Why identify gifted children?

One argument for the need to identify gifted children is that they tend to have greater difficulties.
For instance, one might think that their higher abilities and specialist interests could lead to their
experiencing social isolation, and a mismatch of their talents with normal school work could lead
to boredom and frustration.
However, an early classic study by Terman (19259) which followed the long-term
development of a number of gifted children found that they were generally socially competent
and successful in a range of different spheres. Freeman (1991), however, felt that Terman had
selected relatively more privileged children (the sons and daughters of university lecturers) and
that gifted children in general might have greater problems. To test this idea, she studied 70
schoolchildren who were identified by their parents as gifted (they were on the register of
Britains National Association of Gifted Children), subsequently following up their progress 10
years later. This group of children certainly appeared to have emotional and social difficulties,
tending to be very sensitive, lonely and miserable. They were also generally bored and frustrated
by much of the work that they experienced in school and had problems with later education.
However, when Freeman included two other groups of pupils with either equally high or merely
average intelligence, she found no relationship between high IQ and adjustment. This indicates
that, rather than high IQ, the target gifted childrens problems were more related to the fact that
they were in a group which had been identified by their parents.
Marshall (1995) subsequently used a larger and less selective sample of 453 adults drawn
from the Mensa membership list (Mensa is a society for people with high IQ) and found that
although some of these individuals did have serious emotional problems, none of these problems
was associated with their giftedness. The educational experiences of the majority of these did not
appear to have been significantly different from those of normal mainstream pupils. The children
studied were more concerned about enjoying being children, blending in and being one of the
gang, to give much thought to how intelligent they were. A subsequent review of international
evidence by Freeman (1998) has confirmed these findings, with many studies showing that
intelligent children tend to be more stable and emotionally mature than other children their age.

Additional help for gifted children

In Britain, giftedness is not taken as being a special educational need that might require the type
of additional resources referred to in Chapter 12. In the United States, however, there is
legislation to ensure that such children are identified and that they receive additional support,
either as pull-outwithdrawal for work in groups with children of similar abilitiesor by
attendance at special schools for gifted children. In both countries, pupils can be accelerated,
by being placed in groups above their age level, and most secondary schools have upper sets for
the most able pupils with a more advanced curriculum.
Although high-ability pupils do make more academic progress if they are given such
additional help, a review of many studies by Kulik and Kulik (1992) found that such help is
usually modest and is associated mainly with following a higher-level curriculum, rather than
contact with other able pupils. Accelerating pupils by one or two years can provide greater
benefits, but doing so often creates significant difficulties when they find themselves in groups

where other children have more advanced social awareness and maturity. Even specialist schools
appear to have only limited effectiveness; in one study Subotnik et al. (1993) carried out a
review of the life attainments of 210 individuals who had attended a New York school for
children with very high intelligence levels (average IQ 157). Subotnik et al. found that despite
the high abilities of the children and the intensive nature of their education, in later life they did
not generally achieve particular eminence, with most preferring moderate success in a chosen
profession.
As will be outlined in Chapter 6, teachers and schools appear to have only limited
differential effects on children. Above an IQ level of about 120 (achieved by 9 per cent of the
population), original or high-level creative achievements appear to be strongly determined by
personality and motivation, which are not easily affected by the normal educational process. It
may be important to ensure an optimum match between the curriculum and a high-achieving
childs abilities, but in this sense approaches to meet the educational needs of the gifted child are
not different from those which should be applied to all pupils.
There is a wide range of pupil abilities, achievements and interests, and gifted children
are part of this general continuum, with very similar social and emotional needs. In terms of what
should realistically be done to help children with higher levels of ability, Freeman (1998)
concludes that rather than identify and provide for a select group of pupils, it would be better for
schools to set up a range of optional extension activities which would be open to all children,
according to their interests, as well as their specific abilities.

