Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology 3031227948, 9783031227943

Table of contents :
Contents
1 Supporting and Encouraging the Versatile Gifted Child and Adolescent
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Between Versatility and Multi-potentiality
1.3 Multi-potentiality: Does It Exist at All?
1.4 Multi-potentiality and Career Choosing: Is It Indeed a Main Problem of the Gifted?
1.5 Career Choosing from the Gender Point of View
1.6 The Contribution of Brain Sciences to the Multi-potentiality Issue of the Gifted
1.7 Brain Cognitive Functions and Athletics, Art, Music, Dance and Writing
1.8 Examples of Individuals Who “Have Made It” in More than One Area
1.9 School Related Issues: The Support of the System and the Support that Might Be Supplied by the System
1.10 Personal Summary
References
2 Understanding and Treating the Profoundly Gifted
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Exceptional Development as an Ability Development
2.3 Exceptional Giftedness as a Special Developmental Route
2.4 Physiological-Neurophysiological Sensitivity and Environmental Effects
2.5 Child Prodigies
2.6 The Savant Syndrome—A Frontotemporal Feature
2.7 Savant Syndrome and Giftedness
2.8 Developmental Profile
2.8.1 Provision for the Exceptionally Developed Gifted Child
2.8.2 A Case-Study
2.9 Closing Thoughts
References
3 “Do Not Turn the Light Off” for Gifted Children and Adolescents with Overexcitabilities
3.1 Introduction: Short History of Giftedness and Overexcitabilities
3.2 Overexcitabilities and the Gifted: Definitions, Literature Review and Main Theories
3.3 The Cultural Aspect of Overexcitabilities in General and Among the Gifted in Particular
3.4 The Gender Aspect of Overexcitabilities Among the Gifted
3.5 Overexcitabilities of the Gifted and Brain Sciences
3.5.1 Short History
3.5.2 Overexcitabilities, Intensities an Asynchronous Development and Giftedness
3.6 Giftedness, Overexcitabilities and Vox Populi
3.7 Brain Sciences as Intermediary Variable Connecting OE’s and Giftedness
3.8 Overexcitabilities as a Tool for Giftedness Identification
3.9 Case Study: Helen
3.9.1 From Creativity to Social Rejection and Back to Self-materialization
3.9.2 Family Background and Early Childhood
3.9.3 Elementary School
3.9.4 Junior- and Senior High School
3.9.5 Grade 12—Helen Finds Her Place
3.9.6 Helen’s First Professional Steps
3.10 Conclusion
References
4 Understanding Gifted Children with Stable and Unstable Executive Functions
4.1 Different Forms of Atypical Development
4.2 Executive Functions and Neurodevelopmental Disorders
4.3 An Evolutionary View
4.4 Relationship Between Executive Functions and Neurodiverse Talent
4.5 Executive Functions, Intelligence, and Creativity
4.6 Profiling of the Executive Functions
4.7 Control Profile Questionnaire
4.8 Training Possibilities
References
5 Neurodiversity and Supporting the Autistic-Gifted Child and Adolescent
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Neurodiversity Is an Opportunity for Evolutionary Survival
5.3 Atypical Neurodevelopment and Autism
5.4 “Cold” and “Hot” Executive Dysfunctions
5.5 Speech, Language, and Mentalisation
5.6 Pattern-Seeker Brain and Hyper-systematisation
5.7 Hyper- and Hypo-sensibility
5.8 Outstanding Intellect
5.9 Creativity in Autism
5.10 Autism and Psychotic Disorders
5.11 Case Study of Gábor: No Happy Ending
5.11.1 From Disadvantage to Advantage—Provision of the Autistic Talent
5.11.2 Closing Thoughts
References
6 Counselling, Treating, and Helping Gifted Children with Dyslexia and Other Specific Learning Difficulties—The 3D Learners
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Dyslexia and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders
6.3 Specific Reading Disorder and Evolutionary Developmental Biology
6.4 Loosely Wired Brain
6.5 Specific Hemisphere Dominance
6.6 Dyslexic Reading Pathways
6.7 Holistic Stimulus Processing—3D Cognition
6.8 Specific Cognitive Development—Predisposing and Triggering Factors
6.9 Cognitive and Socio-emotional Resilience
6.10 Counselling, Compensation, and a Supportive Environment
6.11 Summary
References
7 The Neural Basis of Language Talent in Bilinguals
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Definitions of Bilingualism
7.3 Short History of Intellectual Advantages of Bilingualism
7.3.1 Literature Review
7.4 The Failure of the Theory of Right Versus Left Brain Activity in Language Learning—And the Emergence of the Brain-Thickness Theory
7.5 Pathway to Bi- or Multilingualism and Giftedness
7.6 How Is Bi- or Multilingualism Related to Giftedness?
7.7 The Role of White and Grey Matter in the Study of Bilingualism and Giftedness
7.8 Plasticity of the Brain, Giftedness and Bilingualism
7.9 Bilingualism and It Connections to Executive Functions, Executive Attention, and Executive Control
7.10 Advantages of Bilinguals that Contribute to the Materializing of High Ability
7.11 More Advantages of Bilinguals Related to Giftedness
7.12 Brain Neuroplasticity, Giftedness, and Bilingualism
7.13 Bilingualism, Giftedness, and Immigration
7.14 Two Vignettes
7.15 Summary and Conclusions
Appendix
References
8 Understanding and Supporting the Homosexual and Trans-sexual Gifted Child and Adolescent
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Research on Homosexual and Trans-sexual Gifted Child and Adolescent
8.3 The Coming Out Experiences of Gifted Non-cisgender Students: When, to Whom, and Why Not
8.4 The Non-cisgender Brain: Confronting Parents, Schools and Society
8.5 Gender Versus Sex and the Brain
8.6 Mediating Variables Connecting Intelligence and Non-cisgender Identity
8.7 Why Are Homosexuality, Binary-Sexuality and Trans-sexuality More Common Among the Gifted than in the General Population? The Neuropsychological Basis
8.8 Summary and Conclusions
References

Citation preview

SpringerBriefs in Education Hanna David · Eva Gyarmathy

Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology

SpringerBriefs in Education

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Hanna David · Eva Gyarmathy

Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology

Hanna David Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv, Israel

Eva Gyarmathy Research Centre for Natural Sciences Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology Budapest, Hungary

ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Education ISBN 978-3-031-22794-3 ISBN 978-3-031-22795-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 All figures are the work of Eva Gyarmathy. All rights reserved. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Supporting and Encouraging the Versatile Gifted Child and Adolescent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Between Versatility and Multi-potentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Multi-potentiality: Does It Exist at All? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Multi-potentiality and Career Choosing: Is It Indeed a Main Problem of the Gifted? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Career Choosing from the Gender Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 The Contribution of Brain Sciences to the Multi-potentiality Issue of the Gifted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7 Brain Cognitive Functions and Athletics, Art, Music, Dance and Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 Examples of Individuals Who “Have Made It” in More than One Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.9 School Related Issues: The Support of the System and the Support that Might Be Supplied by the System . . . . . . . . . . 1.10 Personal Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Understanding and Treating the Profoundly Gifted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Exceptional Development as an Ability Development . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Exceptional Giftedness as a Special Developmental Route . . . . . . . 2.4 Physiological-Neurophysiological Sensitivity and Environmental Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Child Prodigies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 The Savant Syndrome—A Frontotemporal Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 Savant Syndrome and Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8 Developmental Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8.1 Provision for the Exceptionally Developed Gifted Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 2 4 4 5 8 8 9 10 10 15 15 15 17 18 20 24 25 26 30

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2.8.2 A Case-Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.9 Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 “Do Not Turn the Light Off” for Gifted Children and Adolescents with Overexcitabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction: Short History of Giftedness and Overexcitabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Overexcitabilities and the Gifted: Definitions, Literature Review and Main Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The Cultural Aspect of Overexcitabilities in General and Among the Gifted in Particular . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 The Gender Aspect of Overexcitabilities Among the Gifted . . . . . . 3.5 Overexcitabilities of the Gifted and Brain Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 Short History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.2 Overexcitabilities, Intensities an Asynchronous Development and Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Giftedness, Overexcitabilities and Vox Populi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Brain Sciences as Intermediary Variable Connecting OE’s and Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Overexcitabilities as a Tool for Giftedness Identification . . . . . . . . 3.9 Case Study: Helen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9.1 From Creativity to Social Rejection and Back to Self-materialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9.2 Family Background and Early Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9.3 Elementary School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9.4 Junior- and Senior High School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9.5 Grade 12—Helen Finds Her Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9.6 Helen’s First Professional Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.10 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Understanding Gifted Children with Stable and Unstable Executive Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Different Forms of Atypical Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Executive Functions and Neurodevelopmental Disorders . . . . . . . . 4.3 An Evolutionary View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Relationship Between Executive Functions and Neurodiverse Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Executive Functions, Intelligence, and Creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Profiling of the Executive Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Control Profile Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Training Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31 32 33 35 35 36 38 38 39 39 39 40 40 42 42 42 42 43 44 46 47 47 47 53 53 55 56 59 60 62 63 65 67

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5 Neurodiversity and Supporting the Autistic-Gifted Child and Adolescent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Neurodiversity Is an Opportunity for Evolutionary Survival . . . . . . 5.3 Atypical Neurodevelopment and Autism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 “Cold” and “Hot” Executive Dysfunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Speech, Language, and Mentalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Pattern-Seeker Brain and Hyper-systematisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Hyper- and Hypo-sensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 Outstanding Intellect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.9 Creativity in Autism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.10 Autism and Psychotic Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.11 Case Study of Gábor: No Happy Ending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.11.1 From Disadvantage to Advantage—Provision of the Autistic Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.11.2 Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Counselling, Treating, and Helping Gifted Children with Dyslexia and Other Specific Learning Difficulties—The 3D Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Dyslexia and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Specific Reading Disorder and Evolutionary Developmental Biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Loosely Wired Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Specific Hemisphere Dominance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 Dyslexic Reading Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.7 Holistic Stimulus Processing—3D Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.8 Specific Cognitive Development—Predisposing and Triggering Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9 Cognitive and Socio-emotional Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.10 Counselling, Compensation, and a Supportive Environment . . . . . 6.11 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Neural Basis of Language Talent in Bilinguals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Definitions of Bilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Short History of Intellectual Advantages of Bilingualism . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 The Failure of the Theory of Right Versus Left Brain Activity in Language Learning—And the Emergence of the Brain-Thickness Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Pathway to Bi- or Multilingualism and Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 How Is Bi- or Multilingualism Related to Giftedness? . . . . . . . . . .

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7.7

The Role of White and Grey Matter in the Study of Bilingualism and Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.8 Plasticity of the Brain, Giftedness and Bilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.9 Bilingualism and It Connections to Executive Functions, Executive Attention, and Executive Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.10 Advantages of Bilinguals that Contribute to the Materializing of High Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.11 More Advantages of Bilinguals Related to Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . 7.12 Brain Neuroplasticity, Giftedness, and Bilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.13 Bilingualism, Giftedness, and Immigration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.14 Two Vignettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.15 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Understanding and Supporting the Homosexual and Trans-sexual Gifted Child and Adolescent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Research on Homosexual and Trans-sexual Gifted Child and Adolescent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 The Coming Out Experiences of Gifted Non-cisgender Students: When, to Whom, and Why Not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 The Non-cisgender Brain: Confronting Parents, Schools and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 Gender Versus Sex and the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 Mediating Variables Connecting Intelligence and Non-cisgender Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7 Why Are Homosexuality, Binary-Sexuality and Trans-sexuality More Common Among the Gifted than in the General Population? The Neuropsychological Basis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.8 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

115 115 116 117 117 117 119 119 120 121 121 127 127 127 129 130 131 133

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Chapter 1

Supporting and Encouraging the Versatile Gifted Child and Adolescent

1.1 Introduction The versatile- or the multi-talented child or adolescent is characterized by special abilities, usually observed at a very young age, in more than one area. The label “gifted” is granted in many cases to young children who have scored highly at intelligence tests (e.g. in Germany: Monks & Pfluger, 2005; in Israel: David, 2016a). But in some other countries and cultures it is essential to demonstrate achievements that are either exceptional, for example: in chess (Nichelli et al., 1994; Strittmatter et al., 2020); in mathematics (Susac & Braeutigam, 2014), in music (Barrett et al., 2013; McPherson, 2016); in computers science (Bavelier et al., 2010; Friedman et al., 2018), or achievements much higher than age-appropriate: in reading, history, art, athletics, etc. (e.g. David, 2017; Sarouphim-McGill, 2010). In some countries both possibilities co-exist. For example: in France, school programs are for high IQ students; out of school special activities are for high achievers in art, writing, or science (Monks & Pfluger, 2005); in the German parts of Switzerland identification and supporting the gifted is much like in Germany, while in its French parts—it is similar to France (David, 2016b). In Hungary (Gyarmathy, 2013), who has a long tradition of nurturing the gifted, the selection and identification process of the gifted is based on several criteria: school achievements, achievements at external competitions, teachers’ nomination, and third party nominations according to psychological test results (Reid & Boettger, 2015).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_1

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Fig. 1.1 The versatile child

1.2 Between Versatility and Multi-potentiality Multi-potentiality had been defined, more than half a century ago, as the ability to select and develop any number of competencies at a high level (Fredrickson & Rothney, 1972). When trying to dig deeply into the “multi-potential” or “multi-talent” concept, we must first define it in a way that the scientific community, or, at least, as many scientists belonging to it as possible will accept it. According to Oxford Dictionary (2022), “versatile” (of a person) means “able to do many different things”. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2022) “versatile” has no less than 34 synonyms and a variety of meanings; the two most common and also relevant to giftedness are: embracing a variety of subjects, fields, or skills; also: “turning with ease from one thing to another”. According to Collins Dictionary (versatile, 2022), “If you say that a person is versatile, you approve of them because they have many different skills”. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2022): “multipotential” means “having the potential of becoming any of several mature cell types”. This definition directs us towards the examination of multi-potentiality through the lens of brain structure and brain activity. But first, let us look deeply into the concept of versatility or multi-potentiality by asking whether multi-potentiality exists (Fig. 1.1).

1.3 Multi-potentiality: Does It Exist at All? There is an open question whether multi-potentiality exists at all (e.g. Martineau et al., 2005); almost a century ago White (1931) had already “inquired into the versatility of genius” (Simonton, 2019, p. 373). On the other hand, we all know about great people in the history of civilization who have made monumental contributions in more than one—in some cases even in multiple domains, scientific, creative and other.

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These individuals have been called polymaths or Renaissance men.1 Cassandro and Simonton (2010), who had defined personality characteristics of those they named “versatile creators” by examining 67 eminent scientists, have found that the main characteristics typical to the versatile ones among them was openness to experience. A further step had been suggested by Beghetto and Kaufman (2009); according to them practically everybody has a potential of becoming a polymath. On the other hand, Achter et al. (1996, 1997), relying on many other giftedness scholars, object to the concept of multi-potentiality, defining it as “a pervasive psychological theme in the scientific literature on the educational-vocational counseling of intellectually gifted individuals” (p. 65). Achter et al. (1997) do not deny its actual existence, but rather point at three major limitations of the multi-potentiality concept: (a) until the end of the twentieth century this concept had been tested by quantitative measures and thus was not subject to empirical evaluation, (b) inadequate tests have been used to “assess the level of various abilities in this group” (p. 5), (c) it had “been erroneously interpreted and falsely assumed to apply to a majority of intellectually gifted individuals” (p. 8). The question whether multi-potentiality exists has been examined in different countries and cultures. For example, Tourón and Tourón (2016) summarized the results of the Spanish adaption of the former SMPY, currently the Talent Search Model (Brody, 2009); they reinforce the hypothesis that the cases of multi-talent or versatility among the gifted do not occur as often as has been previously suggested. By collecting data from several years of implementation the SMPY model in Spain, they came to the conclusion, that while using ordinary tests, the “out of level” (e.g. Rambo-Hernandez & Warne, 2015) capability was masked and these tests could not have adequately discriminated the diverse abilities of the students tested. Lubinski and Benbow (2021), who have been active members of SMPY, or Talent Search Model for decades, have concluded, relying on the very many hundreds publications derived from the original SMPY project (SMPY Bibliography, 2022), that there was no threshold effect for abilities in predicting future accomplishments. They were also decisive against the concept of multi-potentiality, and concluded that it “evaporates” when assessments cover the full range of all three primary abilities: mathematical, verbal, and spatial, and firmly stated that only the pattern of specific abilities mattered. In summa: The question about the existence of multi-potentiality can be reconciliated and thus “made ready to use” by stating that in the very high IQ range, when the qualities needed in order to create something new, which is materialization of giftedness, include a variety of capabilities. The few individuals that reach this stage seem to be multi-potential as they must have many skills in order to function as exceptionally. But in addition of being very good in many subject-matters or areas of activity, they are far better in one subject, in one activity, or one chosen line that they usually dedicate their entire self to. 1

Unfortunately, the existence of such women has been recognized only in the last few decades, though, as will be presented in this chapter, such multi-talented women have left their prints in human history even in the nineteenth century.

