Customer Reviews

Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children: What Do We Know?

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The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children assembles terrific team of well-respected professionals in gifted, and compiles a great set of essays on the social and emotional aspects of growing up gifted in today's world, complete with the research references to back up thier facts. Authors including Neihart, Rogers, Gross, Silverman, Reis, Robinson, and more... the contributors read like a who's who of gifted education today.

Everyone who works with, plays with, and parents gifted children should read this book. Topics include acceleration, the exceptionally gifted, Dabrowski's overexcitabilties, perfectionism, underacheivment, depression (does it really occur more, or less, in the gifted population?). Special populations are not overlooked, including female, male, gay, lesbian and bi-sexual, african-american, gifted / learning disabled and gifted / ADHD students. The book concludes with topics of parenting, counseling, and career counseling for gifted students.

With all the research-based information, the Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children is still readable and enjoyable. And it's FULL of research-proven techniques and strategies for dealing with the social and emotional aspects of growing up as a gifted child.

This book should be read by everyone in education, gifted, or parenting a gifted child!

The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children. What Do We Know? Edited by Maureen Niehart, Sally M. Reis, Nancy M. Robinson, Sidney M. Moon, A Publication of the National Association of Gifted Children, Washington, D.C.: Prufrock Press, Inc., 2002
This publication of the National Association for Gifted Children compiles 24 chapters written by leading researchers of the social-emotional development of gifted children. Chapters explore subjects including perfectionism, underachievement, depression, delinquency, risk and resilience, peer pressure and social acceptance among gifted students. It also addresses specific populations within the community of gifted youth. Categories include the special concerns of girls, of boys, students with learning disabilities or AD/HD, the creatively gifted, and gifted children who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Chapters review and present research relevant to each topic. Authors carefully distinguish fact from fiction regarding the social-emotional and psychological characteristics of gifted children. They stress, for example, that there is little research to suggest that gifted students are psychologically or emotionally vulnerable because of their gifts. However, gifted students may be at risk because of the frequent disparity between their cognitive abilities and their educational program. This book is a comprehensive resource, appropriate for both parents and educators.

I was hoping for a research based plain-speaking guide to helping my own highly gifted son. What I found in this book was a dense theory/research based textbook. As a fairly gifted adult and a high school English teacher, I was able to wade through the verbage, but it was no pleasant task. If you're looking for a textbook, this one is fine, but if you want some real-world advice, keep looking.

It's a good book, but rather dry in its presentation. However, being primarily a bringing together and summarizing of published research in this topic, it is an invaluable reference for anyone wanting to really know what are the substantiated findings with respect to gifted children's social and emotional development. I bought it to better understand my daughter, and I am glad I did. But if someone is looking for straightforward parenting tips in dealing with these kids, then some other book may be more to the point. Overall, for me, it is an excellent book with some useful info not commonly found elsewhere.

This book contains a wealth of information about numerous studies done on various facets of gifted education. For those who are data driven (and that certainly is the world we are living in these days) they will find a glut of statistics - many usable and even more of them quotable - to back up theories about what is effective for gifted students. For those trying to come up to speed on gifted education, this offers a crash course in the available research, but as with most books of this nature, it's pretty dry.

I am reading this book for a graduate class. I think it is very informative and well written. The chapters are easy to understand, thorough, useful, and succinct. I recommend it to teachers, counselors, physicians, school administrators, or parents of gifted children who want to understand this group of students better.

Do you enjoy "academese"? A page like a minefield of footnotes! (And the writers want more! More research! More funding!) To me, it's like listening to politicians seeking office, max gyrations, min substance. Do you enjoy the careful pleasures of political correctness? I never did. If you can substitute a word like "supermodel" for "talented youth", and a paragraph still works, what does this mean?

How I long for a unified work on giftedness by one brilliant consciousness, instead of the short-sighted, contradictory, cobbled-together chapter mode. Let me ask you something: If you are a high-I.Q. person, do you accept "research" from non-gifted "experts" as relevant to your life? Does it not exacerbate one's existential sense of irony? I suppose this book, like all the rest, is not intended for the high-I.Q. parent of the high-I.Q. child, but rather for, say, the average public-school counsellor of the mildly-gifted kid.

On the other hand, I never regret reading anything, and I particularly liked info on Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration. Next time, I'll pick up something by Dabrowski.

Here's an example of the fun to be had within these pages: "What are needed are controlled studies that compare depressed gifted children with gifted children who are not depressed and studies that compare quantitative and qualitative differences in the course and outcome of depression between gifted and nongifted youth."

Fun, fun, fun!

I bought this for a class. It was so easy to read. The chapters are laid out in a very logical way and are short and interesting. All of the information is useful for anyone who works with or has contact with Gifted Children.