Social roles and expectations

Chapter 7 described how behavior in school can be seen as the result of a set of norms
and scripts, with pupils and teachers acting to present their concepts of their own self in social
situations. In school there are role expectations for both pupils and teachers, and these determine
a great deal of normal behavior. The role of the teacher is to control, organize and to exercise
authority. Pupils will normally show obedience to the teachers authority, and conformity to the
norms of the normal classroom situation. Normal behavior can be seen as the process of
generally following these expectations, with scripts which govern the processes that happen in
different situations in school.
In lessons, pupils are expected to enter the class, sit down at their desks, attend to the
teacher and get on with their work. Teachers are expected to complement this behavior by
organizing and directing the children. Even informal times of the day such as breaks have their
own expectations, with limits on where children can go and the type of games that they can get
involved in. It is not surprising that problems with non-teaching supervisors are particularly
likely at these times. They are unlikely to be perceived by the pupils as having the same authority
role as teachers, but have the role responsibility of directing and managing behavior, which leads
to role conflict.
Hargreaves (1967) has shown that problem behaviors in school can often be seen as a
general social process, with pupils acting against the organisations norms in order to meet the
alternative norms of their own peer group. Meeting the norms of the peer group can lead to
challenges and activities which are deliberately in opposition to school rules and expectations of
behavior. For example, they may subvert the schools dress codes or, at the extreme, actively
seek punishment to confirm to their peers that they are in opposition to the formal rules.
The implications of such explanations are that behavior will be more positive when
pupils perceive themselves to be part of the social structures of school and identify with

groupings such as their own tutor group or house. They are also more likely to feel
commitment when they are part of the processes of decision making and in establishing rules and
regulations. These approaches are incorporated in a number of techniques to be described in
Chapter 11, such as circle time and the no blame approach, which depend on developing prosocial behavior through group activities. Cooperative involvement by pupils out of school can be
particularly effective in setting up relationships which transfer well to the normal school
situation.
A review of a number of studies by Hattie et al. (1997) found that the shared experience
of going on an outward bound type of activity resulted among other things in significant
improvements in pupils behavior when they were back in school, with an overall long-term
effect size of 0.51.

Deindividuation
Deindividuation happens when individuals lose their sense of personal identity. This is
likely to happen when people are part of a crowd, or when they feel anonymous. People can, for
instance, lose their sense of individual responsibility if they believe that others will not be able to
attribute their actions to them. Behavior in such situations and experiences can be understood
from the perspective of people becoming free from the normal roles and scripts which govern
what they do. Such situations can sometimes lead to impulsive and aggressive behavior, if there
is even a low level of motivation to behave in this way. Zimbardo (1970), for instance, found that
subjects would follow instruction and deliver greater electric shocks to an innocent victim when
they were part of a group or when they were wearing disguises (the shocks and the victim were
actually pretence).
School classes involve relatively large groups of pupils, and in secondary schools in
particular there can be relatively high levels of anonymity. These circumstances are likely to lead
to a decreased sense of responsibility by pupils and a tendency to join in with class misbehavior.
A key technique to prevent such deindividuation and its consequences is for a teacher to be able
to identify individual pupils as soon as possible, and to make sure that they are aware that the
teacher knows them as individuals. Marland (1993) describes practical ways of achieving this,
which include insisting on regular seating positions with a key kept by the teacher and regular
rehearsal of childrens names in the early stages with a new class. Incidentally, a useful technique
here is to use the mnemonic strategies mentioned in Chapter 2. For example, a pupils key visual
features can be identified and linked with the pupils name in some wayfor example, the name
of a child called Paul could be remembered if he happened to look a bit like Sir Paul McCartney.
It also seems probable that the use of a standard school uniform could deindividuate
pupils and that it might therefore be best to allow individual dress styles. However, such a policy
might also encourage the use of clothing as the signals for subgroup membership with a general
ethos counter to that of the school. The best option might be to allow some variation but with
limits to the more extreme and challenging forms of clothing.

Bystander apathy
Aggression also becomes more likely when children who are not directly involved fail to
act to help an evident victim. Maines and Robinson (1991) consider that such bystander apathy is
particularly important in the case of bullying and must be tackled when one is trying to reduce
such behavior problems. Bystander apathy has been extensively studied, since it can seem rather
surprising that people will fail to act helpfully in such situations. Latane and Darley (1970)
emphasise that individuals appear to carry out an evaluation of the situation, in terms of whether
there is a real problem and whether they could actually do something to help. Piliavin et al.

(1981) also found that people will weigh up the costs and benefits of helping. On the one hand,
helping another pupil who is being bullied might result in social approval from adults and a boost
to ones self-esteem.
However, becoming involved could also expose a child to social pressures from other
children and perhaps some physical danger. At the very least it would involve some
inconvenience, for instance if the child had to be involved in reporting the incident. Owing to
such concerns, children in school will often fail to act and may then seek to rationalise their nonaction in order to protect their own self-esteem. They may do this by saying that it was the
victims own fault, or that the incident was not really as serious as it seemed.
As already described, being part of a group can also lead to a decrease in individual
responsibility and assumptions that somebody else will act. People also tend to conform and take
cues for appropriate roles and actions from others round them. Such conformity can have the
effect of inhibiting action unless children become aware of their own responsibilities and the
need for action. This aspect is part of some approaches to reducing bullying, and it has been
shown that when students are aware of the processes of bystander apathy they are much more
likely to help others in need.

