Queriquita,
I found an answer to the fizzling genius question in one of the giftedness research articles you sent. The article is titled ``Personal Well-Being of Gifted Students Following Participation in an Early College-Entrance Program’’ by Janette Boazman and Michael Sayler.
Here is an excerpt from the article’s literature review:
[b]REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE[/b]:
Exploration of the life experiences of the gifted and the highly gifted individuals is not new. Terman’s (1925) study of 1,528 gifted students found they had above-average physical health, eagerness, and curiosity in work and play, and they were well adjusted socially. Subsequently, he and hisassociates explored longitudinally the development of objective indicators of quality of life. Terman and Oden (1959) recognized that intellectual giftedness alone did not guarantee success. They found correlations between achievement, perseverance, goal orientation, self-confidence, and freedom from feelings of inferiority. Follow-up studies of Terman’s (1925) subjects, as they aged into their 60s and 70s, showed that these individuals were satisfied with their living arrangements, felt that they were in good health, had vitality, and had positive perceived well-being (Holahan, Sears, & Cronbach, 1995). The correlates for positive psychological well-being in these subjects included having goals, ambitions, and physical health and participation in activities (Holahan et al.).
Recently, the Terman data have been used to investigate the relationship between personality characteristics and longevity of life. In their study of the Terman subjects, Martin, Friedman, and Schwartz (2007) concluded that the personality trait of conscientiousness in childhood and adulthood was a strong predictor of longer life. Longitudinal explorations of the educational impacts of acceleration on the gifted have researchers examining new aspects of these relationships (Subotnik & Arnold, 1994). Gagné’s and Gagnier’s (2004) model postulates that an individual’s natural innate abilities are acted on by internal as well as external factors as the innate gifted abilities develop into talents.
For gifted children to develop into talented adolescents and young adults they need appropriate challenge and social experiences to assist them in discovering and refining their talents (Moon & Dixon, 2006). Students need to be identified early and helped educationally in deep and meaningful ways (Stanley & Benbow, 1983). Academic environments most likely to lead to personal thriving for the gifted are those that slightly exceed the gifted individual’s current levels of academic performance and allow for similar intrapersonal and interpersonal growth (Gross, 1994). The successful struggle to learn things deeply and with excitement builds both knowledge and passion (Gross, 2004). Providing appropriately challenging educational interventions for the highly gifted is important to the positive academic and character development of the whole individual (Gross, 2006).
Early college entrance is one intervention for the highly gifted that often provides appropriate and cost efficient opportunities for addressing their unmet academic and social needs (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). Gifted students who are appropriately accelerated into environments where they find intellectual challenge and social peers show more academic growth and more positive adjustment than equally able peers who were not accelerated (Gross, 2004; Robinson & Robinson, 1982).
When properly placed in an accelerative program, the gifted show themselves to be more self-reliant, independent, efficacious, and happy (Gross). They are less likely to have personal adjustment problems (Gagné & Gagnier, 2004). The accelerated gifted tend to have higher self-esteem and a stronger internal locus of control, with little or no decrease in social interactions when compared to similarly gifted individuals who did not accelerate (Richardson & Benbow, 1990). Gifted students accelerated by Grade 8 were more likely to have positive self-concepts, an internal locus of control, and be seen by others as good students than were either gifted students who were not accelerated or regular students (Sayler & Brookshire, 1993). Strong social adjustment and successful academic and career achievements are associated with accelerants after they leave K–12 education (Colangelo et al., 2004). Accelerants express satisfaction with their decision to enter college early (Noble, Robinson, & Gunderson, 1993) as do their parents (Noble, Childers, & Vaughan, 2008). Early college entrants experience success in undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as in career-related jobs and they describe themselves as happy and emotionally stable (Gross, 2003).
(Emphasis in the above excerpt is mine).
More links to further articles still expected. Thank you.
What’s interesting is that now he’s considered ‘genius’. I could rattle off the names of plenty of kids on this forum who are at or have surpassed what the nation/world now classifies as ‘genius’. It’s funny what some belief, consistency, and fun can do when applied to a young child. Ohhhh I’m so looking forward to the day when teaching infants, toddlers, and preschoolers is just considered, well, normal.