Ep. #93: Overexcitabilities and Gifted Children

If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you might have heard me talk a little bit about gifted kids and the relationship between being gifted and being highly sensitive.I like to acknowledge as I enter into any conversation about giftedness that, yes, the term can be off-putting. But I stick with it because most people understand what it means, and because I believe it's important to recognize giftedness as a form of neurodiversity. Despite the fact that historically many gifted programs have been filled with a mix of high-achieving and gifted kids - which are actually two different things - and despite the fact that there has been a whole lot of inequity in the identification process for gifted programs, gifted children do exist, and they have distinct characteristics and educational needs.One of the characteristics I've talked about on the podcast before is asynchronous development. Many gifted specialists now recognize the presence of asynchronous development as the critical marker of a gifted child, not IQ. Interestingly, IQ tests are not always accurate. If a child is unwilling to answer unless they know for sure the answer is correct, for instance, the score will skew lower. If the child offers an answer that is technically correct but not the prescribed answer, the score will skew lower - unless you have an evaluator who understands how highly gifted children operate. The example I've heard given of this is say the evaluator holds up one finger and asks what is this? The "correct" answer is a finger. A highly gifted child might answer "a phalange" "a digit" or "the number one." All of which are technically correct, but aren't the answer the evaluator is looking for. They are not allowed to score incorrect answers or prompt the child to give a different answer, but they don't have to score the first answer, so a skilled evaluator will just wait. If a child is actually gifted, they will likely cycle through a variety of answers if the evaluator doesn't move on, so it's just a matter of waiting for them to get to "a finger."So IQ is often unreliable. Asynchronous development, on the other hand, is much more reliable. Asynchronous development occurs when a child is advanced in one area but behind in another. It might mean they are advanced academically, but behind their peers socially or physically. If your child can carry on deep conversations and seems wise beyond their years in many ways, but then pulls a Jekyll and Hyde meltdown over something that seems insignificant, that's a pretty good indicator of asynchronous development.And Asynchronous development is a strong marker of giftedness.So are Overexcitabilities. And that's what I want to talk about today. I think I have talked about these before too, but I want to take the time to dive in a little deeper today. because understanding overexcitabilities is especially relevant to this podcast because being highly sensitive falls into the realm of these overexcitabilities, and while I believe it's possible to be highly sensitive without being gifted, there is a much higher rate of high sensitivity in the gifted population. It makes sense when you start to see these overexcitabilitities as traits of giftedness and start to understand that they are often more pronounced the more gifted a child is.Listen on for a more in depth explanation of each of the five overexcitabilities, what they look like in children, and what you can do to support your own child.--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/julia-mcgarey/support Get full access to The Blackbird Chronicles at juliamcgarey.substack.com/subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit partneredpathparenting.substack.com