While some 23,000 children in the Republic are gifted, a significant number of those also have a learning disability
IT IS DIFFICULT to spot a gifted child. He may be the one who gets 100 per cent in all his tests, but he may not. She may be the one asking all the questions in class, or she could be the one staring out the window. He may be the class clown, or he could be withdrawn and alone in the playground.
Children of exceptional ability have a wide range of characteristics, but one distinguishing feature often is that they are a bit "different" from their peers. This may only become apparent to parents, teachers and the children themselves when they start school.
That can be the beginning of a very troubled time for the child if the giftedness is not recognised. These children learn quicker, more easily and differently. They feel like misfits in a school system that is geared towards average development.
We are not talking about budding Mozarts or Einsteins here. Those are extremely rare cases of genius. About 5 per cent of children, numbering some 23,000 in the Republic, are exceptionally able, but a significant number of those would also have a learning disability or difference, such as ADHD or dyslexia. One may mask the other: the giftedness hides the disability or the disability hides the giftedness.
Karen McCarthy from Blackrock, Co Dublin, was aware her eldest child, Conor, was a bright child but it was only halfway through primary school, when he wasn't happy, that the "g" word came into the equation.
"We got in contact with the Irish Association for Gifted Children [IAGC] and it was a revelation, suddenly everything clicked," says McCarthy.
Conor went for a private psychological assessment when he was in third class. "It was the easiest way of figuring out where we were. We wanted it confirmed but we almost doubted ourselves."
He had always been happy enough to go to school and there were no behavioural issues but rather a "malaise" is how McCarthy describes it. "He was on an eternal treadmill, always waiting for people to catch up."
Like many gifted children, he was a very early reader. "They learn through reading, and they jump ahead and ahead of people not so quick to read," says McCarthy.
"The primary school system and curriculum just does not meet these children's needs. They are like a square peg in a round hole. There is no challenge for them and they are never pushed out of their comfort zone."
Most parents want their children to "learn how to learn" at school, she points out. Other children are learning how to work through problems, while gifted children may coast along. When they do finally meet a challenge, they can "come a cropper" she says, because they have not learned how to deal with a problem.
Twelve-year-old Conor's siblings are also gifted, Niall (11) and eight-year-old Ciara. McCarthy, who is currently chairwoman of IAGC, says all parents want their children to reach their full potential, and parents of exceptionally able children are no different from parents of children with a disability.
With resources always an issue, McCarthy says she can understand how other parents might look at her and say her kids will do great, what is she bleating about.
"My interest lies in my children, to ensure they will reach their potential. My friends who understand what I'm talking about are ones whose children are a bit different, or have learning difficulties."
The Education Act of 1998 defined "special education needs" as those arising from disability or exceptional ability, explains Leslie Graves, the vice-chairwoman of IAGC. But all the subsequent legislation focused on disability and "the exceptionally able were left in a grey area". There are guidelines for schools on how to work with exceptionally able pupils but nothing is mandated.
"There are degrees of giftedness, it's a spectrum, and no one size fits all," says Graves, who is the mother of gifted children and also has a post-graduate degree in gifted education.
"People say it's such a small percentage, but the pain and disillusionment and stark reality of trying to keep gifted children happy and engaged is every bit as real as parents trying to do that for children with a disability," she adds.
Most parents of gifted children realise there are limited resources, says McCarthy, but she believes it may take only a bit of imagination to keep them interested. For instance, when she found maths worksheets on the internet that Ciara loved, she gave her some to bring to school.
"She takes them out quietly when she has finished her work." This stops her "chit-chatting" while she is waiting for the other people in the class.
In primary school, subjects are not covered in the sort of depth gifted kids are looking for, explains McCarthy. They need to be taken on to another level in the subject and ideally this should be done during school time, rather than by the parent at home.
"It's during the six hours that they sit in school that they really need some attention," she says. Providing a child with more stimulation at home does not overcome the problem of their boredom at school. The fear is that they will be turned off education for life.
Margaret Keane, a mother of gifted children living in Co Clare, set up a website, giftedkids.ie, last February to support people like herself who was "tearing my hair out as a parent". The discussion forum on the site enables parents to voice their worries and frustrations, and get advice from others who have been through similar experiences.
"I suddenly realised I was not on my own," she says. "Parents have to become the experts because there's no one else."
What is called "asynchronistic development" is common among gifted children, where you have a child who, say, is physically six, but has the reading ability of a 12 year old yet the emotional maturity of a four year old. The bigger the mismatch, the greater the problems.
Gifted children often become passionate about a particular subject, want to know everything about it and talk incessantly about it, but other children can't share that intensity. So the gifted child can begin to feel weird. It can also make them vulnerable to bullying.
"They are often creative thinkers, quirky off-the-wall kids and need to be taught in a different way," says Keane. "You need to find out how they learn, particularly if they are having difficulties. It is a challenge for parents and teachers."
She believes there is negativity towards gifted children, which is why parents are reluctant to say their child is gifted.
Mary Dillon* has not told even her wider family that her youngest child, five-year-old Stephen, was assessed as gifted earlier this year. It was a verdict that came as a surprise, as well as a relief, to the Dillons.
It had been a disaster when he started junior infants last year. "He would not sit down and did not do anything he was told. It was totally out of character with the rest of the family," says Dillon, who also has an older boy and girl who have always done well at school.
