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experience that varies from very familiar to very unfamiliar.

The contextual subtheory is also relativistic with respect to

both individuals (what is intelligent for one individual may

not be the same for another) and the contexts in which they

live and work (what is an intelligent thing to do in one situa-

tion may not be in another situation).

Sternberg (1986, 2000) asserts that giftedness can be

obtained via different combinations of strengths among the

skills that correspond to the three subtheories. For example, an

individual who excels in utilizing the componential mecha-

nisms in learning from school or books or in academic situa-

tions might be what we typically call a gifted learner. These

individuals are most easily identified by educators and are typ-

ically selected for special gifted programs. They may excel on

traditional achievement tests. Their strengths are in analytical

skills. However, such persons may not necessarily be excep-

tional at “nonentrenched” tasks or display creativity in dealing

with problems. Individuals who are adept at utilizing compo-

nential processes in novel situations might be characterized as

exceptional problem solvers, as possessing unusual levels of

insight, or as creative. These individuals are exceptional at

generating new ideas of high quality. Individuals may be adept

at both using componential mechanisms in prescribed learn-

ing situations and in novel ones, but may be unable to adapt

successfully to different environments—what Sternberg

refers to as practical intelligence or skills. Such individuals

may be regarded as smart, creative, or both, but they may be

unable to achieve at commensurately high levels in a career.

More recently, Sternberg proposed and illustrated seven dif-

ferent patterns of intelligence involving different combina-

tions of analytical, creative, and practical abilities (Sternberg,

2000).

Sternberg’s componential theory has intrigued educators

and researchers who work with and study gifted children.

However, it has not been widely used as the basis for identi-

fication protocols for gifted children. Its major contribution

has been to broaden the definition of intelligence beyond

that defined by traditional IQ tests. See the chapter by

Sternberg in this volume for a more complete description of

this theory.

A Developmental Theory Approach to Giftedness

and Talent

David Feldman (1986a, 1986b) proposes a conception of

giftedness within the tradition of developmental psychology.

Developmental psychologists are fundamentally interested in

any kind of change and typically in broad changes experi-

enced by all human beings; individual differences in in-

telligence or achievement have not traditionally been their

concern. Feldman asserts that reaching expert or gifted levels

of performance in a field requires traversing a developmental

path that involves moving through increasingly higher levels

of stages—stages that are not reached by everyone and are

therefore nonuniversal. Each stage is marked by a major

mental reorganization of the domain. Nonuniversal develop-

ment therefore accounts for gifted-level performances.

For the average person, the number of stages or levels that he or

she will master in a given domain is obviously fewer than for the

‘gifted’ individual. Another way of approaching the issues is to

think of certain domains as being less likely to be selected for

mastery than others; in so doing, ‘giftedness’ might be revealed

not only by the number of levels one achieves, but also by the

domain within which an individual chooses to pursue mastery.

(Feldman, 1986a, p. 291)

Feldman (1981, 1986a) asserts that nonspecific environ-

mental stimulation is sufficient for progress through broad

universal stages of cognitive development such as those that

Piaget proposes. However, he says that the development of ex-

pert levels of performance requires a more active and specific

role for environmental forces. As individuals acquire exper-

tise in a field, they do not rediscover all of the developmental

history of the field; rather, they rely on teachers to instruct

them. The role of environmental factors such as family sup-

port, schooling, and other opportunities to acquire the skills of

the field are critically important to progress through nonuni-

versal stages of development. Moreover, unlike Piaget’s

stages, which assume that broad general intellectual structures

must be present before their application to specific domains,

Feldman posits that an individual child can move rapidly

through the stages of intellectual development within a single

domain (e.g., chess, mathematics) “without bringing all of

cognitive development with it” (Feldman, 1981, p. 38).

For Feldman (1981, 1986a), the term giftedness refers to

individuals who master all of the stages within a domain.

Creativity is the extension of a field or domain beyond what

it is at the present. Genius refers to individuals whose work

results in a complete reorganization of a field or domain such

as Darwin or Freud.

Feldman (1986a, 1986b) recognizes the contribution of

other factors beyond education and training to the develop-

ment of giftedness. He says that a strong desire to do a certain

specific thing on the part of the individual must also be

present as well as a sociohistorical time that values the talents

of the gifted person. Feldman’s main contribution is to

present giftedness as a phenomenon with developmental

characteristics that are similar to other developmental

phenomena: “Giftedness . . . can best be comprehended

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within a framework of both broader and more specific stage

transitions” (Feldman, 1986a, p. 291) and as a “sequential

transformation of overall systems” (p. 302).