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1.4 Multi-potentiality and Career Choosing: Is It Indeed a Main Problem of the Gifted? Multi-potentiality has been “blamed” as the cause of difficulty for many gifted students in career development (e.g. Feldman, 2003; Hagen, 1982; Martineau et al., 2005; Rysiew et al., 1994, 1999; Sajjadi et al., 2001; Sampson & Chason, 2008). Smith and Wood (2020) have argued, that the American ethos, according to which “you can be whatever you want to be” (p. 1558) has caused more harm than good to gifted students. The issue of the versatile, or the multi-potential gifted has been discussed until the twenty-first century mainly from the point of view of career track. While the subject of the versatile or multi-potential gifted started at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the Terman studies (e.g. Terman & Oden, 1935, 1947), multipotential adolescents have been studied thoroughly mainly in the last quarter of the twentieth century (e.g. Astin, 1999; Astin et al., 1988; Fishburn, 1990; Fredrickson & Rothney, 1972). The last decade of the twentieth century, and more intensively—the beginning of the twenty-first—has confronted the gifted, their parents and educators, with an old-new dilemma: if it is true that a gifted child grows up to become a person who can “do it all”; if being a multi-potential person means having the potential to be equally successful in all areas, why not “go for” a subject matter which has a financial advantage? Is more prestigious? This idea has probably contributed to the decline of the studies of humanities (e.g. Hunt, 1997; Jay, 2014), and has also influenced young gifted people interested in the humanities and social scholars to choose math-related subjects. Many adolescents who have been “good enough” in technological based areas, computer science or finances gave up their personal preferences. Indeed, the versatile gifted child or adolescent has been the subject of recently-published studies in the context of school- and professional track choices, as means for future career (e.g. David, 2008, 2018; Hnat, 2018; Ibanez, 2015). This choice has been even more challenging for gifted girls (Hnat, 2018).

1.5 Career Choosing from the Gender Point of View For many years the “gendered brain” has been perceived as absolute truth, serving as means to preserve social order, or, in worse cases, for excluding women for the group who share resources such as power, money, and control. Brain sciences have cut the branch on which these pseudo-scientists had been sitting on (e.g. Rippon, 2019), and exposed the fact that there is no “female brain”. Terman and Oden (1935, 1947) found that as difficult as it was for the multipotential boy to materialize his gifts, it was much harder for the gifted girl; more than half of the women in the Terman sample became housewives and gave up their professional aspirations. It is quite interesting that the majority of the scholars of

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multi-potential gifted children and youths have been women: Hagen (1982), Kerr (1991), Kerr and Colangelo (1988), Colangelo and Kerr (1990), Kerr and Sodano (2003), Milgram and Hong (1999), Rysiew et al. (1999) and Silverman (1993); they “blamed” multi-potentiality as being the cause of most gifted students’ difficulties in career development. According to Hnat (2018), “Highly multipotential girls also showed a tendency to be more indecisive about their career” (p. 75). McCabe et al. (2020), studied since 1992, 714 first- and second-year graduate students (48.5% female) attending U.S. universities ranked in the top 15 by STEM field. They found, 25 years later, that there had been small to large gender differences in abilities, interests, and lifestyle preferences: women had more diverse educational and occupational interests, and they were more interested in activities outside of work. The richness of the SMPY studies supplies us with another reinforcement to the assumption that multi-potentiality is a term with minimal validity when looking at the highest level of the Gaussian intelligence graph. In the study of Lubinski and Benbow (2006), three cohorts of the SMPY students were examined after 35 years; though a very high percentage of the participants, belonging to percentile 99 (cohort 1), percentile 99.9 (cohort 2) or percentile 99.99 (cohort 3, including only those scoring higher than 700 in the math part of the SAT at age 12) had done academically very well in comparison to regular students from the best American colleges, the percentage of girls was dramatically falling down from cohort 1 (39) to cohort 3 (8.2). None of the cohort 3 girls got a Ph.D. in mathematics, engineering, or computer science at age 33, many boys did.

1.6 The Contribution of Brain Sciences to the Multi-potentiality Issue of the Gifted In this part of the chapter some new theories about potential relationships between brain structure and connectivity and the well-established theory of the unitary concept of the g-factor (Spearman, 1904), which had “produced very many studies” (e.g. Panizzon et al., 2014; te Nijenhuis et al., 2014, 2017, 2019), are to be introduced. As we already know, intelligence is mediated by a variety of factors, such as language development, sensorimotor abilities, genetics, heredity, environment, and neurodevelopmental functioning. This fact had been the basis for most of the objections to adapting the g factor per se. for example: the study of Preckel et al. (2020) has offered a new perspective of looking at the “traditional” g: a talent-developmentin-achievement-domains (TAD) framework, aiming to support empirical research by focusing on measurable psychological, rather than cognitive, constructs. Jackson and Winston (2021) have described the academic storm that has been caused by Brand’s book “the g factor” (Brand, 1996), leading to its withdrawn from publication by Wiley after its distribution had already begun, or the controversy when Jensen’s (1998) book was published. Other scholars have objected to the g factor theory based on more

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factual rather than educational/moral/emotional reasons (e.g. Coyle, 2014, 2018); some others have argued with the essence of the g factor as a single general measure for all intelligence-dependent mental tasks (e.g. David, 2016c). Mathematical and Verbal Abilities—Are They Connected? There are two main schools regarding potential connections between mathematical and verbal abilities: the more “traditional” one that divides these two abilities into separate groups, and another one, heavily supported by the “g-concept”, is of one general mental ability, on which different mental skills, mathematical, verbal, spatial and mechanical rely. According to the first theory, “being good at the humanities and bad in math-science and vice versa” (Spearman, 1904). In addition, the existing connections between verbal and mathematical talents are also to be described, examined and criticized (e.g. Amalric & Dehaene, 2016; Hadamard, 1945; Shum et al., 2013) (Fig. 1.2). While Shum et al. (2013) found that the brain area “in charge” of visually presented numerals was localized in the inferior temporal gyrus and anterior to the temporooccipital incisure, Amalric and Dehaene (2016) studied the relationship between math and language abilities among professional mathematicians and control subjects by giving them math and non-math problems. The professional mathematicians performed identically on both (63 and 65% correct); the controls performed similarly (64% correct) on the non-math statements, but they achieved just over chance level (33%) in the math problems (37%). This study—though limited by the small sample (15 mathematicians and 15 non-mathematicians)—gives us a key to the mathematics/verbal riddle: there are brain areas activated only when dealing with math problems, but the mathematical brain is different from that of the layman. It can be roughly concluded, that mathematicians use simultaneously more brain-areas, which are better connected, in order to solve non-math problems. The work of

Fig. 1.2 Mathematical and verbal abilities—close cortical circuits

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Hadamard (1945), himself a world famous mathematician who had made notable contributions to several mathematical fields, is unique to the understanding connections between the mathematical brain and non-mathematical abilities. This work was not only been published half a century before neurological tools were involved in the study of this area; its actual existence demonstrates the verbal and the emotional insightfulness of a great mathematician. A clearer picture of the connection between math and language abilities has been given by Zwick and Greif Green (2007) who have shown, that there is a very high correlation between SAT Verbal and SAT math scores (ibid., Table 9). Hadhazy (2011) has come to a similar conclusion, showing that out of 1.5 million students taking the SAT exams in 2010, just 154 scored 700–800 in math and only 200–300 in the verbal part, while 5 scored 700–800 in critical reading and only 200–300 in math. When moving from investigating mathematical versus verbal areas to the study of actual connections between brain structure and brain activity and the possibility of multi-potentiality, we have already established that even among the highly gifted it is quite unusual that all brain areas, as well as brain activities and connections, are equally developed. The brain, including its different parts, with each part destined for single- or multiple aims, has been designed to function as the core of all main physical, cognitive and emotional activities, which influence each other at each point in the human life. When looking into the brain of the versatile person or to that of the multi-potential child or adolescent, it makes sense to first check the possibility that versatility and flexibility are playing a major role in the development of the multipotential individual. Haley and Maffei (2017) have shown, that cortical circuits are flexible and adaptable; they can be suited to changes in environmental and developmental stimuli, or change with learning. Cortical circuits have “earned” their title as supporters of flexibility, which is necessary for multi-potentiality, due to their ability to be re-shaped and refined by experience while preserving their original general organization. In addition to the brain efficiency theory, which is positively correlated with the amount of gray matter located in the parieto-frontal regions, there is another theory relying on connections among dendrites, tiny tree-like extensions at the beginning of a neuron who receive information from other neurons and transmit electrical stimulation to the cell kernel (Genç et al., 2018). This explains the phenomenon that higher intelligence is related to lower values of dendritic density. When comparing brain images of highly gifted to those of less intelligent people, it is clear that the more intelligent brain needs less activity for similar functioning (e.g. Hodassman et al., 2022). This is also related to the fact that many gifted are quick problem solvers (e.g. Heinze, 2005), an assumption all college entrance tests, as well as many others, are based on.

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1.7 Brain Cognitive Functions and Athletics, Art, Music, Dance and Writing The “artistic brain” is traditionally perceived as relying on both knowledge and semantic conceptual systems, and represented in multiple cortical paths (e.g. Zaidel, 2014). Art is a communicative system of transmitting culture, history, ideas, emotions, esthetics and more. When examining connections between creativity, which is the basis of art, and neuroscience, two main areas stand out: (a) the consequences of brain damage, studied for many years mainly for helping disorders and illnesses such as autism, Parkinson’s and several kinds of dementia, (b) and the less studied area of comparative neuroanatomy, functional connectivity, intelligence, and neurotransmitters (ibid.). There have many studies about various forms of art, such as dance (e.g. Basso et al., 2021), music (e.g. Schellenberg, 2005), drawing (e.g. Drake & Winner, 2013). As for dance, Basso et al. (2021) suggest that dance involves neurobehavioral processes in seven areas: sensory, motor, cognitive, social, emotional, rhythmic, and creative—all contribute also to cognitive abilities in a variety of domains. They also examine four advantages on life domains, experiences and capabilities: dance accelerates interpersonal coordination; enforces certain movements used across developmental stages and cultures; it increases intra- and inter-brain synchrony, and allows identifying the brain regions involved in and most affected by dance. Music has a different effect on adults than on children: while for adults it results in an increase of the mood level and a short-time gain in cognitive functioning, music lessons for children are associated with small but general and long-lasting cognitive increase (Schellenberg, 2005). As for doing visual art: it is hard to decide whether talent comes first and later is it accompanied by certain characteristics and unique personality of the artist, but aside from the unusual talent, demonstrated by artists, they also have certain characteristics, such as high level of intrinsic motivation to perform exceptionally well, ability to work continuously without outside encouragement, and advance by self-teaching (Drake & Winner, 2013). Artists are usually well-trained, since childhood, to use their visual memory both for remembering many details and seeing the “large picture” simultaneously, and use their senses more frequently, in a deeper manner (e.g. Gardner, 1989)—a quality that is of use in many scientific areas.

1.8 Examples of Individuals Who “Have Made It” in More than One Area The tendency of the child, adolescent or adult to concentrate in just one area at a certain time does not necessarily mean they would not want to do something else—during another life period, or simultaneously. Here are two such well-known

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examples, of scientists who were also artists; one had become a world known mathematician and an almost forgotten writer; the other was a chemistry professor and a well-recognized poet. Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (CofbR Bacilbevna KovalevckaR, 1850–1891), the first woman ever who won a Ph.D. in mathematics. She contributed to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics; she also published notable literary works (e.g. Kovalevskaya, 2001 [1892], 2021; Rygiel, 1987). Avner Treinin (1928–2011), a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University who had won five different prizes for his poetry (12 volumes!). There are many gifted students who had been accepted to elite American colleges with full sport scholarships (e.g. Dexter et al., 2021). The opportunity to concentrate on different areas during different life stages depends on the opportunity to develop during childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. Such an example if of Griffin (2022), who had played for the Columbia Lions basketball team in 1969–1970, then moved to Israel, played basketball in the Israeli Basketball Premier League from 1972 to 1979, completed his B.A. at the Tel Aviv University and both his M.A. and Ph.D. in the US, taught English Literature at Bowdoin College in Maine (1983–1987) and Tel Aviv University (1987–2005), and since 2005 at Texas A&M University.

1.9 School Related Issues: The Support of the System and the Support that Might Be Supplied by the System The versatile gifted has been discussed in the context of giftedness research mainly from quite a limited point of view: choosing a vocational track (e.g. Chen & Wong, 2013; Greene, 2003, 2006; OzCan, 2017; Stewart, 1999). But there is so much more to it, especially for the young gifted who are not necessarily bothered yet about their future academic career or money-making. It has, in most cases, to do with the broad interests many gifted children have from a very young age, and their feeling that “there is not enough time for everything”. This feeling is amplified for children who are both interested and talented in many areas; willing to participate in as many activities as possible; thirsty to learn whenever possible, and eager to add new subjects to their reservoir of knowledge. Benbow and Lubinski (2021) have also come to the conclusion, that highly gifted children need suitable interventions in order to materialize their giftedness. In order to turn their giftedness to creativity, namely, to produce innovative, useful and meaningful products, they need learning and psychological support, tailored exactly according to their needs.

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In addition, educators should not label a young child as a “mathematician”, “footballer” or “artist”. Each child and adolescent is entitled to be exposed to as many as possible cognitive and non-cognitive and artistic subjects that might lead to a variety of careers. The counselor’s role is to help the adolescent or the young adult when asked: “what shall I concentrate in” (e.g. Smith & Wood, 2020).

1.10 Personal Summary The allegedly contradiction: The falling of the theory of multi-potentiality versus the high correlation between verbal and mathematical abilities has actually helped me to solve one of the most intriguing riddles I have encountered both in my professional and personal life. The only multi-linguist I have met during the 25 years I had been working at the Hebrew Literature department of the Tel Aviv University was the late Prof. Reuven Tsur, the “father” of “Cognitive Poetics”. On the other hand, learning mathematics and physics at the Hebrew University, dating I-don’t-know how many mathematicians and marrying two (not simultaneously!) from the Tel Aviv University made me realize, that multilingualism was somehow connected to mathematics: ALL the mathematicians I have met were fluent at least in three languages; some in five. I realized that choosing mathematics as a lifelong career does not mean you are good only in it, but rather—that this has been your preferable choice. This understanding has served me when counseling the gifted; my advice has always been “let your heart guide you prior to any life choice”.

