Brock Eide M.D. M.A. and Fernette Eide M.D.

Slideshare.net/drseide

A DyNaMITE Perspective on Learning and Development in Gifted Children

Understanding Gifted Children

Abnormal versus Pathological

• Gifted children really are “abnormal” in a statistical sense, which sometimes leads to the suspicion of disorder.

• Most parents of gifted children have “moments of doubt.”

• Behavioral rating scales may lend credence to concerns

DSM UsesA Single Perspective...

ObservableBehavior…

Doesn’tconsidercontext.

Inattention• Careless mistakes• Difficulty sustaining attention• Does not seem to listen• Does not follow through on instructions, fails to finish work• Difficulty organizing tasks• Avoids, dislikes, activities requiring sustained mental effort• Often loses things • Often distracted• Often forgetful

Hyperactivity• Fidgets, Squirms• Often leaves seat• Runs about, climbs• Difficulty playing quietly• Often “on the go”• Talks excessively

ADHD (DSM-IV-TR)

Impulsivity• Blurts answers• Difficulty waiting turn• Interrupts or intrudes on others

Either 6 or more of first or second column

Aspergers Syndrome (DSM-IV-TR)

Impairment in Social Interaction: 2 of the following:• Impairment in eye contact, facial expression, gestures• Failure at developmentally appropriate peer relationships• Lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment• Lack of social or emotional reciprocity

Stereotyped Patterns of Behavior: 1 of the following:• Interest – abnormal in intensity or focus• Inflexible adherence to routines or rituals• Stereotyped mannerisms• Preoccupation with parts of objects

Disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or otherNo delay in language, cognitive development, self-help not PDD or schizophrenia

Gifted Traits: A Two-Edged SwordGDC Characteristics of Giftedness

• Reasons Well• Learns Rapidly• Extensive Vocabulary• Long Attention Span (If Interested)• Sensitive• Shows Compassion• Perfectionistic• Intense• Morally Sensitive• Strong Curiosity• Perseverant Own Interests• High Degree of Energy• Prefers Older or Adults• Wide Range of Interests• Questions Authority• Vivid Imagination

Result: Diagnostic “Mission Creep”

• Edward Hallowell, Driven to Distraction

“Once you understand what it’s [ADHD] about, you’ll see it everywhere.”

Aura of tidiness and simplicity creates: soccer field diagnoses

Simple, or Simplistic

“Probably justPDD-NOS”

“Do you think Jennyhas Asperger’s?”

“Rachel, stopPicking flowers And watch the ball!” “She’s inattentive”

“Or maybe hyperfocused”

Gifted Children are Complex and Chaotic…

• Can’t completely plan and control.• Must observe and respond.

If observable behavior is too narrow, What’s a better

perspective from which to view these children?

Key Question

Understanding the Gifted Child:The Five “DYNAMITE”

Perspectives

1. Development 2. Neurobiology (“wiring”)3. Motivation/Interest4. Temperament5. Experience

Gifted Development Is Often Uneven

WISC-III VIQ (VRI) / PIQ (PRI) Discrepancies – 18 Points or MoreControl Sample 17.0 %Gifted Sample 54.7 %

Sweetland, Port Washington School District

Development

Favored Routes of Processing May Change at Different Ages

Development

When performing similar tasks,children use more visual images,

and adults use more precise verbal terms.

Schlagger, WUSTL

Age

Developmental Patterns Differ By SexAuditory and Visual Attention Improve With Time

And Differ by Sex.

Boys Poorer Auditory Attention in Elementary SchoolBehavioral Checklists Don’t Consider Developmental or Gender Differences

Development

Vuontela U Helsinki

Disorders with time frames:• Dyslexia/Dysgraphia• Autism Spectrum Disorders• ADHD • Birth Injury/Sensory Processing Disorder

Development

Different Learning Challenges ProduceDifferent Time Courses for Development

Catts U Kansas

Young GiftedChildren Have

Thinner CorticesBefore the Age of 10

Then Thicker BrainCortices in the Teen

Years

Gifted Attention Matures LaterThe Higher the IQ, the More Delayed

Executive Function (Prefrontal) Maturation

Delays may be especially pronounced for children with sensory processing and motor coordination deficits.

Shaw, NIMH

•Working memory and executive control•Self-knowledge and self-regulation•Experience•Speed and fidelity of connections in the brain

These changes are produced by growth in:

The child of today is not the same as the child of last week or month or year.

Development

Understanding Family PatternsIs Critical Because

Atypical Developers Run in Packs

You’ll never really understand the Beav until you also know Ward, June, and Wally.