The Role of Emotional Characteristics in Defining

Giftedness and Talent

Recent thinking about giftedness by a current group of psy-

chologists, educators, and parents (the Columbus Group,

named after their meeting place, Columbus, OH) has in-

cluded an increased emphasis on the nonintellectual aspects

of the phenomenon. According to this perspective, giftedness

includes not only advanced or exceptional cognitive capaci-

ties, but also unique personality or social-emotional dimen-

sions that are just as important to the phenomenological

experience of being gifted. The Columbus Group (1991) pro-

posed the following definition that gives equal weight to

cognitive and emotional components of giftedness:

Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cog-

nitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner

experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from

the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual

capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly

vulnerable and requires modification in parenting, teaching and

counseling in order for them to develop optimally. (Columbus

Group, 1991 as cited in Silverman, 1993, p. 634)

Note that this definition includes heightened intensity as an

integral component. The notion of heightened intensity comes

from the work of Dabrowski, a Polish researcher who pro-

posed a theory of emotional development. Dabrowski’s stage

theory has two major components. One is that there are five

levels of development, each of which represents a qualitatively

different mode of relating to experience. At the lowest level are

individuals whose main concern is immediate gratification;

the highest level is characterized by harmony, altruism, lack of

inner conflict, and universal values. Although the order of the

levels is invariant, progression through the stages is not neces-

sarily related to age. Advanced emotional development, which

is the “commitment to live one’s life in accordance with higher

order values” (Silverman, 1993, p. 639), is determined by an

individual’s innate capacities to respond in a heightened man-

ner to various stimuli—called overexcitabilities, which is the

second major component of Dabrowski’s theory. “The five

overexcitabilities can be thought of as excess energy derived

form physical, sensual, imaginational, intellectual, and emo-

tional sources. Only when these capacities for responsiveness

are higher than average do they contribute significantly to

developmental potential” (Silverman, 1993, p. 641). See

Dabrowski (1964) for a more complete explanation of

Dabrowski’s theory.

The overexcitabilities have the potential to stimulate move-

ment from a lower stage of emotional development to a higher

one. Because gifted individuals, according to Dabrowski’s

research, are likely to possess one or more of these heightened

sensitivities—particularly emotional overexcitabilities—they

have greater potential to reach advanced levels of develop-

ment. The overexcitabilities in combination with advanced

intellectual ability makes gifted individuals unique and puts

them at odds with the rest of the world. They are vulnerable to

psychological stress because this combination of qualities

results in rich but intense emotions that makes them feel out of

synch with and different from others. According to Silverman

(1993),

The Columbus Group definition emerged in reaction to the in-

creasing emphasis on products, performance and achievement in

American thinking about giftedness. In the United States, it had

gradually become politically incorrect to think of giftedness as

inherent within the child and safer to talk about its external man-

ifestations. Experts were recommending that ‘gifted children’ be

replaced with ‘gifted behaviors,’ ‘talents in different domains,’

and ‘gifted program children.’ Something vital was being missed

in these popular formulations: the child. (p. 635)

Conceptions of giftedness that emphasize social-

emotional dimensions rest in part on the assumption that

gifted children—by virtue of their intellectual giftedness and

concomitant emotional characteristics—have increased vul-

nerability to emotional stress and psychiatric problems. How-

ever, the research on gifted children does not emphatically

support that assumption (Neihart, 1999), although a number

of studies suggest that creative adults (e.g., writers, artists)

have increased risk for psychiatric mood disorders (Neihart).

Federal Definitions of Giftedness and Talent

The most often cited definition of giftedness appeared in the

U.S. Commissioner of Education’s 1972 report to Congress.

Sidney P. Marland, Jr., then U.S. Commissioner of Education,

was directed in 1969 to undertake a study to determine the ex-

tent to which gifted students needed federal educational assis-

tance programs to meet their educational needs. Referred to

as the Marland report, the definition he proposed for gifted-

ness has been the mainstay of many local gifted programs.