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Genç, E., Fraenz, C., Schlüter, C., Friedrich, P., Hossiep, R., Voelkle, M. C., Ling, J. M., Güntürkün, O., & Jung, R. E. (2018). Diffusion markers of dendritic density and arborization in gray matter predict differences in intelligence. Nature Communications, 9(1905). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41 467-018-04268-8 Greene, M. J. (2003). Gifted adrift? Career counseling of the gifted and talented. Roeper Review, 25(2), 66–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783190309554201 Greene, M. J. (2006). Helping build lives: Career and life development of gifted and talented students. Professional School Counseling, 10(1), 34–42. https://doi.org/10.5330/prsc.10.1.b55 j504360m48424 Griffin, R. (2022). Texas A&M University, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts. https:// liberalarts.tamu.edu/english/profile/robert-griffin/ Gyarmathy, E. (2013). The gifted and gifted education in Hungary. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 36(1), 19–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162353212471587 Hadamard, J. (1945). An essay on the psychology of invention in the mathematical field. Princeton University Press. Hadhazy, A. (2011, November 06). Life’s extremes: Math vs. language. https://www.livescience. com/16897-math-language-dyslexia-dyscalculia.html Hagen, J. C. (1982). Career education for the gifted and talented: An analysis of issues and programs. Exceptional Education Quarterly, 3(3), 48–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/074193258200300311 Haley, M. S., & Maffei, A. (2017). Versatility and flexibility of cortical circuits. The Neuroscientist, 24(5), 456–470. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073858417733720 Heinze, A. (2005). Differences in problem solving strategies of mathematically gifted and non-gifted elementary students. International Education Journal, 6(2), 175–183. Hnat, N. (2018). Gifted adolescents and multipotentiality: Links with stress, anxiety, perfectionism and career indecision. A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Educational Psychology at Massey University. Hodassman, S., Vardi, R., & Tugendhaft, Y. (2022). Efficient dendritic learning as an alternative to synaptic plasticity hypothesis. Scientific Reports, 12(6571). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-02210466-8 Hunt, L. (1997). Democratization and decline? The consequences of demographic change in the humanities. In A. B. Kernan (Ed.), What’s happened to the humanities? (pp. 17–31). Princeton University Press. Ibanez, Z. R. (2015). When I grow up: Multipotentiality and gifted youth. https://educationaladva ncement.org/BLOG-GROW-MULTIPOTENTIALITY-GIFTED-YOUTH Jackson, J. P., Jr., & Winston, A. S. (2021). The mythical taboo on race and intelligence. Review of General Psychology, 25(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1089268020953622 Jay, P. (2014). The humanities “crisis” and the future of literary studies. Palgrave and Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137398031 Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Praeger. Kerr, B. (1991). A handbook for counseling the gifted and talented. American Association for Counseling and Development. Kerr, B. A., & Colangelo, N. (1988). The college plans of academically talented students. Journal of Counseling and Development, 67(1), 42–48. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1988.tb0 2009.x Kerr, B., & Sodano, S. (2003). Career assessment with intellectually gifted students. Journal of Career Assessment, 11(2), 168–186. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072702250426 Kovalevskaya, S. (2001 [1892]). Nihilist girl (Translated from Russian by Natasha Kolchevska with Mary Zirin; introduction by Natasha Kolchevska). Modern Language Association of America. Kovalevskaya, S. (2021). Mathematician with the soul of a poet: Poems and plays of Sofia Kovalevskaya (Translated from Russian by Sandra DeLozier Coleman). Bohannon Hall Press. Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2006). Study of mathematically precocious youth after 35 years: Uncovering antecedents for the development of math-science expertise. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(4), 316–345. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00019.x

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Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2021). Intellectual precocity: What have we learned since Terman? Gifted Child Quarterly, 65(1), 3–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986220925447 Martineau, Y., Wils, T., & Tremblay, M. (2005). La multiplicité des ancres de carrière chez les ingénieurs québécois [Multiple career anchors of Quebec engineers impacts on career path and success]. Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations, 60(3), 405–595. McCabe, K. O., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2020). Who shines most among the brightest? A 25-Year longitudinal study of elite STEM graduate students. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(2), 390–416. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000239 McPherson, G. E. (Ed.). (2016). The child as musician: A handbook of musical development. Oxford University Press. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (2022). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/multipotential Milgram, R. M., & Hong, E. (1999). Multipotential abilities and vocational interests in gifted adolescents: Fact or fiction? International Journal of Psychology, 34(2), 81–93. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/002075999399981 Monks, F. J., & Pfluger, R. (Eds.). (2005). Gifted education in 21 European countries: Inventory and perspective. Radboud University. https://www.bmbf.de/pub/gifted_education_21_eu_countr ies.pdf Nichelli, P., Grafman, J., Pietrini, P., Alway, D., Carton, J. C., & Miletich, R. (1994). Brain activity in chess playing. Nature, 369(6477), 191. https://doi.org/10.1038/369191a0 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. (2022). https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/defini tion/english/versatile Ozcan, D. (2017). Career decision-making of the gifted and talented. South African Journal of Education, 37(4), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v37n4a1521 Panizzon, M. S., Vuoksimaa, E., Spoon, K. M., Jacobson, K. C., Lyons, M. J., Franz, C. E., Xian, H., Vasilopoulos, T., & Kremen, W. S. (2014). Genetic and environmental influences of general cognitive ability: Is g a valid latent construct? Intelligence, 43, 65–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. intell.2014.01.008 Preckel, F., Golle, J., Grabner, R., Jarvin, L., Kozbelt, A., Müllensiefen, D., Olszewski-Kubilius, P., Subotnik, R., Schneider, W., Vock, M., & Worrell, F. C. (2020). Talent development in achievement domains: A psychological framework for within and cross-domain research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15, 691–722. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619895030 Rambo-Hernandez, K. E., & Warne, R. T. (2015). Measuring the outliers: An introduction to outof-level testing with high-achieving students. Teaching Exceptional Children, 47(4), 199–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059915569359 Reid, E., & Boettger, H. (2015). Gifted education in various countries of Europe. Slavonic Pedagogical Studies Journal, 4(2), 158–171. https://doi.org/10.18355/PG.2015.4.2.158-171 Rippon, G. (2019). The gendered brain: The new neuroscience that shatters the myth of the female brain. The Bodley Head. Rygiel, M. A. (1987). Sofya Kovalevskaya’s “A Russian childhood” as poetic autobiography. Biography, 10(3), 208–224. Rysiew, K. J., Shore, B. M., & Carson, A. D. (1994). Multipotentiality and overchoice syndrome: Clarifying common usage. Gifted and Talented International, 9(2), 41–46. https://doi.org/10. 1080/15332276.1994.11672792 Rysiew, K. J., Shore, B. M., & Leeb, R. T. (1999). Multipotentiality, giftedness, and career choices: A review. Journal of Counseling & Development, 77(4), 423–430. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.15566676.1999.tb02469.x Sajjadi, S. H., Rejskind, F. G., & Shore, B. M. (2001). Is multipotentiality a problem or not? A new look at the data. High Ability Studies, 12(1), 27–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/135981301200 58671 Sampson, J. P., & Chason, A. K. (2008). Helping gifted and talented adolescents and young adults. In S. I. Pfeiffer, E. Shaunessy-Dedrick, & M. Foley Nicpon (Eds.), Handbook of giftedness in children: Psychoeducational theory, research and best practices (pp. 327–346). Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74401-8_17

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Sarouphim-McGill, K. (2010). A model for the education of gifted learners in Lebanon. International Journal of Special Education 25(1), 71–79. Schellenberg, E. G. (2005). Music and cognitive abilities. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(6), 317–320. Shum, J., Hermes, D., Foster, B. L., Dastjerdi, M., Rangarajan, V., Winawer, J., Miller, K. J., & Parvizi, J. (2013). A brain area for visual numerals. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(16), 6709–6715. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4558-12.2013 Silverman, L. K. (1993). Career counseling. In L. K. Silverman (Ed.), Counseling the gifted and talented (pp. 215–238). Love. Simonton, D. K. (2019). A publication missing from Lewis M. Terman’s CV? Ralph K. White’s 1931 “The versatility of genius”. History of Psychology, 22(4), 372–374. https://doi.org/10.1037/ hop0000135_c Smith, C. K., & Wood, S. M. (2020). Supporting the career development of gifted students: New role and function for school psychologists. Psychology in the Schools, 57(10), 1558–1568. https:// doi.org/10.1002/pits.22344 SMPY Bibliography. (2022). https://www.gwern.net/SMPY Spearman, C. (1904). ‘General intelligence’, objectively determined and measured. The American Journal of Psychology, 15(2), 201–293. https://doi.org/10.2307/1412107 Stewart, J. B. (1999). Career counselling for the academically gifted student. Canadian Journal of Counselling/Revue canadienne de counseling, 33(1), 3–12. Strittmatter, A., Sunde, U., & Zegner, D. (2020). Life cycle patterns of cognitive performance over the long run. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 117(44), 27255–27261. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2006653117 Susac, A., & Braeutigam, S. (2014). A case for neuroscience in mathematics education. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 314. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00314 te Nijenhuis, J., Choi, Y. Y., van den Hoek, M., Valueva, E., & Lee, K. H. (2019). Spearman’s hypothesis tested comparing Korean young adults with various other groups of young adults on the items of the Advanced Progressive Matrices. Journal of Biosocial Science. https://doi.org/10. 1017/S0021932019000026 te Nijenhuis, J., David, H., Metzen, D., & Armstrong, E. L. (2014). Spearman’s hypothesis tested on European Jews vs non-Jewish Whites and vs Oriental Jews: Two meta-analyses. Intelligence, 44, 15–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2014.02.002 te Nijenhuis, J., van den Hoek, M., Metzen, D., & David, H. (2017). Spearman’s hypothesis not confirmed? Three meta-analyses of Black and White prisoners, Northeast Asians, and Arabs and Jews. Personality and Individual Differences, 117, 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017. 05.032 Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1935). The promise of youth. Genetic studies of genius (Vol. 3). Stanford University Press. Terrnan, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1947). The gifted child grows up. Genetic studies of genius (Vol. 4). Stanford University Press. Tourón, J., & Tourón, M. (2016). Identification of verbal and mathematical talent: The relevance of “out of level” measurement. Anales de psicología, 32(3), 638–651. https://doi.org/10.6018/ana lesps.32.3.259401 versatile. (2022). Collins dictionary. https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/versatile+mind White, R. K. (1931). The versatility of genius. The Journal of Social Psychology, 2(4), 460–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1931.9918987 Zaidel, D. W. (2014). Creativity, brain, and art: Biological and neurological considerations. Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00389 Zwick, R., & Greif Green, J. (2007). New perspectives on the correlation of SAT scores, high school grades, and socioeconomic factors. Journal of Educational Measurement, 44(1), 23–45. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/20461841

Chapter 2

Understanding and Treating the Profoundly Gifted

2.1 Introduction To be gifted means not simply being highly able, it is rather a specific attitude, a drive to change and transform, develop and improve. The intrinsic drive which works for everyone is multiplied in the case of giftedness. In the exceptionally gifted persons, it works as an extraordinary inner force from a young age.

2.2 Exceptional Development as an Ability Development Some researchers estimate that 15–25% of the population can be classified as the gifted population, calling it the ‘talent pool’ (Gagné, 1991; Renzulli, 1986). Within this pool, the exceptionally gifted that develop at the highest capacity is 1–2% of the population, which means that although sparsely, such children can be found in any educational institution. That is, the issue affects society at large, and an important question is what kind of provision could optimize the development of these children while the interests of their environment are also taken into account. For the sake of simplicity, here we will limit ourselves to general intellectual abilities, but there are many other areas where a child can make such extraordinary progress. Based on their longitudinal study of intellectually gifted children, Terman and his colleagues reported that exceptionally gifted (IQ 160–179) and profoundly gifted (IQ 180+) children have difficulties with social integration (Burks et al., 1930). Hollingworth (1926) called the IQ range 125–155 ‘socially optimal intelligence’. She found that while children in this range were socially confident and got on well with peers, those with IQs of 160 and above tended to be isolated.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_2

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Let’s take, for example, a 6-year-old child with an IQ of 180. She does not fit in at all to her own age group, because according to the IQ calculation developed at the time of Terman and his colleagues, in principle, a 6-year-old child with an IQ of 180 corresponds to an average 11-year-old child. The gap could become apparent as early as at age 3, when the child first meets her kindergarten peers. In some countries this might happen even earlier. What can be done with her peers in kindergarten to help the integration of a child who can already multiply, or perhaps deal with exponentiation? Her peers can’t connect with her, so isolation is inevitable. Gross (2006) states in her follow-up study, that acceleration, the opportunity to learn at a higher grade, eliminates isolation and the risk of developing mental problems. A higher-level cognitive environment can be a much better environment for an intellectually advanced child because it nurtures the developmental potential. However, such environment is not necessarily more intellectual. The atmosphere in the classroom may even be anti-intellectual, meaning that children who learn well are quite often unpopular. Some of their peers might feel uncomfortable to deal with a far smarter younger child than most of them on a daily basis. An important experience of Gross’s follow-up study is that children who skip more than one grade are better socially accepted by their classmates than those who just one grade. It seems easier to consider the ‘smart egg’ as an exception and thus accept them as a member of the group, than accept a child who is only slightly younger and therefore considered a competitor. There are many challenges to overcome when considering a child for grade skipping. These challenges are the main reason that in many cases, schools do not even attempt to use this ‘magic stunt’ and rather expect the exceptionally developing child to socialize with her peers, even though she is in many aspects very different than they are, due to her exceptional abilities. Without a skilled teacher, this is an almost impossible challenge both for the young child and her peers. According to Gross (2006), the greatest gift a gifted child can receive is a teacher who recognises her potential, not threatened by it, but rather rejoices in it and works with joy to foster it. Based on all this, it might be concluded that the problems of children with exceptional and profound development stem from the different development of abilities, and when manageable, the problems can be solved. However, the development of abilities in children who develop significantly faster than the ordinary is not onedimensional. Both the neural causes and consequences of a developmental specialty and the deviation from the typical development can lead to short- and long-term problems.

2.3 Exceptional Giftedness as a Special Developmental Route

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2.3 Exceptional Giftedness as a Special Developmental Route According to Hollingworth (1931), integration is almost impossible for profoundly developed children due to an extraordinary difference in thinking. These children do not fit in the usual picture, they are very different even from the “mildly gifted”. Their progress is remarkably different from what is expected. Extreme external and internal dyssynchronies/asynchronies (Cronin, 2011; Kearney, 1992; Terrassier, 1985) can cause a lot of confusion in children who develop very rapidly. Often, exceptional achievements in all areas are expected from a child with extraordinary abilities, or, conversely, they are expected to underestimate their potential. It is difficult to find the optimum even with the greatest care, as these special children, like all other children, do not come into this world with a user manual. Understanding the needs of a profoundly developed child is a huge task for parents and educators who had been socialized by standard parenting and educating procedures. Typically, several internal developmental inequalities complicate the situation. Intellectual ability is independent on other abilities, such as emotional-social abilities relevant for social or educational integration; even psychomotor development is an important and often lagging-behind ability. Outstanding cognitive performance is not uniform, and deficiencies may arise from rapid nervous system development, either because the child’s commitment to a particular area leads to neglect of other areas or because of relatively-slow pace of the development of the nervous system. Profoundly developing talent is not equal to extremely high intelligence but is characterized by a specific nervous system organization. Due to extreme development, it can often be classified as a double/multiple exceptional talent. Atypical behaviour can often be judged negatively and even misdiagnosed. Those in the upper percentiles of the intelligence curve (IQ = 140 is about percentile 99; IQ > 160 is approximately 1:10,000) appear to be at higher risk for mental illnesses. Anxiety disorders, mania, and low self-esteem are especially common among high verbal thinking individuals (Amend & Beljan, 2009). However, research suggests that not only multiple dyssynchronies can cause physical and mental disorders, but also the neurological and physiological features that are partly responsible for rapid development. The idea of a hyperbrain/hyperbody (Karpinski et al., 2018) is also confirmed by genetic and neuropsychological research. Extreme intellectual development is based on abnormal neural networks, and as a result, autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities are often associated with outstanding intellectual development (Crespi, 2016; Ma et al., 2017).

