“Is it possible that extreme thinking and extreme suffering open the same horizon? Is it possible that suffering is, ultimately, thinking?”
Maurice Blanchot, French writer
The concept “High Intellectual Capacities” refers to a set of innate competencies specially developed in an individual, which enables them to be placed, based on the measurement of their intellectual quotient (IQ), above the normal score range. . The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale places this range between 90 and 109, and the Wechsler Scale, between 91 and 110. Degrees of giftedness are also distinguished: an IQ greater than 110 is indicative of “superior intelligence”; Above 120, the individual is considered to have “very superior intelligence”, while equaling or exceeding a score of 140 is synonymous with “genius”.
High intellectual ability is often related to a life of success in the professional field, a privileged mental agility that facilitates problem solving or exceptional brain plasticity, qualities that contribute to a high IQ being generally seen as an advantageous attribute; However, for those who experience firsthand the condition of being intellectually superior, reality looks different and it is even valid to wonder if possessing high abilities is not rather a curse.
“A sophisticated vocabulary and an advanced sense of humor can cause a gifted child to be misunderstood, which can generate in them a feeling of inferiority and rejection.”
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Carol Bainbridge, psychologist and expert in gifted children
There is a wide list of paradigms associated with high intellectual capacity that range from the stage of childhood development to adulthood. It is expected, for example, that the gifted child will be a bright, alert, participatory student, and that as an adult he or she will occupy a position of social significance, where he or she will make significant contributions in some field of science. However, and here is the great paradox, the opposite usually occurs. The child with high abilities can become a terrible student under the magnifying glass of his teachers, a “weirdo” in the eyes of his classmates and a headache for the family environment, which by ignoring the cause of his particular behavior tends to Label him “problematic” and take inappropriate measures in his treatment. This drama to which intellectually superior children are subjected emanates from the basic premise that, at a cognitive level, they have a mental structure that differs significantly from the average, which results in difficulties or limitations in their social adaptation.
The gifted person is often alone against the world
Bullying, integration problems, lack of social skills, academic failure, stigmatization, depression, anxiety… the gifted person is often alone against the world, victim of a system that does not understand him and from which he is condemned to feel excluded. Many are unaware of his condition until adulthood, and in a retrospective analysis they finally find an explanation for the problem that has been dragging on for a lifetime. The cause of his unhappiness: high abilities.
“Being 8 years old and having an IQ of 130 is the same as having a mental age of 10 years old. This means that you don’t fit in, either with your 8-year-old classmates or with the curricula for 8-year-olds, because you are 10.”
Carmen Sanz Chacón, clinical psychologist specializing in giftedness
The Spanish psychologist Carmen Sanz Chacón, author of the book The Curse of Intelligence and director of the “El Mundo del Giftado” foundation, emphasizes both the importance of early detection of high intellectual abilities and the need for there to be avenues for special education for whom traditional teaching methodology is not enough. The deficiencies of an educational system that treats the gifted as an ordinary child converge in a painful waste of human potential driven by the lack of motivation that supposes, for the child with high IQ, the absence of adequate stimuli and consequent tendency to boredom. The situation worsens when there is no family support or when, erroneously, the gifted person is diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and the solution is given to give him medication to prevent him from continuing to cause problems. Psychopathologies may also develop, commonly mood disorders or anxiety disorders rooted in a feeling of frustration due to misunderstanding of the environment.
Training parents and teachers on the subject is essential to reduce the difficulties they face.
In the most severe cases, when there is clinical depression, there is a high risk of suicide.
What are children with high abilities like?
“It is important that people know that there are no clear external physical characteristics that tell us: this child is, this child is not. He is not the know-it-all kid that appears on some television shows. This is not necessarily the gifted child.”
Francisco Gaita, psychologist specializing in high abilities
In the book A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children (Webb, Gore, Amend & DeVries, 2007), written by a team of collaborators headed by James T. Webb, eminence in the study of high intellectual abilities, 23 common characteristics are listed in children with this condition, among which have:
- Unusual alertness since childhood.
- Fast learning; ability to assimilate concepts quickly.
- Unusually large vocabulary and complex grammatical structure for his age.
- Advanced understanding of the composition of words, metaphors and abstract ideas.
- They enjoy solving problems related to numbers and puzzles.
- They are self-taught; show early reading and writing skills.
- Abstract, complex, logical and insightful thinking.
- Impatient with themselves and with the inability and slowness of others.
- They ask probing questions; They go beyond what they are taught.
- Wide range of interests (although sometimes they show extreme interest in a specific area).
- Highly curious; They ask unlimited questions.
- Interest in experimenting and doing different things.
- Tendency to link ideas or objects in unusual ways (divergent thinking).
- Unusual sense of humor, particularly with puns.
- Desire to organize things and people through complex games or other schemes.
- Imaginary friends (preschoolers); vivid imagination.
Emphasis is placed on the relativity and flexibility of the mentioned characteristics, due to the variability that exists between one case and another; They are, however, patterns of behavior that parents and teachers should be trained to identify under suspicion of giftedness.
“I have always liked school because of the intellectual effort. Now, as far as contact with people is concerned, most of the time I didn’t like it at all (…) It’s not being able to understand anyone, feeling like a Martian.”
Testimony of Elisa, gifted young woman
High capacities are, ultimately, a double-edged sword. The usefulness of having a high IQ is unquestionable, however it varies greatly from one individual to another and is subject to the influence of external factors that are not always favorable. Training parents and teachers on the issue of giftedness and establishing in them a basic notion of recognizing children with high abilities is essential to reduce, as far as possible, the difficulties they face and by which their development is diminished. intellectual and social.
Without a doubt, it is difficult to imagine a promising future if today, in the present, the great minds that will contribute to the materialization of tomorrow’s achievements are not cultivated. In the words of the Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl G. Jung (1943, p. 141):
“Gifted children are the most beautiful fruit of the tree of humanity, but they are also the ones in greatest danger, as they hang from its most fragile branches and often break.”
Let’s tie those branches well.
References:
Jung, C. (1943), The Gifted Child. Carl Gustav Jung, Collected Works. Volume 17: The Development of Personality. United States:Pantheon Publishing.
Sanz Chacón, C. (sf),
Webb, J., Gore, J., Amend E. & DeVries A. (2007), Characteristics of Gifted Children: A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children. United States: Great Potential Press, Inc.