My research focuses on the psychology and well-being of gifted individuals and children. I center around identification, emotional development, personality growth, educational needs, and common attributes.

“A gifted person is someone who shows, or has the potential for showing, an exceptional level of performance in one or more areas of expression.”

One of the definitions of giftedness found at the National Association for Gifted Children.

Giftedness has always been a difficult term to summarize succinctly; mostly because few people hold interest in gifted individuals unless society-at-large has an urgent need for extremely bright human capital. Whitmore’s research has shown us that gifted children are second only to blacks in being treated so inhumanely and in their suffering from exploitation under societal pressure and misunderstanding of their needs (1980). Such statements enacted a response, however, and advocacy for this group has begun to increase. In recent years, the implementation of advanced courses and special gifted programs, when instituted at appropriately challenging levels, have somewhat served the needs of a significant portion of the gifted; yet, there are still immense difficulties and obstacles which face the highest of the gifted, however; whom we still know little about (Hollingworth, 1930; Sylvan, 1969).

Further difficulties arise because for every possible definition of giftedness, a method can be devised to find a substantial number of people who could be considered gifted. Multiple studies have been done to identify numerous types of gifted children and adults over short and long periods of time utilizing IQ tests, self-reports, psychoanalysis, and fluid intelligence tests with definitions varying from IQ cut-offs to broad generalizations of superior abilities; all of which returned copious information about the presence of gifted individuals (Coleman & Cross, 2001). All of this information, however, has lead us to build a more complete picture of a gifted individual.

Our current generation of research has focused more on methods of identifying gifted individuals’ traits rather than defining the term gifted too narrowly. Annemarie Roeper and Michael Piechowski have been pioneers in the fields of gifted emotional well-being and advanced personality growth, respectively. Roeper has identified over 20 descriptive and seemingly widespread traits of the gifted, and the journal in her name, the Roeper Review, has helped research become more mainstream (Roeper, 1991). Piechowski continues the work of his close, and deceased, colleague Kazimierz Dabrowski with the Theory of Positive Disintegration which highlights the growth of personality through life in addition to describing five overexcitabilities which seem prevalent in gifted individuals such as extreme emotions, energy, and intelligence (Mendaglio, 2008). These overexcitabilities fit perfectly with past clinical observations of fundamental attributes of the gifted (Jacobsen, 1999; Lovecky, 1986). And has resulted in a phenomenal understanding of the increased intensities with which gifted individuals experience life (Daniels & Piechowski, 2008).

Information and services for gifted individuals and their friends and families:

  1. http://www.sengifted.org/
  2. http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/
  3. http://www.nagc.org/
  4. http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/