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2.4 Physiological-Neurophysiological Sensitivity and Environmental Effects A model based on the interaction of physiological-neurophysiological sensitivity and environmental factors is suitable for combining high intellectual abilities and various atypical forms of development, including the savant syndrome phenomenon (Mrazik & Dombrowski, 2010) (Fig. 2.1). Minor traumas in the developing nervous system can alter or disrupt normal development. In the presence of internal predisposing factors, the higher sensitivity of the brain is more likely to lead to abnormalities even due to very small effects. A small deviation during any developmental stage can reach multiple areas and affect larger units, thereby leading to atypical nervous system development. External factors are typically physiological in nature, but maternal stress during pregnancy can also cause hormonal abnormalities that lead to small developmental changes. Numerous epidemiological and case-control studies revealed that maternal stress has a serious impact on the nervous and cognitive development, on temperament, and eventually cause psychiatric disorders of the offspring (van den Bergh et al., 2017). No specific endangered period was found, but the effects of prenatal stress vary in different stages of pregnancy. Disorders are likely to occur depending on the

Fig. 2.1 Atypical development as talent-mental disorder package

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stage of development of each brain area and neural network, the stress system, and the immune system. The atypical output can be diverse, typically a different combination of varied outputs, i.e., the model also explains the neurological basis of “madness” often connected to genius. The talented population has several specific neurobiological characteristics that support the association between extreme intelligence and the development of specific brain patterns. According to Mrazik and Dombrowski (2010), the outcome depends mainly on environmental factors and individual characteristics. As each child develops in a given direction in the unique interaction of factors, it is important to know these specifics in order to optimize the developmental environment as much as possible. A child with exceptional development needs is different when driven by developmental and learning motivation than when having a strong attraction to one area, possibly abnormal levels of arousal, dysfunction of the reward hormone system, extreme sensitivity, or other abnormalities resulting from unusual nervous system development. It seems clear that children who are particularly prominent intellectually, are born with atypical brain function due to the unusual functioning of genes and their messengers, the hormones, during critical periods. Although it is not yet fully understood how the development of the central nervous system can be affected for example, by the testosterone hormone, there is evidence that testosterone affects the structure and functioning of the brain and plays a role in the development of intellectual talent (Beking et al., 2018; Celec et al., 2013). One such effect is a higher intrauterine testosterone concentration, which may inhibit the development of the left hemisphere within the uterus while strengthening the right hemisphere (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1985), leading to an atypical cognitive pattern. Interestingly, Ostatníková et al. (2020) found lower testosterone concentrations in gifted children compared to their average-ability counterparts, namely, intellectual abilities measured in IQ were negatively correlated with testosterone levels. According to the researchers, in the absence of measurement of prenatal testosterone levels, it can only be assumed that exposure to higher intrauterine testosterone levels will result in lower testosterone levels in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis after birth. The “testosterone-level question” is an important issue because the hypothalamicpituitary-gonadal axis interacts critically with the immune system (Abraham et al., 2009), which interprets common allergies and autoimmune diseases in gifted children with atypical nervous system development. However, such diseases can also be the cause of mild brain trauma, triggering atypical nervous system development. The following case sheds light on the complexity of the interaction of the factors: Peter, a six-year-old boy, started school in the fall of 2019; Peter had outstanding abilities, but suffered from dyspraxia and had mild signs of autism. Although his abilities far surpassed his peers’, whereas among other pieces of knowledge he could read and count well for years, he was well integrated into his class, as his teacher was well trained to handle Peter’s double exceptionality. However, in the second semester of the school year, children were forced into distance learning due to the COVID-19 epidemic. For Peter, this was especially beneficial because he completed his school

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assignments quickly and was able to deal with his favourite field, chemistry. He increased his knowledge to such a high level that he had to hire a university chemistry instructor by the summer. He also gathered the knowledge of mathematics and physics needed for chemistry. His parents were already thinking of accelerating him so he would all elementary school grades, as he had acquired sufficient knowledge in most subjects, but at that point it was revealed that Peter had a rare autoimmune disease, PANS (Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome). PANS is usually associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder and/or eating disorders, as well as cognitive, behavioural, or neurological disorders. Other symptoms of this disease include anxiety, depression, tics, personality change, decreased school performance, and sensory sensitivity. The disease typically appears in childhood. Its symptoms may disappear for a while and then return, but with each episode, they may become worse and last longer. In more than 80% of PANS cases, signs of an abnormal autoimmune or inflammatory response in the brain can be identified following an infection. Other possible causes of PANS include psychological trauma and underlying autoimmune, neurological, endocrine, or metabolic disorders. Interestingly, after the disorder has been treated and balanced, Peter’s tics and much of his social difficulties that were previously identified as autism, were substantially reduced or even disappeared. Peter’s case is exciting because he had suffered from very many problems that might accompany exceptional talents. There was a complex interplay of predisposing, triggering, and sustaining factors: outstanding development had become a profound development, while autism and dyspraxia have made Peter double exceptional. The autoimmune disease appeared, which may have shaped Peter’s cognitive and behavioural characteristics even in the past. Outstanding intellectual development and PANS may have caused the syndrome associated with autism, which, together with tics, receded by the treatment of PANS. The exceptional supportive home and school environment allowed Peter to develop and, despite his exceptionality and illness, strengthen his personality and talents harmoniously.

2.5 Child Prodigies The child prodigy is an extreme case of the profoundly gifted. Quite frequently we hear about a child who is capable of astonishing performance. These children have knowledge and skills far beyond their age. A very well-known American child prodigy has been Kearney, who started talking at the age of four months and was interested in reading at the age of eighteen months. He obtained his university degree at the age of ten. Both of Kearney’s parents had IQ over 150, they were very well off and able to provide their child with an extremely stimulating environment. The best-known child prodigy is probably Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who composed his first symphonies at the age of eight, and years before that he was already playing the piano in the royal houses of Europe. Later he created many long-lasting works of music.

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Christian Heinrich Heinekin, another child prodigy, was less fortunate. According to contemporary accounts, he spoke a few hours after birth, learned Latin, French, history, and geography by the age of 3, and predicted his own death at the age of 4. Another special case is that of Daisy Ashford, who in 1885, at the age of four, wrote a novel about a Jesuit priest. She wrote her second novel, which was considered her best work, at the age of nine. This book sold thousands of copies. Of the three girls raised in the Hungarian Polgár family, the two older ones were extremely good at chess, while the youngest, Judit, was two years ahead of any other child chess player. She was considered profoundly gifted or a child prodigy. Child prodigies usually do not show creative talents during childhood. They do not create anything fundamentally new in areas that require a high level of knowledge, and vice versa: most creative people had not been child prodigies. A child prodigy is characterized not by what they do but rather by when they are capable of doing it. The timing depends, needless to mention, on the culture where the child is raised, the society they belong to. Thus, achievements that are considered exceptional in one society might be considered ordinary in others. While most child prodigies do not grow up to become great creators, people who excel during adulthood had rarely been child prodigies. Child prodigies quite often change their main interest and choose a different specialization, in which they do not achieve exceptionally. Of those who do, most do not become creative geniuses. Science does not know how to predict the path a child prodigy will take. It is known that in order to materialize the promise of excellence a child prodigy needs tireless practice, in addition to the basic characteristic: talent (Winner & Drake, 2018). It can be concluded that practice is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. Another necessary but not sufficient such condition is a solid “emotional spine” (David, 2018). According to the American neuroscientist Vandervert (2016), the cerebellum plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of learning processes, including practice, and this may be an important element for child prodigies. The cerebellum-cerebrum system links all the causal relationships related to motion, thinking, social behaviour, and emotions. The cerebellar unconscious learning that interacts with the cerebral cortex, including the prefrontal areas, is the basis for practice, which leads to enhanced working memory. A strengthened executive system is a major advantage in expert performance and scientific discovery. According to Vandervert, cognitive performance, cultural learning, and development occur through cerebellar internal functioning. Most child prodigies have been in mathematics, music and chess, where welldefined steps, assisted by working memory, lead to the desired results. In the fields of humanities and philosophy, which require a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience, and a deeper involvement of the personality, it is rare to find a lasting work created at an early age (Fig. 2.2).

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Fig. 2.2 During infancy, the cerebellum develops most rapidly, grows three to four times of its size, and forms strong connections with the highest levels of thinking and performance in the cerebral cortex. White dashed arrows indicate the cerebro-cerebellar system

Multi-disciplinary talent is not often found among child prodigies. Prodigies with extensive abilities are examples of special compressions of developmental time, or leaps and bounds, of skipping developmental stages. Picasso, for example, apparently did not go through the usual stages of drawing development or went so fast that it was not noticeable; he was able to draw immediately. Evolution of child prodigies is very astonishing; they charge up like a highpowered generator. This has led to speculations about their having some kind of previously developed abilities influenced by mystical means. However, neuroscience explains the phenomenon of child prodigies by the confluence of innate neural structures and environmental conditions. Their particular, specific basic wiring is further specialised by environmental influences and becomes an extremely evolving ability. The brain is spontaneously wired during brain development by genetically determined and environmentally modulated conditions. The physical organization and wiring of the brain can be considered a fractal structure, the result of hundreds of genetically encoded adaptive connectivity rules. These connectivity patterns are further reinforced by the social environment. An early discovered ability that becomes an obsession involves more and more adaptive brain wiring to optimize that ability. As a result, neural wiring is a starting point, and when coupled with social feedback that enables or encourages a focus on the skill, creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop that rapidly develops the skill, in many cases, at the expense of other things such as adherence to social norms. Brain wiring is just the same evolutionary process as we see in most species: what is adaptive, i.e. reinforced by the environment, becomes stronger and survives. In a 2012 study by Ruthsatz and Urbach, child prodigies showed high, but not necessarily outstanding general intelligence, exceptional working memory and attention to detail, similar to what have been found in autism, which has a genetic component.

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Child prodigies are also an example of the crucial role of the environment in the development of skills. It is quite possible that most of those with potential of becoming child prodigies do not materialize this potential; it is likely that some of them suffer from a variety of disorders as they do not get the right environmental and familial support. Culture also plays a substantial role, as talents considered outstanding might be nurtured by parents of European origin while others—by parents from Africa or South-East Asia. Child prodigies can be considered as a close-to-perfect combination of developmental components. Investigating how the optimal interaction of different factors leads to extreme performance cannot only advance our understanding of child prodigies but also help us understand some of the influencing factors that can help or hinder children’s development (Feldman, 2008). However, no combination of fortunate circumstances can guarantee that an outstanding child will grow into an outstandingly successful adult. The qualities that lead to a child being labelled a prodigy are not necessarily the same as those that characterise mature talent. Yet significant achievements in a particular field are usually typical to those who have made visible progress in that field from an early age. The time spent practising is a very important factor, and child prodigies gain a big advantage. The example of The American William James Sidis, born in 1898, is demonstrating it. His ambitious parents believed they could raise a genius. They provided their son with an incredibly stimulating environment. When he was just 6month old he had learned to speak, by the age of six he had mastered seven languages and was writing an anatomical oration. At the age of eight, he lectured at Harvard University on four-dimensional bodies. But in his teens, he lost his way. He gave up higher intellectual pursuits. He lived his life as a hermit and became a passionate collector of tram tickets. Quite often, teenage prodigies lack abilities that talented adolescents have already acquired, as they develop more evenly and thus possibly more harmoniously in terms of their nervous system and personality. The parents of a young child have a strong influence on their life. As a teenager, child prodigy has to find their own identity and present it both to their peers and parents. Adolescence is the age of detachment for prodigies as it is for all teenagers; thus too strong parental influence can backfire during this period. Children labelled as “child prodigies” are different from each other, but they all share parents’ intense support from a very early age. Their parents encourage them and help them develop their talents, and also supervise their practising needed in order to increase their skills. However, persistent parents’ effort does not necessarily lead to excellence. Putting too much pressure on a child and expecting too much too soon can jeopardise the chances of long-term results. The most important factor in the emergence of special talents is home life. The Parents of successful prodigies have in common flexibility to the child’s initiatives, regardless of what they are based on, an incredibly deep belief that their child is extraordinary and wonderful, and impart this belief with immense love and devotion. They often sacrifice their own careers for the greater talent of the child, as did Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s or Yehudi Menuhin’s fathers (Feldman, 2008).

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But the sacrifice of the parent can also sacrifice the child; parental ambition might cause serious damage. The pressure to perform that ignores the child’s needs has a potential of harm for all children, including child prodigies. Some disorders resulting from too much pressure are disturbances in self-esteem, frustration, and feelings of inadequacy; they appear in a higher proportion among those with outstanding- than among those with lesser abilities. These feelings often lead to serious mental and personality disorders. We usually hear about those for whom the “miracle” worked; for those who have not the information is found in mental health records… In summa: Talent is a great asset; thus, raising a child with outstanding abilities is a great responsibility. But parents need to make their child feel loved, understand their needs, and be patient. In short, they need to know that their child prodigy is a child too. When the basic wiring of the nervous system is very different from the norm more attention is needed, not only so that the child materializes their potential, but also—and maybe most importantly—that they develop in an environment suitable for their exceptionality.

2.6 The Savant Syndrome—A Frontotemporal Feature The term savant syndrome is used for special individuals who have extraordinary abilities in one area while their cognitive performance in other areas or their overall intelligence may be below average. Outstanding skill areas are never mixed: numeracy, spatial-visual, musical, linguistic, and motor savants are known. Savant skills can appear in a variety of skill areas: memory, hyperlexia (exceptional reading, spelling, and writing skills), fine arts, music, mechanical or spatial skills, calendaring, math, computer skills, and sports performance. Some of the children with exceptional development show this type of development and have savant skills, usually without having the obvious pathway of savant development. Savant syndrome does not appear in medical-clinical diagnostic systems and has no DSM or BNO code. According to Treffert and Wallace (2002), savant syndrome could appear in two ways: there are genetically based savant abilities, and rarely, savant syndrome acquired by brain trauma can occur, which could lead to quite astounding capabilities. For example, carpenter Jason Padget’s had a severe concussion during a street attack and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after it, but as a result he began to see the world through geometry. He had no previous interest in this area, but after a blow to the brain, he was able to visualize complex mathematical relations. There are a few similar documented cases. Minogue (1923) reports the case of a 3year old child who developed striking musical abilities after revering from meningitis. Smith and Tsimpli (1991) described a case of a linguistic savant, which is a rarer but not unique, and appears to be an un-acquired syndrome. Christopher, whose IQ was around 70, could translate 5–16 into English. Many times he did not understand

2.7 Savant Syndrome and Giftedness

25

what he is translating, thus his performance could have been compared to that of a translating-program. Savant persons are characterized by excellent memory, great attention to detail, and compulsion. They always focus their interest on a well-defined area. Rimland (1978) found that in a sample of a large number of autistic individuals, savant abilities were mostly associated with right hemisphere abilities while the deficits were most often associated with left hemisphere functions. This fact is in correspondence with Geschwind and Galaburda’s (1985) testosterone-induced left hemisphere deficit and right hemisphere benefit theory. However, the distinction between acquired and congenital syndrome may not be entirely true. Perhaps all of the savant abilities are acquired to some degree, i.e., a special development that can be considered as acquired by a mild brain trauma within the uterus, for example. The genetic basis may be present, and the environmental impact triggers the process. Even savants described as congenital often begin to demonstrate their special abilities only at the age of three or four, although this may be preceded by a diagnosis of autism. The acquired savant syndrome could turn up by an injury at the fronto-tempolar area of the left hemisphere, but not in all cases and not always resulting in savant syndrome. Moreover, unfortunately, this is not at all the typical outcome of these brain injuries. Nevertheless, the phenomenon raises the possibility that the human brain has far higher potential than we might think. Researchers have been interested in connections between brain injuries and the savant syndrome. According to Snyder and his colleagues (2003), the special mathematical and drawing skills characteristic of savant syndrome can also be achieved by inhibiting the left frontotemporal lobe functions, and not necessarily by brain injury. Another interesting study was that of Young et al. (2004): they disrupted the frontotemporal lobe, which plays a role in the development of savant abilities, in 17 subjects with rTMS, namely, repeated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. They found a significant increase in memory, drawing, math, and calendaring abilities in five of the subjects.

2.7 Savant Syndrome and Giftedness The savant syndrome may indicate a neurological background for talent development (Hughes, 2010; Wallace, 2008), however, sporadic research also shows that not everyone’s brain is capable of a special performance in frontotemporal inhibition. There are clear talent-related aspects of the savant syndrome: . Insular outstanding ability in an area with well-defined rules and algorithms, primarily related to the right hemisphere. . These abilities develop congenitally and/or as a result of brain trauma, but the supportive environment plays a crucial role in the development. . Compulsive, obsessive behaviour.

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Characteristics of talent: outstanding general and specific abilities of varying degrees but significantly above average, above-average internal drive for development, and creativity. These abilities lead to outstanding performance through the interaction of personal and environmental factors. Extreme ability and obsession, especially with exceptional talent, often lead to various psychiatric diagnoses, such as ADHD or autism spectrum disorder. Mental disorders can be varied, but the islandlike prominent ability acquired through brain trauma does not necessarily have to be associated with other disorders, as has been shown by artificially induced ability development experiments (Gyarmathy, 2018). A significant difference between talent and savant ability is the creative product, which in the case of savant syndrome is not measurable to the level of obsession and ability. Creativity is also an issue of talent with extreme development. Many gifted children develop very quickly in terms of their abilities, but quite often they lack fantasy, imagination, and playfulness needed for creative achievements. In this respect such children are closer to the characteristics of the savant than to the talented. Thus it is crucial to open a creative route for them. Although originally the name for the savant syndrome was “idiot savant,” there is not too much to link this peculiarity to slow intellectual developments, even though there are savants whose intelligence level seems very low. We can assume that there are high ability savants, whose strong area does not seem an insular ability, and thus, they are identified as rapidly developing talented children.

