The Gifted Girl
Sharon Wilcox
S
Questions
S  Who is the gifted girl?
S  What happens at different ages and stages?
S  How do we identify giftedness in girls?
S  How do we support as parents?
Multiple Intelligences
IQ, Giftedness and EQ
S  IQ
S  Memory
EQ is consciously choosing
S  Problem-solving
S  Thoughts
S  Thinking
S  Feelings
S  Giftedness
S  Creativity
S  Motivation
S  Performance
S  Actions
…to create optimal
relationships with
yourself and others.
Food for Thought
“There can be no knowledge
without emotion. We may be
aware of a truth, yet until we have felt
its force, it is not ours. To the
cognition of the brain must be
added the
experience of the soul.”
Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)
Begin with the End in Mind
EQ Research at UCLA
(Cooper, 1996)
¡  7% of leadership success is IQ
¡  93% comes from
§ Trust
§ Integrity
§ Authenticity
§ Honesty
§ Creativity
§ Presence
§ Resilience
= EQ
What Comprises EQ?
Set of learnable & measurable skills
§ Self-awareness
§ Empathy
§ Optimism
§ Self-direction
§ Motivation
§ Flexibility
Gifted Characteristics in Girls
S  High level of intensity
S  Ability to recognize more options
S  Is a rapid learner
S  Dislikes repeating or practicing
S  Depth of perception
S  Keen sense of observation and
extraordinary memory
S  Sophisticated language and
thoughts
S  Make no distinction in work/play
something she already knows
S  Perfectionistic
S  Perseverance
S  Higher level of sensitivity
Where Did They Go?
S  Comparing the number of gifted boys and girls
S  Preschool: girls show more gifted characteristics
S  Elementary school years: equal in number
S  By age 12: gifted boys outnumber gifted girls
S  Adulthood: identified gifted girls fade
Early Identification
S  Preschool girls score ahead of boys and are often “off the charts”
S  Reading
S  Talking
S  Conceptualizing
S  Vocabulary
S  Counting and math skills
S  Fine and gross motor skills
S  Music and Art
S  Focus
S  Score higher in achievement and IQ tests
S  Ready for formal schooling earlier
S  Formal gifted identification does not begin until 3rd grade
Gifted Elementary Girls
S  They are more strongly influenced by their
mothers than are gifted boys
S  They are not as likely to seem well adjusted
S  They are often loners without much need for
recognition or social praise
S  They are most likely second born females
Gifted Elementary Girls
S  Have high academic achievement
S  They are confident in their opinions and willing to
argue for their point of view -- yet . . .
S  Aspire to careers that have moderate rather than
high status
The Adolescent Gifted Girl
S  Gifted girls’ IQ scores drop in adolescence at 12 – 14 years of age
S  Some researchers (e.g. Dr. Lewis Terman) theorize it may be as they
begin to perceive the giftedness in females is undesirable
S  Gifted girls are likely to continue to have higher academic
achievement as measured by GPA – yet . . .
S  Gifted girls take less rigorous courses than gifted boys in high school
The Adolescent Gifted Girl
Dr. Anita Gurian: Many Gifted Girls, Few Eminent Women
S  SENG, 2002: 8th grade gifted girls report more negative self-regard
and self-confidence than non-gifted girls in the same grade level
(Bruce Kline, 1991)
S  Perfectionism, hopelessness and discouragement rise with age
S  Changes result from conflicts between psychological needs and
societal expectation
S  They often do not receive recognition for their achievements
S  Even with high GPA, they attend less prestigious colleges than
highly gifted boys, a choice that leads to lower status careers
The Adolescent Gifted Girl
S  From the age 12 to 14 years, when a strong shift in values
occurs, is a critical time for gifted girls
S  The change in values at this point is related to strong
needs for love and belonging
S  Adolescence has shown to bring a steep decline in self-
esteem, and confidence in opinions
Emotional Intelligence
¡  In 1967, educational pioneer Karen McCown met with a group
of Nobel prize winners
§  Goal: envision an ideal school’s curricula
§ Instead they focused on their 2 childhood challenges
§  Isolated and different
§  Affected their friendships, social skills, and emotional
development
¡  Uniform consensus: Spending more time on social-emotional
learning would have enhanced their experiences – and would
promote intellectual growth
EQ
¡  1995 Gifted Child Society (GCS): yearlong study
Despite high verbal and conceptual
skills, a large number were unable to
identify feelings and behavior
Limbic System
Brain Structures for EQ
The Limbic System (Reptilian brain) is a set of structures that form
the border of the cortex: 80,000x faster than the neocortex
§  Hippocampus: long-term memory
§  Hypothalamus: ANS via hormones, BP, heart rate, sleep
§  Amygdala: fear, social, mating
§  Anterior thalamic nuclei: relay station
§  Orbitofrontal cortex: decision-making
§  Nucleus accumbens: reward, pleasure, addiction
§  Dentate gyrus: new memories and happiness
Gift or a Problem?
