Intellectual giftedness is an intellectual ability significantly higher than average. It is different from a skill, in that skills are learned or acquired behaviors. Like a talent, intellectual giftedness is usually believed to be an innate, personal aptitude for intellectual activities that cannot be acquired through personal effort. Various ideas about the definition, development, and best ways of identifying intellectual giftedness have been put forward.
Intellectual giftedness may be general or specific. For example, an intellectually gifted person may have a striking talent for mathematics, but not have equally strong language skills. When combined with an adequately challenging curriculum and the diligence necessary to acquire and execute many learned skills, intellectual giftedness often produces academic success. There is also artistic or creative giftedness, which may or may not be combined with intellectual giftedness.
Read more about Intellectual Giftedness: Developmental Theory, Giftedness From A Multiple Intelligences Perspective, Savantism, Characteristics of Giftedness, Minority Students Who Are Gifted in America, Twice-exceptional, Professional Attitudes Toward Giftedness, Heritability of Giftedness
Famous quotes containing the word intellectual:
“Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to the intellectual expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-medical jargon that parodies the concepts of science. The social style conforms to the political expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-liberal social movement that parodies the ideals of freedom and rationality.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)