2.8 Developmental Profile Extremely fast-developing children have recognizable commonalities. However, like everyone else, they are also different in terms of both their development and their ability structure. Understanding their developmental profile is essential for their care, but intelligence tests are not always applicable to them because of several reasons. One such main reason is these children’s attitude towards test. If an exceptionally developing child is not interested in a task or activity, he will probably refuse to cooperate. For example, an 8-year old boy was willing to come to the Institute of Psychology where the second author works because the only thing that interested him was bacteria, which he was hoping to see at the Institute. He could not concentrate on the test he was given; did not even understand it, but had good insights about the subject that interested him. Talented toddlers don’t necessarily want to fit in with adults and have unique visions and values. A 6-year old boy exemplifies this: He got a diagnosis of intellectual disability even though he had extraordinary cognitive abilities. This happened after he proudly told his teacher after the test: “I didn’t tell this woman the right answers. I didn’t like her.” The assessing psychologist did not notice that the boy was dissimulating, and diagnosed him as unfit for regular school. Eventually this child won medals in both county and national math competitions.

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In the case of a young child, especially with an exceptionality, using observational methods helps the assessment be more reliable. In order to gather as much data as possible it is recommended to interview parents, teachers, or other professionals and take their opinions into consideration. Here we suggest a developmental profiling tool based on the work of Ruf (2009). The questionnaire helps to identify and thus address significant developmental differences. The assessment tool is still in the experimental phase, but there is already enough data for reliable use. Behavioural features Alertness . . . . . .

Unusually lively, alert, little sleep Pays attention while someone reads to them Becomes tense in the lack of activity Cannot stand the slow progress Tired of the usual tasks Impatient.

Interest . . . . . . . . . . . .

Interested in music Books are the favourite areas of interest Independently looks at and turns pages of books Has favourite videos, DVDs or TV shows Attentively watches educational films Shows great interest in scientific facts Asks a lot, wants to know how things work Independently uses the computer Independently browse the internet Uses dictionaries, encyclopaedias Has favourite book of science Plays adult board or card games.

Independence . . . .

Sets own goals Looks for challenges Wants to decide on own business Evaluates, criticizes, is self-critical.

Learning . . . . . .

Quickly learns what hears Has advanced knowledge Becomes an expert in a given area Continually wants to learn Learns everything in the area of interest Highly concentrated.

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Ability areas Visual-spatial ability . . . . . . . . . .

Plays with puzzles and Lego Solves puzzles of more than 30-piece Builds complex structures Draws recognizable figures Draws technical objects Shows technical interest Identifies colours Identifies the main geometric shapes Recognizes the numbers and the letters Knows many logos and brand symbols.

Speech . . . . . . . . .

Understands what parents tell Understands complex instructions Can say a few words Knows and uses many words Speaks in sentences Talks complex sentences Has a large vocabulary Talks like an adult Can formulate complex ideas.

Reading . . . . . . . . . .

Recognizes the letters Recognizes words Recognizes the store signs, and own name Would like to know letters Knows by heart the books that were read Reads the text of the picture books Reads children’s books, stories Reads children’s educational books Reads youth novels Reads for pleasure and information.

Writing . . . . . .

Writes printed letters and numbers Writes words, own name in capital letters Writes words on the keypad Writes text on the keypad Writes text in capital letters Writes stories and technical description.

2.8 Developmental Profile

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Math . . . . . . .

Recognizes numbers Likes numbers Can rote count to 10 Can rote count to 100 and higher Can add and subtract Understands multiplication, division, fractions Understands abstract mathematical concepts.

By registering the above-described stages and doing an age-weighted calculation, individual development can be tracked. According to the pilot studies, there is a significant difference in each indicator between the group of children considered talented and the control group (Kissné Facskó, 2020) (Table 2.1). Eleven profoundly gifted children, 38 gifted, and 40 children with typical development were assessed in the study. Of the 13 profoundly gifted six were diagnosed with autism, two with ADHD, and one with specific learning difficulties. In the gifted group, autism spectrum disorder was diagnosed in 7 children, ADHD in 3 children, and learning difficulties in one child. No children were diagnosed with any syndrome, disability of disorder in the typically developing group. Table 2.1 Developmental profiles of different groups (pilot study results) Profoundly gifted N = 13

Gifted N = 38

Typical N = 40

Behavioural average

6.70

5.25

3.30

Alertness

7.9

6.9

4.9

Interest

7.9

4.6

3.4

Independence

5.6

4.6

2.7

Learning

6.2

4.9

2.2

Ability average

5.58

4.04

2.6

Visual-spatial

6.9

4.6

3.5

Speech

8.9

6.6

5.6

Reading

4.5

3.2

1.5

Writing

3.3

2.3

0.8

Math

4.7

3.5

1.6

Former diagnosis

N = 13/9

N = 38/11

N = 40/0

Autism spectrum disorder

6

7

0

ADHD

2

3

0

Specific learning difficulties

1

1

0

Source: Bold represents the average value

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Every child has a different profile, but even in such a small sample, group profiles can be identified. Exceptionally developing young children stand out especially in the Interest and Learning indicators, and in terms of Behaviour characteristics. The profoundly gifted are different from the gifted in Visual-spatial abilities, and the early appearance of Speech. A strong desire to learn turns the little child towards knowledge and rules, but playing and fantasy are often less important for them. However, playing is a very important activity, an experiment with the world, and moving in the imaginary areas is an arbitrary transformation of knowledge, which is part of creative thinking. Reconciling free imagination and knowledge is at the heart of creative thinking.

2.8.1 Provision for the Exceptionally Developed Gifted Child Special ability development often occurs through nervous system abnormalities, which are frequently misdiagnosed even by professionals. In many cases, an unusual desire for activity can lead to a diagnosis of hyperactivity, or the intense interest and tenacity can be identified as autism. Although a psychiatric diagnosis is not always justified, outstanding talent development can indeed mean very unusual behaviours. This happens many a time when a profoundly gifted child is bored and has no spiritual companions. Due to nervous system irregularities and higher than usual sensitivity in multiple areas such a child needs greater psychological and also increased physiological care. A main different between the gifted and the profoundly gifted is the accelerted pace—it might be called exponential—their life is characterized with. This “exponential” pace includes their problems, abilities, and accomplishments. In order to help a profoundly gifted child special attention is needed in early childhood. A toddler or young child, no matter how extremely high their intellectual abilities are, is just at the beginning of their socialization process. For each child, the way they live and their relationships are considered “normal”; however, they determine their self-esteem. An extremely developed little child usually thinks that something is wrong with them. They might feel like a zombie or an alien when among their peers, while adults would smile when the child talks or acts like a little scientist or artist. It is difficult to handle the situation because of the extreme dyssynchrony between the child’s age and their behavior. Outstanding development is usually associated with atypical physiological-neurophysiological features, which also requires special attention. Because of all these risk factors optimal care should be provided to the profoundly gifted child and adolescent. Proposal for the provision: 1. There is a need for kindergartens and schools where trained professionals would take care of talented children, especially of the profoundly gifted, since early age, these professional will make it easier for these children to integrate into their community.

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2. Accelerating several grades seems to be the right way to go, because one grade at a time does not solve the educational problem of the profoundly gifted, but it can lead to new problems. Some important principles are worth considering before acceleration: . . . . .

Academic skills should be above the average for the target year Age-appropriate body development, good health Age-appropriate social-emotional level The child’s desire to accelerate Appropriate timing—it is advisable to start in the first grade of school; it is recommended that the child adapts to school and then skips at least one sememster . A positive attitude of the teacher . Trial lessons in the target class . Proper support in case of withdrawal. 3. The “creative day” means that on a given day of the week, the extremely fastdeveloping child does not go to kindergarten or school, but can function according to his or her own developmental opportunities. 4. Full provision for children with exceptional development cannot be provided within an institutional framework, and a special enrichment, a pull-out program may be required. During the “creative day,” children can participate in such programs. They can engage in high-level activities with children of their own age and intellectual level. 5. The training has to be aimed at the whole person, not just their strengths. The complex development program ranges from psychomotor skills to emotional and social skills through creativity and even everyday health-practice issues, in addition to satisfying children’s interests as much as possible. 6. Thematic mentors support the child’s development in their areas of interest. 7. If necessary, young children with outstanding development could be placed as “students with a private status”. Upon agreement with the educational institution, they can spend a few days a week with their peers and participate in some programs, while in other days they progress at their own pace. 8. Trained case managers are to mentor the exceptional children; they will organize the above-mentioned possibilities and support the child’s family.

2.8.2 A Case-Study Mark could read at the age of two and a half; at that time he was very interested in maps. He started learning languages at the age of three; while his mother tongue was Hungarian, he learnt English by himself. He was fascinated by the multiplication table. In kindergarten, he did not have a chance to deal with his areas of interest; neither had he anyone to talk to. He could not get along with his companions, who quite often hurt him mentally and physically. It seemed that his peers did not let him

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play with them because of his oddities. Soon his relationship with the teachers also deteriorated because he did not want to take part in his class activities. Although he needed a wide range of motor training, he considered the kindergarten activities pointless. He said that the fairy tales the teacher told were silly; he did not like any physical activities either. The educators focused primarily on Mark’s underdevelopment—his sensory-motor difficulties, the social-emotional oddities, while belittling his cognitive performance. Unfortunately, their attitude did not motivate him to participate in preschool activities as they had hoped. Due to Mark’s food allergies, the meals presented an additional problem. This untenable situation came to its end when that Mark was taken out of the kindergarten. He was placed in a talent development group of 5–6 participants, but he could not integrate there either, so he finally started a period of individual care. At first he needed to do a lot of rocking, so he finally could learn anything he wished while rocking. For example: he recited the multiplication table while swinging and rocking. The next task was to unleash his imagination; this was done by exposing him to tales. Listening to tales, and later reading them, is important for young children in order to process anxiety, but they also teach them to reshape reality, with the help of imagination. For Mark, the route to fairy tales was mazy. He was interested in Cyrillic letters, and also Sanskrit writing. Soon enough he became inerested in Sanskrit mythology and then to the world of fairy tales. As these tales have a lot to do with motion, Mark opened up to bodily expression. Mark’s public education career was not successful. From the age of five, he went to small study groups because his parents could not find a school that would accommodate a very smart child. Mark was diagnosed with autism at the age of six. His mother founded an afternoon school where Mark spent his time with similar children, and his complex development could continue.

2.9 Closing Thoughts A talent is a form of neurodiversity; the pathways to high achievement are quite varied, and so are the needs of exceptional children. Neurodiversity means special brain development and nervous system functioning which results in cognitive, sensory, and emotional exceptionalities. Nervous system abnormalities can be the basis for rapid development, but they can also lead to atypicalities, so it is especially important to consider dual or even multiple exceptionalities in the provision of exceptionally developed gifted children.

References

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Renzulli, J. S. (1986). The three-ring conception of giftedness: A developmental model for creative productivity. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davison (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 53–92). Cambridge University Press. Rimland, B. (1978). Savant capabilities of autistic children and their cognitive implications. In G. Serban (Ed.), Cognitive defects in the development of mental illness (pp. 43–65). Brunner/Mazel. Ruf, D. (2009). 5 levels of gifted: School issues and educational options. Great Potential Press. Smith, N. V., & Tsimpli, I. M. (1991). Linguistic modularity: A case-study of a savant linguist. Lingua, 84(4), 315–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3841(91)90034-3 Snyder, A. W., Mulcahy, E., Taylor, J. L., Mitchell, D. J., Sachdev, P., & Gandevia, S. C. (2003). Savant-like skills exposed in normal people by suppressing the left fronto-temporal lobe. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, 2, 149–158. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219635203000287 Terrassier, J. C. (1985). Dyssynchrony: Uneven development. In J. Freeman (Ed.), The psychology of gifted children: Perspectives on development and education (pp. 265–274). Wiley. Treffert, A. D., & Wallace, G. L. (2002). Islands of genius. Scientific American, 6, 60–69. Vandervert, L. (2016). The prominent role of the cerebellum in the learning, origin and advancement of culture. Cerebellum Ataxias, 3(10). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40673-016-0049-z van den Bergh, B. R. H., et al. (2017). Prenatal developmental origins of behavior and mental health: The influence of maternal stress in pregnancy. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 117, 26–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.07.003 Wallace, G. L. (2008). Neuropsychological studies of savant skills: Can they inform the neuroscience of giftedness? Roeper Review, 30(4), 229–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783190802363901 Winner, E., & Drake, J. E. (2018). Giftedness and Expertise: The Case for Genetic Potential. Journal of Expertise, 1(2), 114–120 Young, R. L., Ridding, M. C., & Morrell, T. L. (2004). Switching skills on by turning off part of the brain. Neurocase: The Neural Basis of Cognition, 10(3), 215–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13554790490495140

Chapter 3

“Do Not Turn the Light Off” for Gifted Children and Adolescents with Overexcitabilities

3.1 Introduction: Short History of Giftedness and Overexcitabilities The description of highly sensitive children, and children and adolescents with exceptional intensities and overexcitabilities goes back to 1899, when for the first time “Dr. Clouston of Edinburgh describes certain morbid conditions in neurotic children” (States of over-excitability, hyper-sensitiveness, and mental explosiveness in children, 1899, p. 292). The Lancet, where this news had been published, had described children with overexcitabilities as “neurotic” and attributed “certain morbid conditions” to them (ibid.). A few decades later, D˛abrowski, the well-known Polish psychologist, psychiatrist, and physician, published his first work about overexcitabilities (1937), a part of his “Theory of Positive Disintegration” as a stage in personality development (Piechowski & Colangelo, 1984). When Dabrowski’s first translation to English was published (1964), he was already a well-known theorist. But though his definition and description of overexcitabilities are quite similar to the way we use this term up to now, and in spite of the fact that for about 40 years—since scholars in the field of giftedness had first adopted his Theory of Positive Disintegration—Dabrowski had not been considered a giftedness theoretician. Perhaps it had to do with the iron-curtain between West- and East Europe preventing the west from adopting theorists from communist countries; perhaps with communist ideology of equity, and Dabrowski’s avoidance of using the term “gifted” (though there is a Polish term for it; see David, 2016). It might also be that while the West accelerated education of the gifted after the Sputnik launched on the moon (e.g. Van Warmer, 1976), it was convenient for the west to believed that Russia and its allies excelled in “hard” sciences, but failed to see their achievements in other areas. Thus, studying giftedness, which focused since Terman, his colleagues and followers (Burks et al., 1930; Cox, 1926; Janos, 1987; Oden & Terman, 1968;

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_3

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Seagoe, 1975; Sears, 1984; Terman, 1925, 1954; Terman & Oden, 1935, 1947) on emotional-social and educational characteristics, turned its focus towards nurturing the gifted to become technology-based scientists. In many countries this tendency has not changed since.

3.2 Overexcitabilities and the Gifted: Definitions, Literature Review and Main Theories Mendaglio and Tillier (2006) summarize some definitions of overexcitabilities. According to them: “In Dabrowski’s theory, OE is a heightened physiological experience of sensory stimuli resulting from increased sensitivity of the neurons” (p. 69). Dabrowski (1972) used the term “psychic overexcitability”, defining it as “higher than average responsiveness to stimuli, manifested either by psychomotor, sensual, emotional (affective), imaginational, or intellectual excitability, or the combination thereof” (p. 303). Piechowski (1975) stated that, “Overexcitability means that the response exceeds the stimulus input” (p. 270). Piechowski (1991) noted that Dabrowski used the term “psychic overexcitability” to “underline the enhancement and intensification of mental activity much beyond the ordinary” (p. 287). Ackerman (1997), and many other of her followers (e.g. Steenbergen-Hu, 2017; Wood & Laycraft, 2020), defined overexcitability as an intensified way of experiencing the world. Lind (2001) defined overexcitabilities as “inborn intensities indicating a heightened ability to respond to stimuli” (p. 3). Intensities of the gifted are a main issue also in the work of Daniels and Piechowski (2008), Lo (2018) and Piechowski (2006). Tucker and Hafenstein (1997) have defined the five overexcitabilities typical to highly gifted children as: Psychomotor Overexcitability. The manifestations of psychomotor excitability are essentially of two kinds: surplus of energy and nervousness. In nervousness, the emotional tension is translated into psychomotor activity such as tics, nail biting, or impulsive behavior … The surplus of energy can be observed in animated gestures and taking on self-improvement tasks… Sensual Overexcitability is expressed in heightened experiencing of sensory pleasures and in seeking sensual outlets for inner tension … other manifestations of sensual overexcitability include marked interest in clothes and appearance, fondness for jewelry and ornaments… Intellectual Overexcitability. The manifestations of intellectual overexcitability are associated with an intensified and accelerated activity of the mind. Its strongest expressions have more to do with striving for understanding, probing the unknown, and love of truth than with learning per se or academic achievement…

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Imaginational Overexcitability. The presence of imaginational overexcitability can benferred from frequent distraction, wandering attention, and daydreaming. These occur as consequence of free play of the imagination. Here, too, belong illusions, animistic thinking, expressive image and metaphor, invention and fantasy… Emotional Overexcitability. Among the five forms of psychic overexcitability, the manifestations of emotional overexcitability are the most numerous. They include certain characteristic and easily recognizable somatic expressions, extremes of feeling, inhibition, strong affective memory, concern with death, anxieties, fears, feelings of guilt, and depressive and suicidal moods (p. 68).

