Common Characteristics of Highly Gifted Individuals
- An extraordinary speed in processing information
- A rapid and thorough comprehension of the whole idea or concept
- An unusual ability to perceive essential elements and underlying structures and patterns in relationships and ideas
- A need for precision in thinking and expression, resulting in need to correct errors and argue extensively
- An ability to relate a broad range of ideas and synthesize commonalities among them
- A high degree of ability to think abstractly that develops early
- Appreciation of complexity; finding myriad alternative meanings in even the most simple issues or problems
- An ability to learn in an integrative, intuitively nonlinear manner
- An extraordinary degree of intellectual curiosity
- An unusual capacity for memory
- A long concentration span
- A fascination with ideas and words
- An extensive vocabulary
- An ability to perceive many sides of an issue
- Argumentativeness
- Advanced visual and motor skills
- An ability from an early age to think in metaphors and symbols and a preference for doing so
- An ability to visualize models and systems
- An ability to learn in great intuitive leaps
- Highly idiosyncratic interpretations of events
- An awareness of detail
- An unusual intensity and depth of feeling
- A high degree of emotional sensitivity
- Highly developed morals and ethics and early concern for moral and existential issues
- Unusual and early insight into social and moral issues
- An ability to empathetically understand and relate to ideas and other people
- An extraordinarily high energy level
- A need for the world to be logical and fair
- A conviction of correctness of personal ideas and beliefs
Excerpted From:
Excerpt from Growing Up Gifted: Developing the Potential of Children at Home and at School, by B. Clark, 2008 edition, p. 83.
© 2008, Merrill, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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