asynchrony occurs when gifted children do not have the technical skills to translate their incredible feelings or thoughts into a medium. They have creative ideas but they don’t produce. This leads to frustration. Kranowitz (1998) devoted a whole book to this subject called The Out-Of-Sync Child. Asynchrony affects emotions too. The child may be able to ask the ‘big world questions’ but be unable emotionally to handle the answer.
• And because gifted children feel so intensely, with a less mature, decreased ability to process that sensation, they may exhibit Sensory Integration Disorders. Dabrowski (1964), Mendaglio (1995) and Lind (2000) describe ‘overexcitabilities’ as features of the exceptionally creative child. The question to ask as a parent is, Does your child’s reactions to sensory experiences limit his ability to do things that are meaningful or important? Children could be tactile defensive and treat a touch as painful, remain overly-picky about their clothing or food, have delays in handwriting or other fine motor skills.
• Some gifted children are described as little professors. They can spit out information for hours on subjects but with little emotion and no clear innovation or imagination . They are precocious but lack flexibility in their thinking. Wing(1981) first described Asperger’s Syndrome as a social-language problem. Asperger’s Syndrome until recently was diagnosed in more boys than girls, at a ratio of four to one. Ehler’s and Gillberg (1993) reduce that ratio to two boys to one girl. Rosenn (2002) links the incidence of AD/HD to Asperger’s Syndrome as a high incidence, occurring in 60% to 70% of his Asperger Patients.

There are numerous resources and websites that envelop the subject of Gifted/LD children. A book that I like and that I’ve gotten a great deal information from is, Gifted Children with Learning Disabilities by Dr. Linda Silverman. She has a gifted center in Colorado that evaluates your child’s ‘giftedness’ and helps determine a program for them. This is quite expensive and not feasible for most families.

The Davidson Institute has a wealth of information on their website at www.davidsoninstitute.com. Other websites are www.gifted-children.com, www.gifted.org. www.thegateschool.org, and www. CEC.org.

As a parent of a gifted child, you should find the local learning programs that have accelerated classes for gifted children and those that can evaluate IQ, academic ability and learning disabilities in order to help develop a successful plan for your exceptional child.