Development

Understanding the Gifted Child:The Five “DYNAMITE”

Perspectives

1. Development 2. Neurobiology (“wiring”)3. Motivation/Interest4. Temperament5. Experience

1. Enhanced Sensitivity to Sensory Patterns2. Enhanced Memory Efficiency and Capacity3. Greater Potential for “Creative-Corporate Thinking”4. Enhanced Capacity for Detecting Associations/Analogies

Visual ImaginationfMRI

Hirsch, Sloan Kettering

Neurobiology:Four Common

Characteristics of Gifted Thinkers

Gifted Characteristic 1:Enhanced Sensitivity

More information can filter through the system.

The Upside:

More Vivid Sensing (and Emotion)Results in Better Memory

Buckner, WUSTL

Pictures

Pictures

Sounds

Active Recall

‘Memory’s Echo’

Gifted Brains May Overload

Just, Carnegie MellonReiss, StanfordWilliams, U S Wales

Performing MostDifficult Tower of

London Task

PediatricBipolar

Post-TraumaticStress

Pesenti, Caen

Math ProdigyGreen + Red

Brains on Fire

Downside of Extra SensitivityNeurobiology

• Watch for signs of OVERLOAD• Gifted children are often introverts, allow recharging• Limit environmental distractions and triggers• Frequent high proteins or complex carbs• Provide lots of support and encouragement• Look for the positives: alertness and awareness• Time to develop: Persistence and focus are skills, not chemicals

Implications of Enhanced Sensitivity

Children Often Differ DramaticallyIn Their Preferred Form of

Working and Long Term Memory

Gifted Characteristic 2: Enhanced Memory Efficiency and Capacity

Learning Word ListGazzaniga, Dartmouth

BestMemory

Encoding Efficiency:More Brain Areas Used For Initial

Encoding Means Better MemoryGifted children often skilled in use of encoding strategies.

Strong Working Memory and Attention To Solve Complex Problems

Tower of London Task

Just, Carnegie Mellon

Working Memory and Attention Help Keep Information ‘In Mind’

Attention

Imagery

Downside: DisorganizationThe Highly Active Mind

Is Often…Distracted and Disorganized“Constantly late for school, losing his books, and papers and various other things into which I need not enter– he is so regular in his irregularity in every way that I don’t know what to do.”

--Winston Churchill’s Principal

Einstein’s Office

With Better Memory, MoreLikely to Choke Under Stress

Enhanced Memory + Emotional Sensitivity =Fragile Egos!

Low Pressure High Pressure

High Memory Demand

Low Memory Group High Memory Group

“Choke”

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They’ll Fall

Beilock and CarrMichigan State U

Increased Sensitivity + Enhanced Memory = Cognitive Flypaper

• Gifted education should consist less of “filling up their brains” (AP fallacy) than with linking or organizing what they know...

‘Everything Sticks’

As a Consequence…

The Successful Gifted Creative Corporation

Gifted Characteristic 3:

Greater Potential for Well Balanced

“Creative Corporate” Attention

• Combines Ideas, Sensations, Images• Generates Alternative Approaches• Expands Possibilities and Associations• Prefers ‘The Big Picture’

Chief Creativity Officer – Right Brain

Chief Operations Officer – Left Brain• Oriented to the ‘Bottom Line’• Focusing & Prioritizing Goals• Deals with Detailed Planning and Implementation

Rypma, Rutgers

The Executive “Corporation”Training Creativity & Operations

(Gifted Children Mislabeled with ADD)

If P, then Q.P, therefore Q.

Noveck, Lyon

Novelty

Davis, U Toronto

The Creative Corporation in Our Brains

“Just Left” “Just Right”

What the Right and Left Brains

Think When They See Words

In a partially split brain patient, the printed word “knight” was flashed in such a way that only one hemisphere at a time could see it. • When the word flashed only to the left hemisphere, the patient responded, “It says ‘knight’.”• When the word was flashed only to the right hemisphere, he said, “I have a picture in my mind but I can’t say it… Two fighters in a ring. Ancient wearing uniforms and helmets… on horses trying to knock each other off… Knights?”