Carol Watkins MD 2007
S  Some gifted girls are almost painfully sensitive: HSP
S  May increase empathy but lead to criticism
S  May be bored or impatient and feel she doesn’t fit in and
appear to have ADHD*
S  Talented artist or writer may need seclusion that seems asocial
S  Is it depression or a natural reaction to a lack of stimulation?
Gifted Girls and ADHD
Carol Watkins MD 2007
S  ADHD is similarly represented in gifted and non-gifted
S  Quietly inattentive and disorganized
S  Active girls may act like tomboys and socialize with boys
S  May engage in impulsive escapes and risky behavior
S  May be talkative with excessive socializing
S  May have few friends and are more likely to be depressed until late
adolescence or adulthood
S  May have anxiety because of the extreme effort needed to compensate
S  Often self-critical
Butler
Learning
Styles
S  2 ways of perceiving
S  Concrete: actual and real
S  Abstract: theoretical and
conceptual
S  2 ways of organizing and
working
S  Random
S  Sequential
S  All can be gifted
S  Have equal representation in
Learning Disabilities and
Attentional Issues
Gifted Girls
“Are you listening?”
S  Tend to be Abstract
S  Dislike worksheets
S  Dislike tests
S  Have difficulty with
boredom
S  Are usually concept-oriented
S  Not time oriented
S  Less people-oriented
S  Less action-oriented
Different Test Taking Styles
S  Girls do less well on National Merit Scholarships (ETS, 1998)
S  College Board officials indicate “boys and girls are treated
differently in the classroom” as a reason for girls’ lower scores
S  Researcher Carol Gilligan
S  Standardized tests with multiple choice and short fill-in
favor boys
S  Subtle expression of knowledge and essays favor girls
Teachers’ Role
Peterson, Carpenter and Lubinski:
“Teachers selected ability
as the cause of their most capable
males’ success 58% of the time, and
the cause of their best females’ success
only 33% of the time.”
The Attraction
Principles
Strategies:
Communication
Check
S  DON’T focus on a purple
elephant
S  Don’t run
S  Stop whining
S  No yelling in here
The Focus on Lack:
Does it affect
adolescent girls?
S  Don’t talk to me like that
S  Don’t forget
S  Don’t be so aloof
S  Don’t look that way
Gifted College Women
S  Gifted young women enter college with higher grades but less
rigorous course preparation than gifted men
S  Gifted young women’s self-esteem is at a low point upon
entrance to college (Kaplan, 2008)
Gifted Women
S  Gifted women who engage in income-producing work are
more satisfied with their lives than those who are not
STEM Career Choices
Reis, 2002
S  Architecture: 17%
S  Engineers: 8%
S  Technicians: 3%
S  Dentists: 10%
S  Fortune 500 Management: 3%
What are the Barriers?
Internal Barriers to Achievement
Personality, Personal Choices and Decisions
S  The Horner Effect
S  The Cinderella Complex
S  The Imposter Phenomenon
S  The Self-Esteem Plunge
The Horner Effect
S  Matina Horner (1972) observed that women characteristically
underachieved when competing against men
S  Despite exceptional ability, women would perform decidedly
below their skills, and curiously were unable to explain why
S  The Horner Effect was renamed the Fear of Success Syndrome
The Cinderella Complex
Colette Dowling
S  The Cinderella Complex is a network of repressed attitudes and
fears that keep gifted women from full use of their abilities
S  Like Cinderella, many gifted women today are still waiting for
something external to transform their lives
The Imposter Phenomenon
Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes
S  “Gifted women who experience the imposter
phenomenon maintain a strong belief that they were
not intelligent; in fact, they were convinced that they
had fooled everyone.”
S  Characteristics
S  Diligence
S  Phony
S  Lack of Self-Confidence
The Self Esteem Plunge
S  They discover that high achievement may cost them lack of
acceptance by their peer group
S  Girls’ groups reward conformity and may ostracize the
higher achievers
S  The girls were perceived as generally moody or sad, boys as
funny and having a good sense of humor (Luftig, 1991)
Internal Barriers
S  Perfectionism
S  Shyness
S  Lack of confidence
S  Procrastination
Perfectionism
S  Many gifted girls and women face perfectionism (Reis,
2002)
S  Dysfunctional perfectionists’ concern over mistakes result in
a high state of anxiety, self-doubts, procrastination, and
worry (Schuler, 1997)
S  The unhealthy focus is on not making mistakes versus
making something better
What number
is this?
