Development in Gifted Children: Different in Many Ways

Fun scatterplots to illustrate some of the ways!

Early in my consulting career with gifted families, my natural inclination (combined with my doctoral training) to explore, theorize, and try to figure things out about high intelligence and its affects, led me to do a fun little investigation.

Design process for the Ruf Estimates of Levels of Giftedness[i]

In 1999 I developed an intake form called “Developmental Milestones.” Parents who came to my new consultancy gave me all the information I thought I might need to figure them and their children out so that I could help them with their schooling and other issues related to their child being ahead of most children in their age groups. I ended up later omitting many of the questions after I analyzed the usefulness — or not — of some of the questions. In the meantime, though, I used a scatterplot design to see what I was getting from the responses.

Might As Well Share Some Results

I did a lot of public speaking. I needed a way to summarize what I was learning and these posts now come from that part of my sharing.

As I gathered early milestones and behaviors of gifted children for my first book, I did a little “side” study before the book was completed. My research for Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind (2005), which is now called 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options[ii] — included asking parents every possible question I could think of about their families and children. This series of posts shows you what some of those questions were.

What Is the SB-LM?

Briefly, the SBLM is from the original Binet Scales that were developed by Terman and Merrill in the early 1900s. That earlier test used a scale not used at all today … and it used a still familiar formula to compare chronological age to mental age and then multiply by 100 to get a ratio IQ score. That’s why IQ is called Intelligence Quotient. But it is no longer true for modern tests. Thus the confusion. Anyway, I used the test often enough in my early years to get a good sampling of results that I could compare later to modern tests. I could also use its one-to-one correspondence to calculate score to behaviors and abilities in a scatterplot design. I love scatterplots! I mean, who doesn’t, right?

Getting Started on the Milestones Scatterplots

I used the results of the SBLM IQ test that has a scale based on comparisons of mental age to chronological age (no other tests do that; it’s why the SBLM appears to have a higher ceiling. It doesn’t; it just has a different use of numbers.) Although my PhD focus included a major in Test & Measurement, my personal goal was to be able to read primary research and get something useful out of it. I asked the parents of my gifted subjects to do my stats. The one who did the scatterplots probably gave me the “r-values,” but my own notes don’t show those. I assure readers, though, that the lines are accurate representations of the correlations between age and IQ.

For good background in how to interpret scatterplots, see this PDF from the University of West Georgia:

https://www.westga.edu/academics/research/vrc/assets/docs/scatterplots_and_correlation_notes.pdf

These scatterplots show the child’s age when the parents noticed their child they met the milestone on the left side, and then the child’s SBLM IQ results on the bottom line.

The quick way to read a scatterplot is to look for the line. If it is relatively flat, it means there isn’t much correlation. If it slopes downward toward the right, it means the higher the IQ, the earlier the child did that or reached that milestone. If it slopes upward toward the right, it means a higher IQ slows down the child’s attaining that particular milestone. In the three cases where that occurs, it is a slight difference only. I call those milestones the “stubbornness milestones.” They could do it but they won’t. They’ve got choices and they know it.

Some surprising — to me — findings about physical and interest issues

Parents are very excited when their children start to reach common milestones such as walking and talking. But how many of these milestones are also related to intelligence levels? Here’s one that apparently is somewhat related:

Notice how many of the subjects are making good eye contact when they are born. The sample from which I drew had children whose parents thought they might be gifted and their scores ranged from about 110 to about 250 on the SBLM. Many parents of the gifted children recall the medical staff commenting on their newborn’s “aliveness” and eye contact as being unusual for an infant. The parents of most profoundly gifted children said that the intensity of the eye contact and staring in their infants was almost scary. One said, “If I believed in being “possessed” I’d swear my son was possessed when I’d put him down into his bed to sleep and he stared up at me like he understood everything that was going on. It was hauntingly weird!”

Waving bye-bye or its close cousin, making eye contact with strangers when your parents tell you to perform on cue — not so much. By about age two, most children become a bit more wary of people to whom they are not close. These scatterplots only go up to two years (24 months).

There is only a slight correlation to IQ for starting to say words. Everyone in the sample said words before they turned two.

Walking unassisted shows no big relationship to IQ. My own parental experience showed me that the first child in a family usually takes longer to walk simply because their parents hover and give them more assistance than later-born children. The biggest reason, though, isn’t the parents for the younger siblings: it’s the older siblings. The younger ones want to keep up with the older ones apparently.