The social skills perspective

Some children can have behavioral difficulties that appear to be due to problems with
social interaction. These may involve an inability to structure social exchanges, with the normal
turn taking and reciprocity that the structuring of social exchanges entails. Some children appear
to misread social cues and situations, causing faulty peer group entry, misperception of peer
group norms, inappropriate responses to provocation, and misinterpretation of pro-social
interactions. Inappropriate understanding and responses may lead to aggression, or alternatively
to withdrawal and subsequent rejection by the normal peer group. This can in its own turn lead to
membership of more deviant peer groups where children with such problems are even less likely
to develop positive interaction skills.
Since many behavioral difficulties are present before school and persist when pupils are
there, it seems likely that some children fail to develop social skills as a result of faulty social
experiences in the home. Observations by Patterson (1982) in the homes of some families have
shown that childrens pro-social acts are often ignored or responded to inappropriately. Also, the
parental models for positive behaviors can often be limited, with an emphasis on inconsistent,
restricted and punitive interactions with children. Through poor supervision, children can also
frequently be intruded upon by others in the family, which can lead them to develop reactive and
coercive behaviors such as shouting and hitting as a form of substitute social skill (see The
home, below).
Studies of pupils in school by Dodge et al. (1986) have found that many children who are
ignored, neglected or rejected by their peers are unhappy and lacking in social skills, and Dunn
and McGuire (1992) found that such children are particularly at risk of continued maladaptive
behavior such as aggression, disruption and hypersensitivity. It seems likely that an effective way
to help some children with such behavioral difficulties would be to focus on the development of
specific social interactions skills, and some of these approaches are described in Chapter 11.

techniques for managing behavior

Social skills training and social manipulation
If childrens behavioral problems appear to be related to social difficulties, it seems
reasonable to train up specific abilities or to modify childrens social situation in some way. In an
approach devised by Spence (1995), childrens abilities can first be analysed and then
programmes run to work on areas of deficit. Thes areas of deficit can include non-verbal abilities
such as making appropriate eye contact and having good posture and good listening skills.
Roleplay situations can also be used to structure and deal with problem situations such as
teasing, bullying, or confrontation by an adult (to mode some pupil-teacher interactions).
A review evaluation of a wide range of research in this area by Ogilvy (1994) found that
children can make progress with these specific abilities but that they are unlikely to transfer these
skills to other situations. Most research on the outcomes of social skills training has failed to
demonstrate any changes in childrens normal social functioning, which may be partly due to the
rigidity of peer expectations and stereotypes. When social development is carried out in a
meaningful social context, it is much more likely to have a generalised impact. In one
programme by Bierman and Furman (1984), children with social difficulties were trained in
conversational skills, either individually or as part of a task with peers which required
coordination to achieve a superordinate goal. Children who were trained individually showed no
transfer of conversational skills, whereas those who had developed them in a group situation
continued to use them in other situations. It is, however, rare for social training to be carried out
in this way, and the evidence generally indicates that there will be little transfer of skills unless
considerable effort is put into developing their use in a childs normal social context.
Difficulties with social organisation in the classroom can be elicited by the sociogram
technique outlined in Chapter 10 (Figure 10.3). The technique might make it possible to reduce
the impact of key disruptive individuals who have a disproportionate effect on the class through
their range of contacts, perhaps by moving their seating position or changing their teaching
group for some lessons. The converse is also true: socially isolated children might benefit from
setting up greater contact for them with other children who are likely to be open to social
involvement. This could be achieved by setting up small adult-directed games groups during
break times or by seating children together. However, in a five-year longitudinal study, Coie and
Dodge (1983) found the social dynamics of classrooms was a complex process, with many
problem situations resolving naturally. Social status also tended to change over time without any
intervention, which indicates that such social engineering maybe difficult to achieve.

Circle Time
Circle Time is a specific technique described by Bliss et al. (1995) which aims to promote
prosocial behavior and positive climates in schools by means of regular class work with groups
of children. The actual session involves an interactive process which has firm ground rules
whereby children (and staff) are required to listen to each other with respect and to take turns in
speaking. Children can, for instance, each identify positive aspects about other group members,
or commit themselves to specific ways in which they could help a child who is having
difficulties.
A complete circle of turns can lead on to children working in small groups on key social
areas which they can then bring back to the main group. As with general counselling approaches,
the emphasis is on commitment to and resolution of problems, but this time in the form of the
overall social group.

Sumber: Long, Martin. 2000, The Psychology of Education. London: RoutledgeFalmer