It’s all
about
Point Of
View
Shyness:
Point of View
S  Shyness is perceived as a negative, instead of a natural
state of being
S  2006 Duke University study, published in Digest of
Gifted Research: Americans believe that introversion,
sensitivity and childhood shyness are problems that
need to be fixed
Lack of Confidence
S  Different messages from home and school can create
confusion, especially for cultural sensitivity
S  High school valedictorians had lost confidence after a few
years of college and lowered their assessments of their IQ
(Arnold, 1995)
S  Buescher et al (1987)
S  15% of boys hide their ability
S  65% of girls consistently hide their talents
Procrastination
S  Procrastination was a barrier that persisted with these young
women, perhaps as a result of a degree of perfectionism
S  Sally Reis in Gifted Child Today (2002) indicated
procrastination arises from self-doubt
S  “Healthy striving is self-focused: “How can I improve?”
Perfectionism is other-focused: “What will they think?” –
Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
S  “The best way to ruin something excellent is to try to make
it perfect.” -- SW
External Barriers
S  Peer expectations
S  Social expectations and roles
Gifted Girls and Relationships
S  In a study with over 600 children, it was found that girls
typically adapt to the ability level of their age-mates
(Silverman, 1993)
S  Gifted girls in 3rd through 9th grade choose not to leave their
friends to join advanced classes
S  Gifted boys don’t associate with children less advanced than
themselves but girls try to blend in
The Attraction
Principle
Chick Moorman and Thomas
Haller
Teaching the he Attraction
Principle to Children
“We create our
own reality by
attracting into
our lives what
we give our
attention,
thoughts,
emotion, energy
and focus to.”
What Can Parents Do?
S  Understand your own mindset – and your words
S  Embrace the opportunity of defeat
S  Focus on the process instead of the product: effective
strategies and personal effort
S  Growth over Grades
S  Confronting Deficiencies: admit mistakes with ease
S  Tell stories
Social-Emotional Coaching
Giving Feedback:
Be the mirror
Understanding
& Summarizing:
Classic
Reflection
Listening: PACT
Person, Action,
Content, Time
Questioning:
Power of Wh-?
Teaching the Gifted Child
Mentoring, Coaching & Counseling
Mentoring
Coaching
Processing
Counseling
1.  The Mentor may see
things in a child she does
not see in herself
2.  “I believe you can.”
3.  Benefits: inspiration
encouragement new
insights
4.  Research shows girls
benefit especially
Mentoring
• Questioning to raise awareness
• Feedback on interaction or new understanding
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)
¡  Answering questions
¡  Classifying
¡  Comparing and contrasting
¡  Determining missing events
¡  Identifying problems and
solutions
¡  Imagining and role projection
¡  Making and explaining
inferences
¡  Identifying cause of events
¡  Predicting outcomes
¡  Sequencing
¡  Criticizing
¡  Stating opinions
OREO® Cookie
Messages
¡  Objective:
¡  Evaluation:
What has happened? Make it
neutral and objective, without
making it personal.
Evaluate your options and
decide what you want. Come
up with solutions. Be
specific. Does your solution
need steps? What is
Reasonable and Necessary?
¡  Reflective:
Reflect why that is important to
you. What’s the issue or
problem from your viewpoint?
Why do you need to talk about
it? How does that affect you?
How do you feel?
¡  Outcome:
What are the Positive and
Negative outcomes of this
solution?
COUNSELING: Individual
When a child experiences emotions
and behaviors that are more than she
Then, we need to
counsel to consciously
choose TFA
S  Thoughts
S  Feelings
S  Actions
…to create optimal
relationships with
herself and others
Counseling,
Coaching,
Mentoring
Parent Talk
Chick Moorman
S  Mentor: “Choose.
Decide. Pick.”
S  Coach: “You
always have more
choices than you
think you have.”
S  Counsel: “Please
make a different
choice.”
Parent Cue Cards
S  Mistakes are so interesting. Here’s a wonderful mistake.
S  Let’s see what we can learn from it.
S  Boy, this sure is hard – this is fun!
S  I like that you tried a lot of different strategies on that math
problem until you finally got it.
S  I noticed your persistence on that English assignment.
Best Practice Strategies for
Gifted Girls
S  Intentional planning
S  Problem based learning
S  Authentic problem solving
S  Emotional Intelligence core curriculum and at home
S  Teach reflective practices
S  Use healthy communication
S  Engage critical thinking and asking questions
Wisdom
Be hard on the issue and
Be soft on the person
Resources
S  American Association for the Gifted
S  Gifted Girls to Gifted Women, Lori Comallie-Caplan, 2008.
S  National Association for Gifted Children
S  Smart Girls (Revised Edition), A New Psychology of Girls,
Women and Giftedness, Barbara A Kerr
S  Nurturing the Gifted Female, A Guide for Educators and Parents,
Joy L. Navan