Pitfalls of Chief Operation Officers

• “Oh no, I have to think?”• Fails to Consider Alternatives• Misses the Forest for the Trees• Derivative More Than Innovative

Pitfalls of Creativity Directors

• Disorganization• No Priority, No Plan• Unfinished Work• Poor Verbal Communication

Development of the Creative Corporation

Brainstorm with Creativity Director, Plan, Implement, and Monitor Output

with Operations Director

Fluid Reasoning task

Wright et al, March 2008 | Volume 1 | Article 8 | www.frontiersin.org

Number Crunching Math Genius Uses Whole Brain for

‘Frontal Sequential’ Task

Brain Processing of Math Calculating Prodigy

Green: Shared By Math Genius and Non-ExpertsRed: Only Math Genius

Genius used personal memory areas to store tables of squares, cubes, roots,and procedural short cuts to solve problems quickly

* Rules * Personal Memory * Unconscious *

Pesenti, Caen, Belgium

Examples of Successful Corporate Brains

Gifted Thinkers Often Use More Types Of Brain Regions For Particular Tasks

Pesenti, Caen, Belgium

Math Genius Performing Complex Math

Red: Additional AreasIn Math Prodigy

Gifted Characteristic 4: Enhanced Associations

Downside: Too Many Associations• More Associations May Result in Slowed Processing, and delayed recall: more possibilities to choose from.

• Tendency to see problems where others don’t (may see “more connections” to a single link. Tendency to focus on gaps (or potential gaps) in knowledge.

Simple Many Associations

“The servants all thought that young Isaac was foolish,and his mother did not know what to do with him…” From Isaac Newton, The Greatest Scientist of All Time

“I used to take these maths tests which were supposed to be donein one period and it took me not just that period but the next onewhich was a play period and sometimes the one beyond that…”

Roger Penrose, Cambridge Math Professor

The Gifted-Backward Paradox

“My teachers saw me at once backward and precocious, reading books beyond my years and yet at the bottom of the Form. They were offended. They had large resources of compulsion at their disposal, but I was stubborn.” Winston Churchill

Magritte, Picasso, and Bosch – Age 7

Idiosyncratic--Distinctive Vision/Interests

Drawbacks of Enhanced Synthesis/Associations

On Affect and Relationships

Child age 6 who insists on writing “in cursive” though he doesn’t know how

• May result in a highly individualistic and fiercely independent approach and personality

Signature on routine assignment, written in Mayan glyphs – age 10

Desire to find a new and better way to do everything

Drawbacks of Enhanced Synthesis/AssociationsOn Affect and Relationships

• May result in isolation due to difficulty finding someone who “shares the vision”

• May become agitated or depressed when unable to share or communicate their vision

Faust in despair in his lab Eureka!

• Tendency to view knowledge and learning personally• Benefit of the added “oomph” of personal memory and intrinsic motivation, but risk of defensiveness, despair, irritability, offended dignity

On Learning Style and Preferences

Implications of Enhanced Capacity for Associations

Understanding the Gifted Child:The Five “DYNAMITE”

Perspectives

1. Development 2. Neurobiology (“wiring”)3. Motivation/Interest4. Temperament5. Experience

Perspective 3: Motivation and Interest

Motivation is especially important to consider in gifted children, whose interests and self-direction may be especially strong.

“Where my reason, imagination, or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.”

- Winston Churchill

Motivation

Gifted Interests

• Interest may be unusual in its focus, intensity, or exclusivity for age• May promote independence and/or isolation• May show unusual hunger for depth or novelty• May find repetition unusually excruciating• May be hard to engage outside of area of personal interest• May be very sensitive to the notion that they're not already perfect• Especially likely to promote concerns about “disease”

“I’m going to measure polar icecap thickness myself!”

Motivating Power of Novelty and Puzzles‘The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that’s most interesting…’ - Richard Feynman

Motivation

Novelty-SeekingIs Not necessarilya Negative Trait:

Gifted Children OftenPractice Serial Expertise

Esthetic/Metaphysical/Spiritual Interests

Sense of beauty, wonder, mystery, or awe: dinosaurs, ancient civilizations, mythology, biology (flowers, shells, animals, marine biology), physics/astronomy, robotics, building/engineering, mineralogy, fantasy literature, fantasy games or role play, medievalism, creative writing, drama, art, sailing, military history, politics…

M & I

“To really understand animals and their behavior youmust have an aesthetic appreciation of an animal’sbeauty. This endows you with the patience to look atthem long enough to see something.”

- Konrad Lorenz, Nobel Laureate

MotivationEnjoyment of Beauty Drives Persistence

Narrow orIntense Interests

• Tendency to view all narrow or intense interests as signs autism spectrum disorders or OCD, even when the interest itself not especially unusual or destructive.

• Careful understanding of motivations and interests especially important for gifted children, whose interests are often more narrow, focused, and intense than peers

Motivation and Interest

Unhealthy Interests

• Addiction, compulsion, barriers to other goods such as sleep, supper, relationships, or learning.

• vast majority of cases, child simply pursuing an interest with a depth or intensity not usually seen among similarly-aged children.