Gifted and talented children are those identified by profession-

ally qualified persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities, are

capable of high performance. These are children who require dif-

ferentiated educational programs and/or services beyond those

Gifted Education Programs and Procedures

493

normally provided by the regular school program in order to

realize their contribution to self and society. Children capable of

high performance include those with demonstrated achievement

and/or potential ability in any of the following areas, singly or in

combination: 1) general intellectual ability, 2) specific academic

aptitude, 3) creative or productive thinking, 4) leadership ability,

5) visual and performing arts, 6) psychomotor ability. It can be

assumed that utilization of these criteria for identification of the

gifted and talented will encompass a minimum of 3–5%.

(Marland, 1972, p. ix)

Later, Category 6 was dropped from the definition. The

Marland definition has been criticized for the lack of empha-

sis on nonintellective factors and because the categories were

not parallel (e.g., creative and productive thinking are skills,

not abilities). It has been lauded because it included different

domains of abilities and because it emphasized potential as

well as demonstrated achievement (Gagne, 1993). Passow

(1993) credits the Marland report with stimulating interest in

gifted and talented children and initiatives to serve them in

schools. Prior to the Marland report, only two states in the

United States had mandated programs for gifted children and

only three states had discretionary or permissive programs.

By 1990, all 50 states had policies on the education of gifted

children in place—a fact often attributed to the effects of the

Marland report and definition of giftedness (Passow, 1993). 

Beyond the broadened definition, use of the phrase, ‘gifted and

talented’ and the assertion that these children and youth had spe-

cial needs which required differentiated educational experiences,

the Marland Report began the formulation of a national strategy

for identifying and educating this special population. (p. 30) 

A more recent definition was released by the U.S. Depart-

ment of Education in a report entitled National Excellence: A

Case for Developing America’s Talent (1993).

Children and youth with outstanding talent perform, or show the

potential for performing, at remarkably high levels of accom-

plishment when compared with others of their age, experience,

or environment.

These children and youth exhibit high-performance capability

in intellectual, creative, and/or artistic areas, possess an unusual

leadership capacity, or excel in specific academic fields. They re-

quire services or activities not ordinarily provided by the schools.

Outstanding talents are present in all children and youth from

all cultural groups, across all economic strata, and in all areas of

human endeavor. 

This definition, which is increasingly being adopted by

individual states, also includes a broad definition of gifted-

ness across different domains and emphasizes capability or

potential.

An Educational Emphasis in Defining Giftedness

and Talent

Gallagher and Courtright (1986) make a distinction between

psychological and educational definitions of giftedness. Psy-

chological definitions focus on individual differences or an

individual’s relative ranking on a continuum representing a

particular ability. Giftedness from this perspective could be

exceptional ability on almost any dimension of human per-

formance, regardless of how narrow or specific. Educational

definitions take into account the context of schools and

specifically those abilities or areas of human performance

that are under the purview of schools. Most typically, schools

are concerned with those students whose abilities warrant

some significant alteration in their education by way of

grouping arrangements, grade placement, content being

taught, and so on. Borland (1989) goes further to recognize

that the specific context of a particular school affects the

definition of giftedness: “For the purposes of education,

gifted children are those students in a given school or school

district who are exceptional by virtue of markedly greater

than average potential or ability in some area of human

activity generally considered to be the province of the educa-

tional system and whose exceptionality engenders special-

educational needs that are not being met adequately by the

regular core curriculum” (pp. 32–33).

Thus, there is not one fixed educational definition. Indeed,

the educational definition will continue to change because

what is considered to be the purview of the schools has

changed historically and will continue to do so. The essential

feature of the educational definition is that the school cur-

riculum and school characteristics define the scope of abili-

ties or domain within which exceptional performance should

be considered.

Summary

As can be seen from the brief summary of conceptions of

giftedness described previously, great variability surrounds

many issues. Some conceptions emphasize demonstrated

performance rather than high ability, such as Gardner (in

adult domains of activity) and Renzulli (in children). Several

theories give equal weight to nonintellective factors such as

motivation and personality dimensions as to cognitive ones

(e.g., Renzulli, the Columbus Group) or included them as im-

portant components in their model (e.g., Tannenbaum,

Gagne). Some models include creativity as an essential com-

ponent of giftedness (e.g., Renzulli), whereas others view it

as a separate category or type of giftedness (e.g., Feldman,

Marland definition) or natural ability (e.g., Gagne). Several

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theories emphasize the role of society and culture (e.g.,

Gardner, Tannenbaum) or the educative process of schools

(e.g., Marland definition, Borland definition) in defining and

recognizing different types or categories of giftedness. Other

conceptions recognize and emphasize the contributions of

more immediate environments such as the family, schooling,

the community, and so on, and the process of developing

talent as essential components of giftedness (e.g., Gagne,

Tannenbaum).

