Dr. Gail Gross says gifted children need to be identified.
Does your child have the gift?
Parents should look for early signs, expert recommends
By JEAN NASH JOHNSON
Staff Writer
All Parents believe their children are exceptional, but how do you really know? And when you know, how do you nurture their special abilities?
Pay attention, and then help your kids discover their gifts, says Dr. Gail Gross, one of the state's leading experts in educational development and behavior.
The Houston radio talk-show host was in Dallas last week to promote awareness of talented and gifted children.
"We have to identify these children because these are the people who will be creating the next serum or the next cure for cancer," she says. "If they slip through the cracks, we run the risk of producing a slew of underachievers."
Parents can look for early signs. "Gifted kids often are sensitive, and they understand advanced topics early. Many can show a keen sense of humor as early as 2."
It's not always easy to see a child's gifts, Dr. Gross says.
Her own gifted son, Sean, was verbally slow, and Dr. Gross admits that she feared he was retarded.
"His speech was garbled and he was trying to talk and I couldn't understand," she says. " I took him to our pediatrician and he assured me there was nothing wrong with Sean and that I should let him mature at his own speed."
Gifted children very often think in sentences, but they can't yet speak in sentences, Dr. Gross says. It wasn't until kindergarten that Sean's abilities were identified after he scored the highest grade on a standardized test.
"He could not read, but he scored the highest grade on the test. I was a teacher at the time, and I thought he was slow."
They are not necessarily going to be the all-A student. A student who excels in math and science may not be interested in music or art, she explains. The challenge is to know how to channel their energy, she says.
"Your child comes home and says, 'I want to play the violin.' If I say to that child, 'All right, if I buy you a violin, you're going to play it for the rest of your life,' that's not good."
"But if I say, 'OK, honey, let's rent a violin and see if you like it.
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If you like it, we'll keep with it,' you're taking the pressure off and allowing your child at his own pace to be the next [Itzhak] Perlman."
Parents and teachers need to work together, she says, keeping life enriching in the classroom and the home. Once a child is identified, it shouldn't stop there. Dr. Gross favors a more humanistic child-centered environment for gifted children.
"These children have to be homogeneously grouped," she says. "Think about it. If your IQ is 30 percent higher than a friend's or colleague's, you have to synthesize what you are thinking so that the person can understand what you are saying."
Gifted students need the space to develop their divergent and creative thinking, she says. These students are bored in a traditional classroom because they want to think outside the box and avoid the mundane.
It's challenging for teachers because the commitment from the education system is not there, she says. The lack of money and a culture that doesn't like people who are different create hurdles when arguing for more attention to this area.
"I spoke at the Texas Association for the Talented and Gifted conference in San Antonio last month and all the teachers, principals and counselors I met with had the same complaint. 'We don't have the money to address this area.'"
It's easy to see how a child might go from having a high IQ to being a
dropout, she says. "Bright kids can coast quite easily. If they are not identified early and grouped with students like themselves, they will fall behind in curriculum requirements.
"Remember, these are the kids who are bored easily, so if there are no challenges they will tune out."
Often they don't realize the importance of making good grades until it's too late, Dr. Gross says. That explains why many of them end up in vocational training.
Dr. Gross sees hopeful signs. "The White House has placed education in the forefront and our president is from Texas. Now there's a national focus and the spotlight is on us. We have to take the lead in valuing education."
An important first step has been made, she says. U.S. Education Secretary Dr. Rod Paige and first lady Laura Bush have asked Dr. Gross to help develop a national education program to develop the cognitive abilities of toddlers.
The government's commitment to a program that will study behavior at such an early developmental stage is a positive sign, she says.
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