Intellectual overexcitability (e.g. Daniels and Piechowski 2008; Mendaglio & Tillier, 2006; Piechowski & Wells, 2021) is, perhaps, best perceived both among mental health professionals and educators as connected to giftedness, even as a characteristic of high intellectual level. It is used as an explanation of some less desirable behaviors typical of many gifted, such as impatience, impoliteness, the ability to concentrate for long periods at a young age, curiosity, the need to be stimulated—many a time by subjects considered not age-appropriate, and the justified feeling of boredom often in class but also among peers and relatives. However, even in the twenty-first century it is still more socially acceptable for boys than for girls to express boredom. Psychomotor overexcitability (e.g. Ackerman, 2009; Mendaglio & Tillier, 2006; Piechowski & Wells, 2021) perceived, quite often, as ADHD (e.g. Amend et al., 2004; Mika, 2006; Rinn & Reynolds, 2012; Tolan, 1994). Psychomotor overexcitability has been found to be lower than other OE’s among the gifted (e.g. Rinn et al., 2010). Both Sensual overexcitability (Mendaglio & Tillier, 2006; Piechowski, & Wells, 2021), also defined as Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) (e.g. Rinn et al., 2018), and Imaginational overexcitability (e.g. Daniels & Piechowski, 2008; Lind, 2000, 2001; Mendaglio & Tillier, 2006; Piechowski & Wells, 2021), result for many highly gifted children in false diagnoses, and thus, rather than being nurtured for their giftedness, they are treated as suffering from various psychiatric conditions. Emotional overexcitability (e.g. Ackerman, 2009; David, 2019; Mendaglio & Tillier, 2006; Piechowski & Wells, 2021), often defined just as “sensitivity”, has been quite often perceived as a disadvantage, a characteristic that should be taken care of, a risk-factor common among the gifted (e.g. David, 2019; Karpinski, 2018; Mueller & Winsor, 2018). Gender differences in overexcitabilities have been widely discussed, but the findings have been mixed, probably due to different definitions of giftedness, samples of different ages, backgrounds, and educational levels, and problems of measuring overexcitabilities. For example: in the study of Gross et al. (2007), females reported higher levels of sensual, imaginational, and emotional overexcitabilities than males, but in some other studies different results have been found. Piechowski and Miller (1995) found no gender differences in imaginational overexcitability. Brain sciences will shed more light and allow further, more accurate research of this important issue.

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3.3 The Cultural Aspect of Overexcitabilities in General and Among the Gifted in Particular As we mentioned in several other chapters of this book (e.g. Chaps. 1 and 4), culture plays a major role in understanding both the frequency and the power of the appearance on the various frames of overexitability in general and among the gifted in particular. One of the first studies concerned with this issue (Siu, 2010) compared overexcitabilities of 217 gifted and 229 non-gifted school children in Hong Kong. 196 of the gifted group came from a gifted center located in a local university; they were classified as gifted after taking a battery of assessment measures, including standardized tests on intellectual abilities; 21 were chosen by the schools based on individual psychological reports. The overexcitabilities profile of this study was compared to that of Tieso’s (2007a) to explore possible cultural differences. Significant differences were found between gifted and non-gifted. The difference between gifted and non-gifted students in the composite OE subscales was larger in the Hong Kong sample than in the American (ibid.). While mean scores for gifted and nongifted students in Tieso’s study were significantly different on the Intellectual and Imaginational OE subscales, with gifted students scoring higher on each subscale, in the present study mean scores for gifted and non-gifted students were significantly different on all OE subscales. Thus, it can be concluded that culture plays a significant role in overexcitabilities of the gifted.

3.4 The Gender Aspect of Overexcitabilities Among the Gifted Gender plays a major role in the pattern of overexcitabilities both among the gifted and among the non-gifted. The most updated study showing these differences is that of Gallagher (2022), who analyzed the NEO-FFI and Overexcitabilities Questionnaire-II (OEQ-II), based on the NEO Personality Inventory (a personality inventory that assesses an individual on five dimensions of personality, the so-called Big Five), of a sample of 108 highly gifted middle school students. She found that gifted females had significantly higher scores on NEO-FFI neuroticism scale than gifted males. Another, earlier study, that of Siu (2010) found, that while in the non-gifted sample females scored significantly higher than males on the Emotional subscale while males scored significantly higher on Intellectual, in the Tieso (2007a) sample females scored significantly higher than males on the Emotional and Sensual OE subscales. But among the gifted, the pattern of overexcitabilities was similar for both genders: significant differences were found in both sensual and emotional overexcitabilities. Martowska and Romanowicz (2020), who used the same means to find gender differences in overexcitabilities among musicians found that female musicians scored significantly higher in sensual, imaginational, and intellectual OEs

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compared to the women from the control group, while male musicians scored significantly higher in sensual and emotional OEs and lower in psychomotor OE compared to the men from the control group. They also found that the number of individuals showing high emotional and high sensual OEs was more than twice as high in the group of musicians than in the control group.

3.5 Overexcitabilities of the Gifted and Brain Sciences 3.5.1 Short History The study of giftedness and neuropsychology had substantially accelerated since the beginning of the twenty first century. This development has occurred simultaneously with the study of connections between neuropsychology and learning, training and exercising, as well as medical conditions, such as injuries and traumas, that change the human brain. New knowledge about overexcitabilities has also been added by learning about brain connectivity, and the use of new means for measuring brain activation, previously used mainly in the medical area—illnesses and disorders.

3.5.2 Overexcitabilities, Intensities an Asynchronous Development and Giftedness One of the main connections between overexcitabilities and intensities (e.g. Daniels & Piechowski, 2008; Falk & Miller, 2009; Lo, 2018; Piechowski, 2006; Tucker & Hafenstein, 1997), which are characteristics of the gifted, has a major influence on everyday life. This influence is observed especially in the life of the young gifted who are perceived, in many cases, as strange, “unfit”, or “socially inferior”. Overexcitabilities and intensities are tightly connected to the asynchronous development of the gifted (e.g. Bailey, 2011; Silverman, 1997; Tolan, 2016); both have a high potential of interfering in learning and social relationships. A similar negative attitude is frequently applied towards those suffering from learning-disabilities, often defined as “difficult”, uneducated, or “neurotic” children or adolescents (e.g. Tordjman et al., 2018). Historically, though overexcitabilities had been originated from the condition known as “nervousness” (Wells & Falk, 2021), when reexamination overexcitabilities and defining it as intense experience, Piechowski and Wells (2021) mentioned that it was Dabrowski (1972) who first connected giftedness with overexcitabilities and thus gave OE’s a positive “flavor”, and stated that “psychoneurosis [= overexcitabilities] is not an illness”. Individuals, especially children with high intensities or overexcitabilities have been traditionally treated as if it was their fault. Even young children have been expected, many a time, to “overcome” their sensitivities or intensities; not to do

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things “too quickly” or “take easy” events or incidents that made them very uneasy. It had probably to do with the presumptions that it is easier for a highly-intelligent than to a less intelligent child to develop self-control. It was assumed that the intelligent child can, “with just a little effort” control themselves, their overexitabilities not considered at all. Furthermore, ADHD, whether when a child (e.g. Bussing et al., 2003; Theule et al., 2011) has it or a parent (e.g. Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2017; Johnston et al., 2012), has been recognized as one of the main causes of stress in the family. Overexcitabilities have not been recognized as such, and it is often the child who is “blamed” for this characteristic and “advised” to “overcome” it, to “mellow out”. This phenomenon has been described in the literature (e.g. Piechowski, 2006).

3.6 Giftedness, Overexcitabilities and Vox Populi Connections between overexcitabilities and giftedness have been evident to those meeting gifted children, adolescents or adults: parents, other family members, educators or mental health professionals. However, as has been found in some metaanalyses, not all five overexcitabilities had significant positive correlations with intelligence. For example, Winkler and Voight (2016) found that the effect size of psychomotor OE was not statistically significant; the effect sizes of the emotional and sensual OEs were small; calculated effect sizes of intellectual and imaginational OEs were medium. Limont et al. (2014) and Yakmaci-Guzel and Akarsu (2006) did not find that all OE’s were positively correlated with giftedness. Bouchet and Falk (2001), Martowska and Matczak (2016), Nordin (2007), Piirto et al. (2008) and Van den Broeck et al. (2014) revealed that the effect depended on gender; according to Piechowski (2012), Steenbergen-Hu (2017) and Van den Broeck et al. (2014) such correlations depended on the intelligence level. It can thus be concluded that though connections between giftedness and overexcitabilities are not simple, they are valid and have a neuro-psychological basis.

3.7 Brain Sciences as Intermediary Variable Connecting OE’s and Giftedness Though overexcitabilities have not yet proven as a direct measure of high cognitive abilities, the development of brain sciences has contributed to the scientific world as the missing link between what has been known as wisdom of the crowd and actual facts: they have supplied evidence to the assumption of existing connections between high ability and overexcitabilities (e.g. Chia & Lim, 2017; Newman & Malaia, 2013). These connections are related both to brain connectivity and brain activity, both elevated among individuals with high IQ and overexcitabilities.

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Another result of connections between overexcitabilities and intelligence is the misdiagnosis many gifted individuals as disabled or suffering from a variety of disorders. Well before the term “overexcitability” was in use, Dabrowski (1937) was already fascinated by the fact that many great men, such as Michelangelo, Dostoyevski, Weininger, Dawid, or Tolstoy were labeled as having severe mental disorders (ibid.), which led to his Theory of Positive Disintegration. As the link of brain sciences was missing in Dabrowski’s days, it was not possible to draw a connecting line between greatness and overexcitabilities, using measurable means developed only later. Some of the most important works about such connections have been done by Nordin (2007), Tieso (2007b), and Yakmaci-Guzel and Akarsu (2006), who discovered that gifted students had significantly higher intellectual and imaginational OE’s than their nongifted peers; Bouchet and Falk (2001) found that the gifted had higher emotional OE’s than nongifted, and Alias et al. (2013), who stated that sensual OE’s were higher among the gifted-talented than among regular students. A monumental work that examined all five overexcitabilities through brain structure and activity was done by Chang, Kuo and their colleagues (e.g. Chang & Kuo, 2013; Kuo et al., 2012). Using MRI, Kuo et al. (2012) found positive correlations between sensual, intellectual and imaginational overexcitability and grey matter volume; and negative correlations between psychomotor and emotional overexcitabilities and grey matter volume of certain brain areas. Their work showed significant correlations between actual brain matter and intelligence—as measured by intellectual overexcitability, and supplied irrefutable proof of physiological connections between high intelligence, measured by high IQ, and heightened brain activity, or intellectual overexcitability (Fig. 3.1). Fig. 3.1 Connectivity in the gifted, overexcited brain

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3.8 Overexcitabilities as a Tool for Giftedness Identification Overexcitabilities had been proposed as a complementary means of identifying giftedness and creativity (e.g. Ackerman, 1997; Bouchard, 2004; Chang & Kuo, 2013; De Bondt et al., 2019; Gallagher, 1985, 2022; Piirto & Fraas, 2012; Tieso, 2007b). Furthermore, it was suggested as means of giftedness identification when more traditional measures had missed up to a third of the gifted examined (ibid.). Overexcitabilities have not only been listed as a characteristic of giftedness, as Bouchard (2004) has shown, the “ElemenOE”, a Likert-scaled observation checklist developed to measure five personality characteristics in elementary school children, has a predictive validity for identifying giftedness. Intellectual OE, which is one of these characteristics, has identified more than three quarters of those previouslyidentified-as gifted. It has also identified additional 42% who had previously not been identified as gifted. Ackerman (1997) had a similar finding: she found that taking OE’s into account identified up to a third more children as gifted. It can be concluded, that neuropsychological means are to be used for giftedness identification, with overexcitabilities as an intermediary variable.

3.9 Case Study: Helen 3.9.1 From Creativity to Social Rejection and Back to Self-materialization Helen’s case study is about a highly intense, intelligent, artistically gifted female adolescent (about intensities of artists see, for example, Piechowski & Cunningham, 1985). Her life history, from early age, had been quite challenging, but the support, understanding and flexibility of her family helped her materialize her giftedness in spite of all difficulties.

3.9.2 Family Background and Early Childhood The Leibovich family is mild-religious, living in a medium-size town in the center of Israel. Both parents are highly educated and do very well professionally and financially. The family has three gifted daughters1 : Helen, 21-year old, and two younger girls. Helen was born with a severe skin condition, and needed constant care in order to maintain high hygiene level in order to protect her skin from infections. She stayed at home for the first 18 months of her life, during which her mother exposed her to 1

This case study is a concise translation of a chapter in David (2015).

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as many as possible stimulations: dancing while listening to music, jumping aroundand with her, telling stories, singing and listening to classical and contemporary musical pieces. Helen did not need a lot of sleep, so she enjoyed all these activities during many hours on a daily basis. Her mother used also to paint a lot, so Helen was exposed to the creation process, in addition to pictures of famous masterpieces shown by her mother. There were always people around; some were sometimes quite noisy, but Helen, who was exposed to it from her first month of life, liked this friendly atmosphere. Helen’s mother used to take her along when she went out for her errands, and soon enough Helen was a regular visitor at museums, news exhibitions and performances, carried comfortably in her mother’s sling. Helen started eating by herself when she was just 6-month old, holding the food in her tiny fingers, spreading it around her and mess everything. Soon enough she started scribbling on a paper while sitting on the floor, using the colors her mother used while painting on a stretched cloth on a drawing stand. When Helen was 8-month old she overcame her skin condition. At this age her accelerated development was already obvious: she started walking when 11-month old; the world instantly became much more fascinating for her. Walking around enabled Helen explore every corner of the house. She also started drawing on the walls then, but when she realized that her mother was not happy about that she learnt to hide the colored pencils… In her second year of life Helen already had quite a rich vocabulary. She preferred Legos, building cubes and puzzles over playing with dolls. When she turned two, a neighbor’s girl started taking her to afternoon walks, while her mother instructed painting classes at home. But Helen resisted as loudly as she could to this arrangement, so the girl was replaced with another one. Helen was not satisfied with the second one either; she started shouting and yelling every time the girl appeared at the door, so the mother gave up and let her stay home during classes. Helen would half-hide under the table, enjoying the noises, the colors’ smells, follow each of the participants’ work that interested her, and seemed to be very happy.

3.9.3 Elementary School At age 6, when Helen started school, her teacher complained that she “drove her crazy” when, for example she made her peers disobey the teacher who told her class to open their math booklets. As a result, the teacher started insulting Helen and punishing her. This went on for about two years; by then Helen started her school dropout process. She still completed her homework in the afternoons, using books and materials she borrowed from the local library, and as the teacher did not report her school absence, Helen managed to hide this behavior from her parents for quite a while. When the parents discovered what had been going on, they consulted both the headmaster and the school counselor. At the end of this meeting Helen was labeled as “a typical child in a single parent family” due to the fact that Helen’s father was working very long hours… After this “diagnosis” Helen started complaining about

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various pains in order to skip school. The parents went from one doctor to the other, but nothing was found. At this point it was clear that Helen just did not want to go to school. This went on until the end of grade 3. A major improvement was observed from the beginning of grade 4 until the end of grade 6, with Helen’s very experienced and understanding new teacher. Helen became a model student: her achievements were excellent, she was chosen as the class representative, responsible for organizing many social and cultural class activities. Nevertheless, the situation was still far from perfect: the teacher complained that Helen adopted the roll of the class-clown (see Morrow, n.d.; Ruch et al., 2014; Sense of Humor in Gifted Children, 2022; The gifted ‘class clown’, 1986). Helen would tie students’ laces to each other and at the end of the class many of her peers found that they could not move; she made it a habit to write messages to a bunch of children and ask others to pass them during classes, making a lot of noise… The teacher was also puzzled by Helen’s picking up only boys for these pranks, and wanted her parents to investigate whether the child had “hormonal issues”. At this stage Helen started participation in an afternoon skating group. The instructor was a young man, new immigrant from Russia, who was also a residentpsychologist; he liked Helen and paid her a special attention. She flourished during these years and her behavior had substantially improved.

