Adding to more Gifted kid discussion: While I wasn't in my schools gifted section, I was always told that if I had been one point higher I would have been. At the same time, I was always noted as the "smart kid" in class, and i viscerally feel every post talking about the results that happen from being "Gifted" and having undiagnosed ADHD. It's resulted in a bit of a "neither fish nor fowl" anxiety scene and often always feeling never "good" enough.
Honestly the biggest myth about asynchronous development (why not go whole hog and use the technical term instead ofĀ āgiftednessā) isĀ āSchools are the best at telling who is and who isnāt! If you were in your schoolās Gifted program, you were Gifted, if you werenāt you arent!ā
Asynchronous development is a fucking complex concept and it canāt be reduced to a single IQ score. Schools have to make really subjective calls about who gets special funding and who doesnāt, and those calls can be as dumb asĀ āWe only have funding for 20 so the bottom 5 meet our criteria but we donāt have space for themā orĀ āShe technically qualifies but her band class is at the same time as the pullout program so we wonāt put her there.ā
(Tangent:Ā I have a friend whose Masterās thesis was basically,Ā āHow many teacher training programs include accurate information about asynchronous development?ā Basic Facts About Gifted Kids. Like, āGifted children can have significant social and emotional difficultiesā andĀ āGifted children may not necessarily be top performers; conditions like learning disabilities, physical disabilities, mental illness and childhood trauma can prevent them from performing in a way that shows their true abilities, and many teachers miss Giftedness in students from marginalized backgrounds or ethnic groups.ā
Only like... less than 10% of the programs he studied included that shit. So the VAST MAJORITY of the teachers in his state were just walking around never having been required to learn it. I did a Masterās in Psychology; my coursework never covered it either. There is a huge trove of research out there most professionals in the field never look at.)
On the? Upside? It appears NONE of us feel Good Enough, so itās not like you missed out on it! I felt like I Wasnāt Really Gifted, Just Kind of Bright for most of my life because my district had a mainstreaming policy and I wasnāt a child prodigy, and that only changed when I learned how to read psychometric reports and went back and requested my educational records.
So hey: Fuck what your school said! Qualitative experience matters as much as quantitative tests! If you read about being seen as freakishly smart and having a nagging sense of Good But Not Good Enough and go āHey, it meā then you get to join the party! Welcome to Former Gifted Child Anonymous!
(Membership benefits are uh... solidarity with other neurodivergent folks, and the burning passion to improve schools everywhere. We should get T-shirts, goddammit.)