She had to remove Stephen from junior infants. "I could not have left him there; he was so unhappy, he hated school. He would come home exhausted, as it was like a battleground. I thought there was something wrong with him, that I had missed something."
As he was still only four, she put him into a Montessori and although he did his best, that was not a success either. "I then home-schooled him for a while to prove to myself that there was nothing wrong with him, and to work on his sitting down. He was easy to teach."
Last Easter they had him psychologically assessed and were told that he was gifted, along with having ADHD tendencies. "We were so relieved, we were expecting the worst."
Due to the ADHD, Stephen qualifies for a special needs assistant and returned to school in September, this time going into senior infants. "We are only five weeks into it, and there are ups and downs, but the school has been so good and the teacher is very experienced," says Dillon. "Stephen is very sociable and does not hang back."
In hindsight, she says, there were a few signs of his giftedness, although he was not an early reader, "we did not give him the opportunity", and he did not talk particularly early. However, he always had great powers of observation. When he was two, he dismantled a bicycle bell and when she hollered at him, he put it back together again just as it had been.
After the assessment, the Dillons brought out the eldest son's Lego sets, for ages seven to 14, and Stephen was immediately able to build them himself unaided. "He lives on Lego sets now."
Despite their relief at his assessment, the Dillons do not underestimate the challenges ahead. "It is going to be hard work. We don't want him to switch off and waste what he has."
When Tim Conway* was three, he used to sit up in the supermarket trolley, reading out the ingredients of the things his mother Rose was buying. "He was my first child and I knew he was reading early, but I did not know how early," she says.
They had Tim psychologically assessed at the age of six, when he was not doing well at school, not getting through the work and not mixing well with his classmates. He was judged as being just short of the criteria for giftedness.
"In hindsight we should not have accepted that report," says Conway. When Tim started secondary school there was a "major meltdown"; he could not cope with the work at all and they sent him for another assessment.
This time the psychologist had no doubt that he was a gifted child, but found also that he had a "slow processing speed". This means that although he is very intelligent and his homework is not intellectually challenging, it takes him ages to complete it. His handwriting is atrocious, as it is with many gifted children.
"All his struggles can be explained by the fact that he is gifted," says Conway. This conclusion has been a huge boost to Tim, who is now 14.
"He is able to see now how he is different from his peers. His self-esteem has improved hugely." She is just so sorry that they did not reach this point years ago.
His difficulty in concentrating in school is because there are "more interesting things going on in his mind". Some aspect of a lesson may catch his attention and he goes off on a tangent, lost in his own imagination, and by the time he returns to what is going on in the class, he has missed out on what he is supposed to be learning.
She has explained to him that he's a square peg trying to fit through a round hole, and that he has to get through secondary school, but that when he goes to college, there will be square holes there. "In a few years' time he will not be so different; he will not be the class nerd.
"It is sad," Conway adds, "that people do not understand that gifted children are very isolated and can end up quite damaged."
*Names have been changed
• For more information on the Irish Association for Gifted Children, see www.iagc.ie; its sister site is www.giftedkids.ie
• swayman@irish-times.ie
Does your child have exceptional ability?
Gifted children have a range of characteristics, which can set them apart from their peers. Common indicators include:
• Keen powers of observation.
• Learned or read very early, often before school age.
• Reads widely and rapidly.
• Well-developed vocabulary - takes delight in using unusual and new words.
• Has great intellectual curiosity.
• Absorbs information rapidly - often called sponges.
• Very good memory - can recall information in different circumstances.
• Is able to concentrate deeply for prolonged periods.
• Very good powers of reasoning and problem solving.
• Has intense interests.
• Possesses unusual imagination.
• Has a great interest in "big" questions, eg the nature of the universe, environmental issues.
• Very sensitive - perhaps getting upset easily.
• Very concerned about rights and wrongs.
Source: www.giftedkids.ie
Academic courses at the Irish Centre for Talented Youth
Forensic science, engineering, archaeology and novel-writing are just a few of the 100 different academic courses available at the Irish Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI), based in Dublin City University.
"We are trying to do something that does not interfere with school work," says the director of CTYI, Colm O'Reilly.
CTYI caters for 4,000 children a year, aged six to 16, between its Saturday classes and summer camps, in Dublin and other centres including Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.
To qualify, a child must either sit a CTYI assessment, or have an independent psychological assess- ment that has found them to be gifted.
As well as the stimulation and challenge these courses provide, the social side is another benefit. "It is very important for bright kids to see loads of other bright kids out there, to meet kids with the same interests they have," says O'Reilly.
"Gifted" is not a word O'Reilly is particularly comfortable with. "I find parents and particularly secondary-school kids uncomfortable with it. There is a stigma attached."
To be labelled gifted is also a pressure on a child not to fail at anything. "It is a myth that gifted children are good at everything," he says.
The CTYI assessment for primary school children takes one-and-a-half hours and tests their abstract reasoning, mathematics and verbal ability. They can qualify in any one of those and about 70 per cent of children do. The qualification rate drops to 50 per cent among secondary school pupils who are assessed for maths, verbal and writing abilities, during a two-and-a-half-hour test. Again they can qualify in any one area.
Scholarships and financial aid are available for students whose parents can't afford a course. "We try not to turn away people for financial reasons," adds O'Reilly.
• For more information about the Irish Centre for Talented Youth, tel 01-7005634, e-mail ctyi@dcu.ie or see www.dcu.ie/ctyi/
