“Are you really sure that both the Tweetlets are gifted?” Tweet asked the Psych Owl Ogist. “They seem so different from each other!”
“Yes” reaffirmed the Psych Owl Ogist “They are both gifted. But Gifted is not a homogenous group!”
As David Harrison of Gifted and Creative Services Australia has said ‘Think of the IQ levels of the whole population as represented by a spiral galaxy. Most of the population would be congregated near the centre. Imagine that the rarer the IQ the further it is from the centre. But there are many arms to the spiral and there are many other differences apart from IQ There are different areas of expertise and interest. And there are also many differences in character traits and different levels of intensity and sensitivity’
Levels of giftedness
Do you remember the Bell Curve of prevalence of IQ scores in the population?
There are different opinions about how the IQ scores relate to levels of giftedness and the prevalence in the population. You can find a discussion on Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page website at http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/highly_profoundly.htm
Here is one example from Prof Miraca Gross quoted in an article at
Another way of looking at the different levels of giftedness is given by Dr Deborah Ruf in her Ruf Estimates™ of Levels of Gifted at http://talentigniter.com/ruf-estimates
Interests, passions, fields of expertise
Another source of differences in the gifted population is that, as you have already noticed with your Tweetlets, they have interests and abilities in different fields. We saw that in the different Competencies in Gagne’s DMGT model diagram.
And we can also see it in the differing ways of thinking and learning shown in Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
As well as differences in levels of giftedness and areas of ability and specialization among the gifted population there are differences in personality type.
One of the ways of describing personality types is seen in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
In fact George Betts and Maureen Neihart have compiled and recently revised Profiles of the Gifted and Talented
My guess is that Tweetelle is has some attributes of the Successful Type and some of the Creative Type. Although she does seem to be keen to please and eager for approval, she is certainly highly creative and sensitive, can be highly emotional and is prepared to argue and stand up for her convictions.
Tweetil appears to be an Autonomous Learner. He is eager to learn the things he wants to know by doing it his own way. He is not afraid to experiment and take risks. Although we want them to become life long Autonomous Learners it does not necessarily make them easy to teach!”
“The main thing to remember is that the Tweetlets have asynchronous development. They are not typical of the majority of Tweetlets their age. You will probably find they meet some developmental milestones earlier and gain understanding of issues earlier than their age peers. For example you may have to discuss ‘the birds and the bees’ with them earlier.”
“Unless you have any further question that wraps up this session” said the Psych Owl Ogist. “But feel free to contact me again. It has been a hoot!”