Infancy represents a unique period when learning skills are developed in children. Programs for gifted children would help you and your child to grow and arouse skills and learning potential. Presenting problems in gifted children take various forms, ranging from the desire for baseline assessments to concerns regarding deterioration in academic performance to assessments for the purpose of satisfying criteria for gifted program placement. Whatever the reason for referral, a thorough understanding of the referral question or current complaint is vital for steering the direction of the neuropsychological assessment, recommendations, potential treatment, and follow-up. Gifted children are also most often identified during the preschool years because they go beyond developmental expectations. In infancy, precocious development of language or reading skills is an important marker in the identification of gifted children (Davies, 32). Although gifted children have been thought to be at risk for adjustment problems, some work indicates that this is not necessarily the case. Parents should know that young gifted children often have higher self-esteem and more energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity than average children. Programs for gifted infants will help to assess the potential of a child and the main areas of interest.
Educators, psychologists and psychiatrists show a general consensus that programs for the gifted should be an integral part of the development in infancy, although a trend away from enrichment in the regular classroom as the primary way of meeting the needs of gifted students is evident. Instead, acceleration, mentoring, self-directed and independent study, individual education plans for infants, special programs for gifted, Saturday and summer programs, and community-based programs have become important today. In addition, an enormous amount of instructional material is created for use with gifted students (Culbertson and Willis 87). More recently, there also has been an interest in the role of mentors, role models, and heroes in the education of gifted high school students. In contrast to these earlier developments, there is now a growing movement to disband such programs, and instead of calling for more of the existing programs. Infancy is a unique period of development when parents should not waste time and wait for further school education. During infancy, the major developmental task and responsibility is personal identity formation; this is the period that has received the greatest attention in the literature. derivative conceptualization of identity development provided a major impetus for work by establishing a core that has sustained unique skills in a child. Gifts and skills development can be viewed as progressing along two different dimensions: commitment and crisis. Learning and educational concerns are reflected most acutely in early school and adolescent stages. It is during infancy age that the child is faced with developing a sense of uniqueness and the capacity to derive satisfaction from learning (Achter et al 10). Special programs for gifted children will help to assess a potential for further academic achievement, intelligence, language facility, cognitive processing, and adaptive behavior. The special tests for gifted infants are not limited to individually administered tests but are used to qualify students for education placement.
Dear parents, you should not waste time and give your child a chance to develop his personality and help him/her to become a gifted and unique individual in further life. Special programs and professional teachers will help you to assess and evaluate potential of a child and develop state-of-the-art programs for every small student.
Works Cited
Achter, J.A., Benbow, C., & Lubinski, D. Rethinking multipotentiality among the intellectually gifted: A critical review and recommendations. Gifted Child Quarterly, 41 (1997), 5–15.
Culbertson, J.L., & Willis, D.J. (Eds.). Testing young children. Austin, TX: ProEd, 2003
Davies, D. Child development: A practitioner’s guide. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.