Motivation and Interest

Why Children Give Up

• Struggling children often asked for unmakeable leaps.• When children fail to achieve a critical ratio of success,

motivation plummets and they simply stop trying. Huge problem for handwriting, math, reading, sports…

Motivation and Interest

Understanding the Gifted Child:The Five “DYNAMITE”

Perspectives

1. Development 2. Neurobiology (“wiring”)3. Motivation/Interest4. Temperament5. Experience

Perspective 4: Temperament

• Temperament is a child’s “emotional disposition”; style, manner, or “flavor” of responding behaviorally and emotionally to the world.

• Temperament is part of a child’s personality, which also includes humor, intelligence, interests, and talents.

Particular “Gifted” Traits• Intensity• Sensitivity• Introversion• DistractibilitySecondary Profiles• Fierce Independence• Highly personal approach/attitude to learning• Auto-didacticism• Long span, “hyperfocus”, • Multi-task with novelty• Sensitivity to criticism• Perfectionism (sensitivity, intensity, negativity)

Temperament

“Difficult” Temperamental Traits

• Negative withdrawal reactions to new people and situations• Slow adaptability to change• Intensity • Negative mood• Especially high or low physical activity/energy• Irregular biological functions• Sensitivity (sensory and emotional)• Low task persistence, Distractibility• The more of these characteristics a child has, and the more

strongly they are expressed, the more likely the child will have behavioral or emotional problems.

Temperament

Intense and Independent

• Cato the Younger was one of the great heroes of the Roman Republic, renowned for courage stubbornness, tenacity, and moral virtue.• When a visiting friend of his father’s (Pompaedius) playfully asked the young Cato what he thought of his latest political plans, Cato refused to praise them, even when Pompaedius hung him out a window by his heels and threatened to drop him.

Intensity: Special Risks• Anxiety• Depression• OCD

Temperament

What Adds Up to Trouble

• Not simply traits, but how traits interact with environment:

•

Temperament

Predisposition + Provocation (+/- “Factor X”) = Response

“Factor X”Self-Control: Part of Growing Up

• Normal part of maturation and character development.• Children with similar natural temperaments can behave

in remarkably different ways due to differences in self-control.

• If you can train a sea slug, you can train a child.

• Predisposition + Provocation + Self-Control • = Response

Temperament

Warning!

• Prolonged mismatches between child’s temperament and environment (including academic demands and the expectations of parents, teachers, or the child him- or herself) can cause behavioral adjustment reactions, such as fall in self-esteem, aggression, oppositional behaviors, underachievement, anxiety, depression, etc.

• Different temperaments have different risks and susceptibilities.

Temperament

Further Reading on

Temperament

Temperament

Understanding the Gifted Child:The Five “DYNAMITE”

Perspectives

1. Development 2. Neurobiology (“wiring”)3. Motivation/Interest4. Temperament5. Experience

Perspective 5: Experience—The “Art of

Autobiography”

• Not simply biographical, but autobiographical. • i.e., Not simply an objective record of past events, but

the child’s interpretation of and responses to those events.

• interpretive style means autobiographical narrative may or may not be dominated by events that seem important to others.

Martin Seligman: • Pessimistic style: attributes failure to permanent, pervasive, personal factors, powerless to change, see failure as inevitable and deserved punishment.• Optimistic style: attributes failure to temporary factors, specific to particular event rather than permanent or universal, and care can be avoided in the future.

Two Key Contrasting FrameworksFor Interpreting Failure

Experience

Altering Experience by Altering Interpretations

• Overly negative interpretive framework: risk for a “cycle of failure”

• Need to understand self-defeating behavior, and learn new ways of responding and interpreting experience

Experience

Although temperament heritable, optimism can be learnedOptimism is an issue of mental and physical health.Cognitive behavioral therapy.Negative style of interpretation correlated with shorter life, less resiliency, less productivity.Positive style associated with longer life, greater productivity, and greater personal satisfaction.

The Pluses of A Positive OutlookExperience

• Perfectionism is an interpretive stance or posture.• Common among gifted children.• Sensitivity, intensity, and negativity.

Sensitivity and Perfectionism

• Drive for improvement valuable.• Self-loathing, extreme defensiveness, and pessimism are not.

“Practically perfect in every way.”

• Danger of viewing education as the process of learning never to be wrong, versus learning from experience.

Dealing Productively With Failure

•Edison: “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt started is a step forward.”

Dealing Productively With Failure

• The importance of roadblocks for the gifted student.

• Learn to juggle with bean bags, not machetes. Lower the cost of failure. Chances to experiment on pass/fail projects.

Understanding the Gifted Child:The Five Perspectives

1. Development 2. Brain Basics (Neurological “wiring”)3. Temperament4. Experience5. Motivation/Interest

-or –Viewing the Gifted Child As a Promise,

Not a Disease

Brock Eide M.D. M.A. and Fernette Eide M.D.

Neurolearning.com

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