Other Issues in Defining Giftedness and Talent

Adult Versus Childhood Giftedness

Currently, there are two separate research traditions within

the field of gifted education—the study of childhood gifted-

ness and the study of adult giftedness. Researchers who study

gifted children are very concerned with issues surrounding

educational practice, such as the identification of gifted chil-

dren and appropriate educational interventions or models.

Within this tradition, emphasis is given to general intellectual

ability or IQ, above-level scholastic achievement, precocity

of achievements with respect to age peers, identification

through testing, and schooling as the main context for talent

development (Olszewski-Kubilius, 2000). In contrast, those

who study adult giftedness focus on domain-specific abili-

ties, the creativity of achievements or products and their con-

tribution to the field, and an individual’s standing or stature as

judged by other experts in the field (Olszewski-Kubilius,

2000). A major difference between child and adult giftedness

is the emphasis on the field. A measure of the quality of adult

achievements is the critical acclaim they receive from other

experts—the extent to which they break new ground or move

the field forward. Gifted children do not often typically create

new knowledge; they discover what is already known—

earlier and faster than most other children.

Generally, studies involving children examine short-term,

developmental issues or issues regarding educational prac-

tice and use cross-sectional, multigroup designs. Finding an

appropriate comparison group is a challenge if one of the

aims of the study is to differentiate developmental or age-

related effects from those due to differences in intellectual

ability. To accomplish this goal, researchers use multiple

comparison groups that are alternatively equivalent to the

gifted group in either chronological or mental age. Few stud-

ies of children are prospective and longitudinal with the ex-

ception of the Terman studies, the Study of Mathematically

Precocious Youth (SMPY), a study of more than 30 years of

verbally and mathematically talented students identified in

the late 1970s and early 1980s (Benbow, 1988; Benbow &

Lubinski, 1994; Benbow & Stanley, 1983), and the Illinois

Valedictorian Project (Arnold, 1995), which is following

high school valedictorians from the class of 1982 through

adulthood. See Subotnik and Arnold (1994) for a more com-

prehensive listing of longitudinal studies.

There are many more retrospective studies of gifted adults

than there are prospective studies of gifted children. Typi-

cally, the adults are identified as eminent or renowned in their

field either by cultural impact of their work or by the judg-

ments of other experts. These studies look back into the lives

of these individuals, usually through analysis of historical

documents, biographies, and autobiographies. Some of these

studies include interviews with the individual (if still living)

and with other family members. They present detailed case

studies of the gifted individuals. The purpose of most of these

studies is to determine what contributes to the development

of high levels of talent and creative productive ability. Exam-

ples of these kinds of studies are Goertzel and Goertzel

(1962), who studied the emotional and intellectual family en-

vironments of eminent individuals form the twentieth cen-

tury; Roe (1953), who studied 23 eminent male scientists in

different fields; Zuckerman (1977), who studied Nobel Lau-

reates; Subotnik, Karp, and Morgan (1989), who studied high

IQ individuals who graduated from the Hunter College Ele-

mentary School from 1948 to 1960; and Bloom (1985), who

studied high achievers in six different talent areas.

Child Prodigies

Prodigious achievement by children has always fascinated

our culture. Child prodigies are very rare and historically were

regarded either as freaks or gods. Morelock and Feldman

(1993, quoted from Feldman, 1986b) have studied child

prodigies and define them as “a child who, before the age of

10, performs at the level of an adult professional in some cog-

nitively demanding field” (p. 171). According to Feldman,

child prodigies differ from geniuses and do not necessarily

become geniuses, although “the prodigy’s early mastery of a

domain may put him in a better position for achieving works

of genius, for he has more time to explore, comprehend, and

experiment within a field” (Feldman, 1986b, p. 16). Prodigies

are also distinguished from high-IQ children in that their

talents are very narrowly specialized to a particular field of en-

deavor, whereas high-IQ children have intellectual abilities

that enable them to function at high levels in a variety of

different contexts. Prodigies are extreme specialists according

to Feldman (1986b, p. 10) in that “they are exceptionally well

tuned to a particular field of knowledge, demonstrating rapid

and often seemingly effortless mastery.”

The prodigious achievement of a child is evidence of a

rare coming-together of a variety of supportive conditions—

a process that is termed co-incidence (Feldman, 1986a,