The next two are about toilet training.

There is a slight negative correlation with IQ. Toilet training for #2 (bowel movement) stood out as a topic that has concerned and embarrassed many parents. After every talk I gave using this group of scatterplots parents would come up to me and confess seeing this was comforting; it wasn’t just them.

It turns out that the higher the IQ, the more likely the child was to be a “stool holder,” someone who refused to go to the potty to poop. Perhaps they sensed their control over this issue and simply wouldn’t comply. Whatever the reason, feed such a child a lot of fresh fruit and leafy vegetables and roughage and at least they will poop overnight while sleeping. Also, since they are a very smart group, give them the info about what stool compaction is and how they risk hurting themselves if they continue to hold on too long. Play groups, cousins, friends, and school mates can start to comment, too.

Yes, it might take that long. Sorry. Lots of fruits and veggies and water, water, water.

Notice there is one outlier who simply complied early on.

Information Gathering Behaviors

In both of these cases, there is a notable correlation between with intelligence level for these children. In fact, these two scatterplots support the explanation that some children are simply wired to pay attention earlier than others. I believe this contributes to gifted children absorbing more from their environments than less intelligent children without necessarily direct instruction. The children who express interest in having someone read to them, for example, is a different situation than a parent or caretaker sitting the child down and instructing them. Such children make their wishes known before they can talk. They develop ways of communicating that are nonverbal and effective. Some are receptive to learning sign language and using it sooner than they are capable of speaking.

In my books, I try to make it clear that there are children who already know how to read with good comprehension, and have a deep foundation of information, well before they start formal schooling of any kind. The typically acknowledged “7 or 8 repetitions to learn new material” applies to these children as well. But very little new material is provided to them in typical schools when they begin their official educational journeys.

This Means Something, Too

These next two show strong correlations between age in months and IQ.

Children who are read to and have access to adults who pay attention to them are more likely to demonstrate these early skills than similarly gifted children who are left alone a lot or who are seen by their caretakers as a nuisance. It doesn’t mean they aren’t absorbing and learning, though. They can catch up quickly when their environments improve. Also, caretakers who talk as much as their children do create gifted children with extensive vocabularies…not because they are coached but because they are absorbing it all. All the time.

These early signs mean a lot for later school needs.

The children who are already reading when they start school need a flexible learning environment and as much access to others who are “on the same page” as possible.

Many gifted youngsters from the Baby Boomer generation had parents who were told not to expose their children to too much reading for fear of confusing them when they started school. My children’s parents were raised that way and neither of us thought of ourselves as reading when we started to school. Gifted children learn to read from the context of the material, not phonics and “sounding out.” Reading “took off” for both of us when we stumbled over good things to read.

The earlier the “smarter”?

It’s harder to memorize colors for most people than it is to memorize numbers. The question I asked was not about recognizing numbers but about being able to count. Actual accurate counting is modestly correlated with intelligence. Color recognition is strongly related.

Recognizing and saying the letters of the alphabet is a higher skill than singing the alphabet song. But saying the alphabet in the correct order is a highly intellectual feat.

Unless you’re using Google that corrects everything, effective keyboarding requires both the ability to read and to spell. The connection between intelligence and keyboarding is among the strongest in these scatterplots.

Not everyone is interested.

Generally speaking, when given the option, people gravitate toward that which interests them. It usually means that they have some initial ability to do well at whatever it is, too.

Interest and skill at mazes and jigsaw type puzzles indicate a high spatial reasoning, sense of direction, ability. It’s one of those things that you either have or you don’t. But, if you want to improve, you can learn rubrics to make you at least somewhat better at this sort of thing.

For this last scatterplot, the correlation is similar medium to strong between IQ level and age of interest and mastery. It’s pretty clear why the “nerd” label gets attached to gamers; you apparently need to be smart to play these games. I did find some gender differences but never broke it down along those lines for my scatterplots.

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[i] See Ruf Estimates of Levels of Giftedness, Part I. See https://open.substack.com/pub/deborahruf/p/ruf-estimates-of-levels-of-giftedness?r=2xq6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

[ii] Available from the publisher here: https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html; on Amazon in print and ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-School-Educational-Options/dp/0910707987