The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children
Lewis, & Schapps, 1999). In fact, according to Geake and Gross (2008), some teachers rate social
ability higher than academic ability when describing the attributes of an ideal student.
Evidence generally supports the view that there is a positive correlation between children
who are gifted and children who are advanced socially and emotionally (Howley, Howley, &
Pendarvis, 1995), but there are some dissenting views (Freeman, 2006). Studies report that most
gifted students are at least as well adjusted and mature as typical students, and in some cases may
have superior social and emotional development (Clark, 2008; Douthitt, 1992; Neihart, 1999).
However, while gifted children are a diverse group, they tend to share some common affective
characteristics that have the potential to bring them into conflict with their social environment
(Kitano, 1990; Webb, 2001). Additionally, some characteristics of giftedness such as intensity and
overexcitability or superstimulatability can sometimes be misinterpreted as ADHD or other similar
disorders (Webb, 2001). Similarly, gifted children can appear to lack appropriate social skills when
they struggle to get along with their age-peers while any apparent difficulties may disappear when
they have the opportunity to interact with intellectual peers (Davis & Rimm, 2004; Valpied, 2005).
Teachers are often concerned about possible social and emotional problems of gifted
children and may make educational decisions that are detrimental academically in order to attempt
to favour social development (Halsted, 2002; Yoo & Moon, 2006). Many educators believe that the
social and emotional needs of the student should take precedence over their academic needs, not
recognising that the two are inextricably linked, and also not considering that failing to provide for
gifted students’ intellectual needs only compounds any socioemotional issues (Halsted, 2002;
Valpied, 2005; Vialle et al. 2001). A recent survey study by Bain, Choate and Bliss (2006) examining
the perceptions of teacher education undergraduates of the social and emotional development of
gifted children found that the majority believed that the gifted were at greater risk for emotional
stress and relationship problems than other children. It is also commonly assumed that the more
highly gifted a student is, the greater the potential for social and emotional problems, but this is not
supported by the research (Gross, 2006b; Neihart, 1999). Beliefs such as these may contribute to
educational decisions that are not in the best interests of the gifted child (Bain, Choate, & Bliss,
2006), particularly when making decisions regarding ability grouping and acceleration (Valpied,
2005).
Ability grouping
Ability grouping has strong support in the research literature (Adams-Byers, Whitsell, &
Moon, 2004; Chessor & Whitton, 2008; Fuchs, Fuchs, Hamlett, & Karns, 1998; Goldring, 1990;
Gross, 1997; Kulik, 1992; Rogers, 1998) and has been found to have academic benefits for students
at all levels of ability, but especially so with gifted students (Rogers, 1998). When gifted students are
grouped by ability and given a differentiated curriculum in response to their ability, they perform
significantly better than equally gifted students in a mixed ability setting (Gross, 2006a; Kulik, 1992;
Rogers, 2002). Grouping gifted students together has not been found to cause any detrimental
effects to the social and emotional well-being of either the gifted students, or their typical peers
(Gross, 2006b).
Despite this, many teachers express a reluctance to use ability grouping strategies with
gifted students (Bain, Bliss, Choate, & Brown, 2007; Lewis & Milton, 2005; Plunkett, 2000), citing
common concerns, including that ability grouping is elitist, that it will not have any effect on
achievement, that it will cause gifted students to have an inflated opinion of themselves, and that
gifted students should be kept in the regular class as role models and to learn to relate to a wide
range of people (Gross, 1997).
Acceleration
Research consistently reports achievement benefits for all forms of acceleration (Kulik, 2004;
Rogers, 2004), while finding no evidence of social or psychological harm (Colangelo, Assouline, &
Gross, 2004). In a meta-analysis of studies on acceleration, Kulik (2004) concluded that acceleration
has clear achievement benefits for gifted students and that no other educational intervention works
as well for gifted students. In response to concerns about the possible social or emotional impact of
acceleration, many studies have been conducted to assess any psychosocial implications, although
many of these focus retrospectively on older students and much of the research is American. The
situation is also complicated by the diversity of gifted students and the medley of accelerative
options available to them, as well as the imprecise nature of finding comparison groups and
selecting a measure of social or emotional adjustment (Robinson, 2004). However, in a
12 Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011.