3.9.4 Junior- and Senior High School Helen started her junior high school with many of her good friends. Her grade 7 home teacher loved her, nurtured her and treated her as a precious diamond; as a result, Helen’s self-image increased. Along with just five other students from her class, she participated at the mathematics acceleration program located at the Bar Ilan University (The Program for Youth Talented in Mathematics, 2022). In addition, Helen started publishing poetry in two literary journals. At the end of grade 8 Helen registered to another, more prestigious school. But after moving to the new school she left the math acceleration program as well as the skating group. The instructor told her parents that “she was going through something bad”, and advised them help her find another extra-curriculum activity. They did not accept this advice. At the end of grade 9 Helen got an excellent school report, and everything looked fine, but underneath the surface a long period of depression started for her. When her mother noticed the change in her behavior, she found a film-making youth group for her. According to the mother: “introducing Helen to the magic of the cinema, changed Helen’s life”. Unfortunately, the home teacher of grade 10 was a very religious, strict, rigid woman, who tried to enforce her beliefs and opinions on her students. Helen, who

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objected to any brain washing tried to argue with her, but these arguments resulted in her teacher’s negative reactions to everything Helen did. One of the main issues that the school objected to was Helen’s appearance. Helen, a beautiful tall blond, liked to dress in original cloths, matched with colorful accessories. Soon enough Helen’s mother was asked to meet the headmaster to discuss “Helen’s modesty issue”. The headmaster said that he could not allow a student to “look like that”. The mother asked about the meaning of “like that”, and the answer was: “you know what I mean”. The dialogue was stuck at this point, the mother left angrily and Helen continued to be the victim of her teachers’ abuse. Helen’s high abilities heped her be a good student in spite of the poisoning environment, but school life had become unbearable. The bible teacher made her stand in the corner of the room during his classes. The Hebrew language teacher used to insult her with no reason. Being treated like that made Helen believe that something was very wrong with her. While school became a source of suffering for Helen, her cinema studies were her remedy. She was socially accepted, even loved, by her peers. She became the leader of the group, and produced a feature about a boy who was rejected by his friends while in his dreams he was Peter Pan, loved by everybody. Helen wrote the script, chose the actors, and took care of the outfits; she submitted the film as her personal project that replaced her cinema matriculation examination,2 but her school rejected her submission. Encouraged by one her cinema teachers, Helen contacted the manager of The Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. The manger was very impressed and convinced the school headmaster to allow the submission. It was the first time that Helen got an external independent opinion of her talent and devotion, as well as of her excellent creative work. Helen volunteered to produce a play for her school Purim festival in order to change the teachers’ opinion about her; she also opened a kiosk whose income covered all expenses of the play she had written. The play was a great success, and Helen felt satisfaction and some hope, but soon enough her home teacher restarted ridiculing her in front of the whole class, calling her names and making her life miserable. Helen did not share any of these happenings with her parents, but they could notice that she was depressed. She became introvert, avoided even shopping in order not to face anybody who knew her. Her school grades deteriorated; she used to say repeatedly: “I feel like I am worth nothing”. She felt ugly, constantly hiding her face with her long hair. Her school absences became more and more frequent; gradually she stopped showing up at school. But in just a few weeks she completed the production of her film, saying: “when I come across other people they respect

2

Cinema studies can be studied as a subject of choice (in addition to the compulsory ones) for the Israeli matriculation certificate.

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me, complement me, always have something positive to say about my abilities and gifts. But among my teachers and peers I am unfit, I do not deserve being included”. Coming to this sad but realistic conclusion, Helen wrote, without consulting her parents, to the head of Jerusalem Film and Television School, asking him to be accepted next September, a year before school graduation. The answer she received was that though she was accepted, she would not be able, due to the workload at the school, to take a full-time schedule if she wanted to complete her matriculation examinations and do national service,3 but she could take a part-time program. This answer made Helen very glad; however, her immediate problems were still unsolved. Around Passover Helen faced an extremely difficult situation at school. Every day she felt like returning to a prison with long corridors and barred windows threatening to close on her. Before her parents had an opportunity to help her, Helen left school. Her mother became alert watching her daughter sucking her finger while sleeping, and weeping bitterly. The mother also noticed, when getting on a bus where some of Helen’s class-mates were already sitting, that they all ignored her daughter. When asking “why” Helen answered: “because of the movie”. After a 2-month absence the home teacher finally called Helen’s father, telling him that his daughter was missing for “two weeks”. The headmaster offered Helen to return to school if she promised to “behave nicely”. The father answered: “My daughter will not return until I decide that the school deserves her”. The whole family decided together that Helen had to move to another school.

3.9.5 Grade 12—Helen Finds Her Place Helen started grade 12 in a private, non-religious school, intended mainly for problematic youths who had dropped out from the “good” state schools. But right from the beginning Helen was very happy there. Everybody respected her wearing long, modest cloths and admired her original appearance; students as well as teachers were open to hear about her religious family and their life style. The new school gave Helen both emotional and educational support. When she arrived too late, her parents got an immediate phone call requiring about her. As her class mates had already taken some matriculation exams in grade 11, Helen had to catch up quickly, in addition to starting a new track. While in her old school she had chosen the biological track, she had to switch as the new one did not have suitable laboratories. But all these obstacles did not stop Helen from succeeding in all her examinations. She also made new social connections, mainly with gifted adolescents whom she was surprised to find among her peers—mostly dropouts (see, for example, David, 2019). At the end of the year she received the “excellence prize” given to the best student of the year.

3

In Israel there is compulsory army service for all Jewish boys and girls aged 18. Religious girls are exempted, but many of them choose to do a 1- or 2-year civil national service instead.

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3.9.6 Helen’s First Professional Steps Helen rehabilitated her self-esteem, self-image and self-belief. She did her national service under the instruction of a religious communication expert, who was also a film maker, a journalist and the founder of a radio channel. Her way to climbing the ladder of success had a solid base, on which she had built her career as an artist film maker. When Helen’s first film was screened in the “young film” TV program, along with her interview in the national channel, she became an admired celebrity. In summa: Helen’s problems since she was first labeled as “other”, nonconformist and “unfit”, were over. Her overexcitabilities, along with her giftedness and creativity, needed nurturing, but when she got what she needed, she finally materialized her artistic giftedness assisted by her overexcitabilities.

3.10 Conclusion Helen’s case study is in accordance with the findings of Lysy and Piechowski (1983), as well as Piechowski et al. (1985), where the members of the artistic group of the graduate students in the sample scored higher than the intellectually gifted in emotional and imaginational overexcitabilities, and higher than all 5 overexcitabilities in comparison to other adults. Unfortunately, school situation has not changed in this aspect, namely, overexcitabilities of the gifted are still not recognized by staff members, and thus are not taken into consideration. The result is, quite often, unhappiness, disappointment, even depression and (see, for example, Piechowski & Wells, 2021). But this situation can be reversed, as had been in Helen’s case: when receiving the proper support, the gifted child or adolescent flourishes.

References Ackerman, C. M. (1997). Identifying gifted adolescents using personality characteristics: Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities. Roeper Review, 19(4), 229–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/027831 99709553835 Ackerman, C. M. (2009). The essential elements of Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration and how they are connected. Roeper Review, 31(2), 81–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/027831909 02737657 Amend, E. R., Webb, J. T., & Webb, N. E. (2004). Misdiagnosis and dual diagnoses of gifted children and adults: ADHD, bipolar, OCD, Asperger’s, depression, and other disorders. Great Potential Press. Alias, A., Rahman, S., Abd Majid, R., & Mohd Yassin, S. F. (2013). Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities profile among gifted students. Asian Social Science, 9(16), 120–125.

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Bailey, C. L. (2011). An examination of the relationships between ego development, Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration, and the behavioral characteristics of gifted adolescents. Gifted Child Quarterly, 55(3), 208–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986211412180 Bouchard, L. (2004). An instrument for the measure of Dabrowskian overexcitabilities to identity gifted elementary students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 48(4), 339–351. Bouchet, N., & Falk, R. F. (2001). The relationship among giftedness, gender, and overexcitability. Gifted Child Quarterly, 45(4), 260–267. https://doi.org/10.1177/001698620104500404 Burks, B. S., Jensen, D. W., & Terman, L. M. (1930). Genetic studies of genius: The promise of youth. Stanford University Press. Bussing, R., Gary, F. A., Mason, D. M., Leon, C. A., Sinha, K., & Wilson Garvin, C. (2003). Child temperament, ADHD, and caregiver strain: Exploring relationships in an epidemiological sample. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 42(2), 84–192. https://doi. org/10.5772/54276 Chang, H. J., & Kuo, C. H. (2013). Overexcitabilities: Empirical studies and application. Learning and Individual Differences, 23(1), 53–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.10.010 Chia, K. H., & Lim, B. H. (2017). Understanding overexcitabilities of people with exceptional abilities within the framework of cognitive-conation-affect-and-sensation. European Journal of Education Studies, 3(6), 649–671. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.803406 Chronis-Tuscano, A., Wang, C. H., Woods, K. E., Strickland, J., & Stein, M. A. (2017). Parent ADHD and evidence-based treatment for their children: Review and directions for future research. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 45(3), 501–517. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0238-5 Cox, C. M. (1926). The early mental traits of three hundred geniuses: Genetic studies of genius (Vol. 2). Stanford University Press. Dabrowski, C. (1937). Psychological bases of self-mutilation. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 19, 1–104. Dabrowski, K. (1964). Positive disintegration. Little, Brown. Dabrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is not an illness: Neuroses and psychoneuroses from the perspective of positive disintegration. Gryf. Daniels, S., & Piechowski, M. M. (Eds.). (2008). Living with intensity: Emotional development of gifted children, adolescents, and adults. Great Potential Press. David, H. (2015). The gifted girl: Case studies (in Hebrew). http://www.hebpsy.net/articles.asp? id=3351 David, H. (2016). “Haut potentiel”, “douance” ou “précocité”: est que un sujet linguistique? Revue économique et sociale, 74(4), 103–112 [English version: “Haut potentiel”, “douance”, or “précocité”: “Just” a linguistic discussion?]. David, H. (2019). Emotionally, socially and learning disabled gifted children: Theory and treatment. Nova Science Publishers. De Bondt, N., De Maeyer, S., Donche, V., & Van Petegem, P. (2019). A rationale for including overexcitability in talent research beyond the FFM-personality dimensions. High Ability Studies, 32(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13598139.2019.1668753 Falk, R. F., & Miller, N. B. (2009). Building firm foundations: Research and assessments. In S. Daniels & M. M. Piechowski (Eds.), Living with intensity: Understanding the sensitivity, excitability, and the emotional development of gifted children, adolescents, and adults (pp. 239–260). Great Potential Press. Gallagher, S. (1985). A comparison of the concept of overexcitabilities with measures of creativity and school achievement in sixth-grade students. Roeper Review, 8(2), 115–119. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/0278319850955295 Gallagher, S. (2022). Openness to experience and overexcitabilities in a sample of highly gifted middle school students. Gifted Education International, 38(2), 194–228. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 02614294211053283 Gross, C. M., Rinn, A. N., & Jamieson, K. M. (2007). Gifted adolescents’ overexcitabilities and self-concepts: An analysis of gender and grade level. Roeper Review, 29(4), 240–248. https://doi. org/10.1080/02783190709554418

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Janos, P. (1987). A fifty-year follow-up of Terman’s youngest college students and IQ-matched age mates. Gifted Child Quarterly, 31(2), 55–58. Johnston, C., Mash, E. J., Miller, N., & Ninowski, J. E. (2012). Parenting in adults with attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Clinical Psychology Review, 32(4), 215–228. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.01.007 Karpinski, R. I. (2018). High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities. Intelligence, 66(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2017.09.001 Kuo, C. C., Chang, H. J., Chang, Y. P., Chou, K. H., Lin, Y. H., Chen, H. C., & Lin, C. P. (2012). Psychological traits and brain structures of mathematically/scientifically senior high school talented students. Bulletin of Educational Psychology, 43(4), 805–832. ´ Limont, W., Dreszer-Drogorób, J., Bedy´nska, S., Sliwi´ nska, K., & Jastrz˛ebska, D. (2014). ‘Old wine in new bottles’? Relationships between overexcitabilities, the Big Five personality traits and giftedness in adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 69, 199–204. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.06.003 Lind, S. (2000). Overexcitability and the highly gifted child. The Communicator, 31(4). https:// www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10102 Lind, S. (2001, September 14). Overexcitability and the gifted. The SENG Newsletter, 1(1), 3–6. https://www.sengifted.org/post/overexcitability-and-the-gifted Lo, I. (2018). Emotional sensitivity and intensity: How to manage emotions as a sensitive person. John Murray Press. Lysy, K. Z., & Piechowski, M. M. (1983). Personal growth: An empirical study using Jungian and Dabrowskian measures. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 108(2), 267–320. Martowska, K., & Matczak, A. (2016). In search of the correlates of overexcitabilities. Studia Psychologica, 16(2), 5–21. Martowska, K., & Romanowicz, M. (2020). Overexcitability profile among university students at music-focused institutions. Roeper Review, 42(4), 271–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193. 2020.1815265 Mendaglio, S., & Tillier, W. (2006). Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration and giftedness: Overexcitability research findings. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 30(1), 68–87. https:// doi.org/10.1177/016235320603000104 Mika, E. (2006). Giftedness, ADHD, and overexcitabilities: The possibilities of misinformation. Roeper Review, 28(4), 237–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783190609554370 Morrow, S. (n.d.). Is your class clown gifted? Negative traits of gifted kids. https://keepemthinking. com/2018/04/your-class-clown-might-be-gifted/ Mueller, C. E., & Winsor, D. L. (2018). Depression, suicide, and giftedness: Disentangling risk factors, protective factors, and implications for optimal growth. In S. I. Pfeiffer (Ed.), Handbook of giftedness in children (pp. 255–284). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77004-8_15 Newman, S. D., & Malaia, E. (2013). Neural bases of giftedness. In C. M. Callahan & J. A. Plucker (Eds.), Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says (2nd ed., pp. 449–462). Prufrock Press. Nordin, R. G. (2007). Examining cultural differences in overexcitabilities in college women [Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of Georgia. https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/nordin_rebecca_g_ 200712_ma.pdf Oden, M. H., & Terman, L. M. (1968). The fulfillment of promise: 40-year follow-up of the Terman gifted group. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 77(1), 3–93. Piechowski, M. M. (1975). A theoretical and empirical approach to the study of development. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 92, 231–297. Piechowski, M. M. (1991). Emotional development and emotional giftedness. In N. Colangelo & G. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (pp. 285–306). Allyn & Bacon. Piechowski, M. (2006). “Mellow out,” they say. If I only could. Intensities and sensitivities of the young and bright. Yunasa. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986207311053

