Adhd Child Gifted
Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:43:17 +0000
I think homeschooling would be perfect for your sun. As a teacher you know that the classroom environment is challenging for ADHD students because there are so many distractions, and because they are in a room with 25 other children and a single adult in charge. Should you homeschool him, you can give him an environment where he can thrive. I normally am not a huge fan of homeschooling, but with your educational backround, I think you’d be good at it.
Furthermore, it’s clear that he is able to get along with peers in a multi-age environment. Since this is a good mimic of what he’ll experience as an adult, I think there’s nothing wrong with him now. Often early learners who are excited about learning and gifted haven’t developed the social skills to get along with those who aren’t. He could learn these gently with you teaching him, or in a harsher manner by being in a huge classroom.
Additionally, if you are concerned about his socialization skills, don’t be. I’m a middle school teacher, and have noticed that my elementary home school students who attend our school starting in 7th grade have a transition period of about a month to a quarter. After that transition period, they socialize with other students as if they had always been there. Also, there are many homeschool groups out there–you son could participate in home school theater and band classes or sports depending on what’s available in your area. It’s a chance to be with other children in an environment he can handle.
Finally, it’s up to you, but you and your child sound like perfect candidates for successful home schooling. You can always return him to regular school after elementary school–since gifted students tend to be more easily tracked in middle and high school.
good luck.
Creativity and Underachievement
Creativity predicts future accomplishments better than intelligence or school grades. In social sciences, for example, creativity explains more variability in performance than reasoning capacity, speed, or memory. Unfortunately, although creativity can lead to great accomplishment it can, far too often, lead to underachievement.
Many creative and gifted children perform below their ability level. Don't get me wrong, they still get above average marks compared to their peers, but a gifted child (or any child, for that matter) should not be compared to other children, but to him/herself only, focusing on self-improvement, rather than social comparison.
Can Creativity Be Mistaken for ADHD?
Many traits associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are similar to the traits of gifted, talented, or creative children. Teachers may even misidentify energetic and unconventional students, a description that fits many highly creative students, as having ADHD. Research shows that students with ADHD are highly creative, and gather and use more diverse, nonverbal, and poorly focused information, compared to their peers without ADHD. Therefore it is possible that a highly creative student is labeled as having ADHD and is medicated, which in turn will certainly impede his/her creativity.
Neuropsychology of Creativity and Underachievement
Creative underachievers show defocused attention with a lower level of frontal lobe activation. In an average person, the low level of cortical arousal is present during an inspirational phase of a creative endeavor (e.g., thinking of a story), but not during an elaboration phase (i.e., writing down the story). Thus, creative underachievers exhibit the potential (lower level of frontal lobe activation), but do not use materialize that potential into a creative outcome.
Conclusions
From social to cognitive to even neuropsychology, there is evidence that a highly creative child is different from his/her less creative peers, and requires a special kind of understanding and environment. From personal experience as an AmeriCorps teacher of 3- and 4-year-olds, I know it can sometimes be overwhelming to have a classroom full of loud energetic children, where our primary responsibility is to keep them safe. But teachers need to become aware that children's creativity, especially of those who are gifted or highly creative, can greatly suffer if they are not allowed to express themselves. Teachers are encouraged to understand what types of behaviors are associated with creativity, and not ignore or punish such behaviors.
