Gifted Children

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Pedagogy - Orthopaedagogy and Special Education, grade: 2,0, University of Sunderland (Scholl of Education and Lifelong Learning), course: Children with Special Needs, 11 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: When Ian was about two years old he announced to a family friend 'You know, my father is a mathematician and my mother a physiotherapist', at this age he was already reading and counting (Gross 1993, p. 16). Usually children learn how to read at school, they are being taught how to identify the different letters and how to build words with them. How is it possible that Ian could learn all this much earlier and completely auto didactically, simply by observing his environment? Ian is not alone with his extraordinary abilities. 'Ogilvie identified 3 per cent of children as being broadly gifted' (George 1995, p. 3) that means as a consequence that a primary school with 300 children comprises approximately 9 broadly gifted children. But what does the term gifted mean? Which problems do gifted kids face and how can they succeed in being gifted?