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Piechowski, M. (2012). A bird who can soar: Overexcitabilities and the gifted. In C. Neville, M. M. Piechowski, & S. S. Tolan (Eds.), Off the charts: Asynchrony and the gifted child (pp. 99–122). Royal Fireworks Press. Piechowski, M. M., & Colangelo, N. (1984). Developmental potential of the gifted. Gifted Child Quarterly, 28(2), 80–88. Piechowski, M. M., & Cunningham, K. (1985). Patterns of overexcitability in a group of artists. Journal of Creative Behavior, 29, 153–174. Piechowski, M. M., & Miller, N. (1995). Assessing developmental potential in gifted children: A comparison of methods. Roeper Review, 17, 176–181. Piechowski, M. M., Silverman, L., & Falk, F. (1985). Comparison of intellectually and artistically gifted on five dimensions of mental functions. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 60(2), 539–549. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1985.60.2.539 Piechowski, M. M., & Wells, C. (2021). Reexamining overexcitability: A framework for understanding intense experience. In T. L. Cross & J. R. Cross (Eds.), Handbook for counselors: Serving students with gifts and talents. Development, relationships, school issues, and counseling needs/interventions (2nd ed., pp. 63–83). Prufrock Press. Piirto, J., & Fraas, J. (2012). A mixed-methods comparison of vocational and identified-gifted high school students on the overexcitability questionnaire. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 35(1), 3–34. Piirto, J., Montgomery, D., & May, J. (2008). A comparison of Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities by gender for American and Korean high school gifted students. High Ability Studies, 19(2), 141–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/13598130802504080 Rinn, A. N., Mendaglio, S., Moritz Rudasill, K., & McQueen, K. S. (2010). Examining the relationship between the overexcitabilities and self-concepts of gifted adolescents via multivariate cluster analysis. Gifted Child Quarterly, 54(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986209352682 Rinn, A. N., Mullet, D. R., Jett, N., & Nyikos, T. (2018). Sensory processing sensitivity among high-ability individuals: A psychometric evaluation of the highly sensitive person scale. Roeper Review, 40(3), 166–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2018.1466840 Rinn, A. N., & Reynolds, M. J. (2012). Overexcitabilities and ADHD in the gifted: An examination. Roeper Review, 34(1), 38–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2012.627551 Ruch, W., Platt, T., & Hofmann, J. (2014). The character strengths of class clowns. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1075. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01075 Seagoe, M. V. (1975). Terman and the gifted. W. Kaufmann. Sears, R. R. (1984). The Terman gifted children study. In S. A. Mednick, M. Hanway, & K. M. Finello (Eds.), Handbook of longitudinal research: Birth and childhood cohorts (Vol. 1). Praeger. Sense of Humor in Gifted Children. (2022, January 19). https://www.covingtonlatin.org/about-us/ news/news-feed-container/humor-in-gifted-children/ Siu, A. F. Y. (2010). Comparing overexcitabilities of gifted and non-gifted school children in Hong Kong: does culture make a difference? Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 30(1), 71–83. Silverman, L. K. (1997). The construct of asynchronous development. Peabody Journal of Education, 72(3–4), 36–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.1997.9681865 States of over-excitability, hyper-sensitiveness, and mental explosiveness in children. (1899, July 29). The Lancet, 292. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(01)57910-6 Steenbergen-Hu, S. (2017). How exactly overexcitability relates to giftedness: A fine-grained look via findings of a new meta-analysis. NAGC Conceptual Foundations Network Newsletter, 44–49. Terman, L. M. (1925). Mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted children. Genetic studies of genius (Vols. 1, 2). Stanford UP. Terman, L. M. (1954). Scientists and non-scientists in a group of 800 gifted men. Psychological Monographs, 68(7), 1–44. Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1935). The promise of youth. Genetic studies of genius (Vol. 3). Stanford UP. Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1947). Genetic studies of genius. The gifted child grows up: Twenty-five years’ follow-up of a superior group (Vol. 4). Stanford UP.

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Chapter 4

Understanding Gifted Children with Stable and Unstable Executive Functions

Executive functions that provide efficient neural control are essential for purposeful, planned, systematic activity, necessary for intelligent behaviour, and for achieving superior performance. Executive functions, which are responsible for all these human activities differ substantially from one person to the other. Different patterns of appropriate neural networks may be beneficial in different situations, but there is a minimum below which dysfunction is overly significant and becomes an obstacle to the development and transfering of talent into performance. Challenges considering executive functions are very common in individuals with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or other learning disorders. Neurodevelopmental disorders can cause serious performance problems for gifted individuals. However, the achievements of many outstanding creators have proved that dysfunction is not necessarily a barrier to overcome, but it might also be a means to create.

4.1 Different Forms of Atypical Development The common neurological features underlying the different forms of atypical neurodevelopment that is differences in neural transmission and neural connections and networks are responsible for the basis of disorders and syndromes. Research has shown that planning of motion and coordination, seriality, and rhythm maintenance are all problem areas in dyslexia, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder, as are deficits in executive functions (Barkley et al., 1997; Denckla et al., 1985; Greenspan & Wieder, 1999; Piek et al., 1999; Schonfeld et al., 1989). Cognitive differences, attention and behavioural regulation, perception, and information processing occur in different combinations and with different degrees of severity depending on the interaction of personal and environmental factors. The term “spectrum disorder” is used for autism, meaning that the syndrome manifests itself at very different levels and in very different forms. However, the same is true © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_4

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Fig. 4.1 Forms of atypical development

for learning and control disorders and even giftedness. Therefore, we can collectively refer to all of these as an atypical neuro-developmental spectrum (Fig. 4.1). All forms of the atypical neuro-developmental spectrum can be characterized by the following features: . . . .

Based on abnormal nervous system function Has advantages and disadvantages throughout life Independent on intelligence Environment and culture-dependent.

The neurological difference is due to unusual connections in neural transmission. Differences in the adaptive system, hemispheric connectivity, cerebellar organizational connections, and neural networks of executive functions, varying in degrees and nature, cause the syndromes. Among other things, hypo- and hypersensitivity, abnormalities in the development of automaticity, slower development of alternating movements, sensorimotor organization problems, and self-regulation disorders are indicative of abnormalities in neural transmission. All these differences have a significant impact on cognitive performance. A typical development may affect areas independent on intelligence and ability domains such as language, spatial-visual or musical achievements. Diagnostic systems do not yet label the giftedness spectrum as belonging to the syndrome group, Mrazik and Dombrowski’s (2010) atypical development giftednessmental disorder package theory (see Chap. 3 of this book), among others, confirms the common developmental background of these distinct but often co-occurring syndromes.

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4.2 Executive Functions and Neurodevelopmental Disorders The term executive functions is a neuro-psychological umbrella that includes planning behaviour, maintaining activity and goals, controlling urges, sequencing and inhibiting activity, following the process, maintaining attention, and controlling. All of these are cognitive processes that are essential for systematic work, for example ensuring that people can get from point A to point B without getting lost or forgetting where they were going and that they can adapt flexibly to obstacles and carry out the activity. Put simply, this set of functions is like having a secretariat in the brain to organize and manage processes, ensure scheduling, and that deadlines are met. The exact cognitive functions that are included in executive functions are still debated among experts, but there is a well-defined grouping (Diamond, 2013): 1. Control functions: inhibition, resisting temptations, maintaining attention, excluding distractions. 2. Working memory: keeping the information in mind, which allows, for example, information to be used to solve a problem, thus maintaining the mental process. 3. Cognitive flexibility: changing the perspective or approach to a problem, adapting flexibly to new demands or rules, i.e. choosing mental directions. All three executive function groups may be disrupted in any of the three atypical neurodevelopmental trajectories but there is a clear distinction of emphasis. Control function can be problematic in ADHD, poor working memory is one of the features of specific learning difficulties, and cognitive flexibility is a characteristic of autism disorder. However, different patterns of these executive functions can be even beneficial for talent development while they are often detrimental, too. However, the above-mentioned executive functions perform only functions in the cognitive domains. A widely accepted division is that these are the so-called “cold” (i.e. purely cognitive) domains, which involve the control of thoughts and actions without an affective component. In contrast, hot executive functions involve goal-oriented, future-oriented cognitive processes that are triggered by situations that generate emotions, motivation, and tension between immediate gratification and long-term rewards (Rubia, 2011; Zelazo & Müller, 2010). Hot Excecutive Functions are assumed to involve affective cognitive abilities such as delayed gratification and affective decision making (Zelazo & Carlson, 2012; Zelazo & Müller, 2010). One typical example used in these studies is the Iowa Gambling Task, which captures important components of hot EF, including reward sensitivity and delays discounting, i.e., the tendency to choose a smaller, earlier reward over a larger, later reward. To carry out a purposeful activity, it is necessary to monitor the internal, personal environment (emotions, desires, motivations) and the social environment, to understand the situations. This also belongs to the hot executive function group.

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Table 4.1 Hot and cold executive functions after Salehinejad et al. (2021) Cold executive functions Working memory

Set shifting

Hot executive functions Emotional regulation

Self-referential Social cognition (theory of mind, emotion understanding)

Response inhibition

Multi-tasking

Reward processing

Attentional control

Error detection

Delay discounting

Problem solving

Performance monitoring

Risky decision making

Cognitive flexibility

Fluency

Affective decision

Cold executive functions with emotional or motivational features

Cortical

Subcortical

Cortical

Subcortical

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Hippocampus

Medial prefrontal cortex

Amygdala

Lateral prefrontal cortex

Basal ganglia

Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex

Insula

Orbitofrontal cortex

Limbic system

Anterior cingulate cortex Inferior frontal cortex

Striatum

As “executive functions” is an umbrella term, it encompasses the top-down neurocognitive processes that consciously control thinking, emotions and action. These neural networks are mainly associated with the frontal cortical areas, but the limbic system also plays a significant role in the functioning of both cold and hot executive functions. The summary in Table 4.1 shows that, although the executive functions belong to more or less the same brain areas, very different neural networks are involved in the functioning of each group. The neural networks are closely interconnected and interact with each other to shape the control of thought, emotion, and action, but a divergence in any network elements might produce a significantly altered output pattern. Some specific patterns in atypical neurodevelopment are significantly different from the usual; they form the basis for a variety of diagnoses as they produce special characteristic-sets of thinking, emotional and behavioural patterns.

4.3 An Evolutionary View Executive functions are evolutionarily the most recent neural functions that form the neural basis of human civilization, planned, organized, coordinated activities, and the ability to live together in social interaction. Even before Homo Sapiens, pattern recognition, the basis of intelligence, helped humans understand the world around them. Prehistoric paintings, pieces of jewelry and sculptures show that for at least 200,000 years, mankind has been using symbols to represent the world and itself, and this was already the case for Neanderthal man,

4.3 An Evolutionary View

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too. People were catching animals in traps 70,000 years ago, which is a sign of the emergence of working memory because to set traps, you have to think ahead. Working memory is required for mental operations, and for manipulating more complex patterns (Wayman, 2012). About 40,000 years ago, with the shift to a farming lifestyle, the need of controlled, systematic, thinking and planning, or executive functions, became necessary. In the evolution of the human brain, it is only in the last few tens of thousands of years that the prefrontal cortical areas and their associated function groups have increased significantly. These are very new neural networks, so they are not yet as stabilized as, for example, reasoning or symbol use, and are therefore more exposed to environmental influences. Any trauma to the brain will affect these comparatively new functions. In a developing nervous system, even minor trauma can significantly alter neural networks. The syndrome previously named “minimal cerebral dysfunction” describes precisely this abnormality during early development. ADHD has also been referred to as minimal brain dysfunction, later hyperactive/hyperkinetic syndrome, and childhood hyperactive reactivity, until it gained its current name (ADHD) in 1987 (Antshel & Barkley, 2020). In the twenty-first century, external, brain development influencing factors have multiplied. Several studies revealed a connection between environmental factors and atypical neural development. For example, “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” may play a role in the development of learning, hyperactivity, attention and autism spectrum disorders, as well as depression and schizophrenia (Campbell-McBride, 2010). If a child inherits a damaging bacteria from its mother at birth, it can lead to the development of harmful gut flora and early brain toxicity from infancy. This increases the risk of developmental disorders in susceptible children (Ward, 2001). Environmental triggers such as industrial and urban pollution, exposure to mercury or to other chemicals induce atypical development (e.g. Becker, 2010; Dickerson et al., 2015; Froehlich et al., 2011; Isaksson et al., 2022; Yoshimasu et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2021; Lewandowski et al., 2009; Matsuzaki et al., 2012). The increasing number of mobile phones and other artificial sources of radiation, as well as electronic gadgets that generate magnetic fields, also have physiological effects on brain development (see for example Cotgreave, 2005; Ferreri et al., 2006). If an individual’s predisposition inclines them to neurological damage caused by these factors, they are more likely to do so. This has led to a significant increase in the proportion of children with atypical neurodevelopment. In addition to environmental- and culturally-depended factors, which had been beneficial in early human cultures, some increased behaviors have contributed to atypical neurodevelopment. While the nervous system of Homo sapiens was originally optimized for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and survival required spatial-visual orientation, constant movement, and impulsive responses to stimuli, all these abilities and characteristics have been replaced by very difference ones in our time.

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The perceptual and activity characteristics of a nomadic, hunter-gatherer correspond to those of an individual diagnosed with learning, attention, and hyperactivity disorders: . . . . . .

spatial, visual, impulsive immediate, not storing but acquiring seeks, finds, selects active, searches, wanders, collects guesses, imagines, senses risks, tries, errors.

Homo sapiens made a major cultural shift at the end of the so-called Palaeolithic, ‘inventing’ agriculture instead of the precarious methods of hunting and gathering. With the emergence of animal husbandry and agriculture, the Neolithic also marked a turning point in the development of the human brain as a new culture. Methodical, structured-in-time work replaced a rather unpredictable, and therefore trial-and-error, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. This change was reflected in the nervous system over the few thousand years following the spread of the farming lifestyle. The systematic work was so successful that the human population began to grow rapidly, and the neurological foundations of literacy appeared (Diamond & Bellwood, 2003). It was only a few tens of thousands of years ago that the human nervous system evolved the functions that made the brain suitable for a life as a settled farmer. In other words, from a neuro-evolutionary point of view, the mode of perception and activity that makes farming possible is very new: . . . . . .

timed, controlled able to delay, tend, harvest, store foresighted, scheduling, methodical stationary, controlled work plans systematically executes thinks in systems.

The nomadic man’s nervous system is almost the reverse of this. The new brain allows systematic, planned work in keeping with a farming lifestyle. The culture of literacy, and later industrial societies, were based on the controlled, pre-planned, systematic nervous functioning that evolved during farming. This is due to the strengthening of executive functions. The executive functions associated with the prefrontal cortical areas are therefore the product of cultural evolution. In these cultures, the ability to restrain oneself, and to carry out activities in a well-controlled and attentive way, is necessary for success and even survival. These qualities are necessary for outstanding performance. However, the characteristics of a huntergatherer lifestyle are specifically part of the image of the explorer, the talent for seeking new paths (Gyarmathy, 2020).

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4.4 Relationship Between Executive Functions and Neurodiverse Talent Executive functions are higher-order cognitive functions that are necessary for adaptive, goal-oriented behaviour, but talent is not about adaptivity, but about deviating from the usual pathways. The difference in executive functions is neither clearly disadvantageous nor necessarily advantageous. The link between autism and giftedness is the best known of the various forms of atypical neurodevelopment. Characteristics that result from dysfunctions specifically identifiable in autism may also contribute to exceptional, outstanding performance: . . . . . . .

Thinks in concrete terms; Sticks to subjects or topics that interest him/her; Deeply committed to his/her field; Has an unusual way of seeing things; Extremely sensitive; Self-righteous; Has unusually intense and prolonged emotional reactions.

According to Happé and Vital (2009), one of the main characteristics of autism is a weakness in the ‘Theory of Mind’, which may contribute to the individual’s original thinking. If one is not able to automatically ‘read others’ minds’, one may be better able to think outside the prevailing fashions and popular theories. The researchers used data from twin studies in which parents reported on the talents and autism-like traits of their 8-year-old children. Across the whole sample, these traits, and in particular “limited and repetitive behaviour and interest” in paying attention to detail, were more pronounced in children who were considered more gifted. Children with autism also show considerable heterogeneity in executive functions (Baez et al., 2020). Typically, differences in executive functions, flexible thinking, and social cognition occur in multiple domains and combinations and may form a constellation that is advantageous for giftedness. A variety of compensatory techniques can help, even within different executive functions. For example, Zimmerman and colleagues (2016) found that the ability to recognize emotions and make social inferences was supported by working memory and response initiation and suppression processes in their autistic subjects. Not all children with autism have the same profile and severity of executive functions deficits. This heterogeneity makes an accurate assessment of abilities even more critical. Comorbidity with other conditions, such as ADHD, is very common alongside an autism diagnosis (Leitner, 2014). Executive dysfunction is more prevalent and severe in ADHD (Bloemen et al., 2018). Although not all children with autism have executive functions difficulties (Baez et al., 2020), executive functions impairment occurs in most children with comorbid autism and ADHD (Dajani et al., 2016). However, the nature and severity of executive dysfunction can vary widely between and within children with autism and ADHD or comorbid autism and ADHD (Uddin, 2021).

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The control dysfunction that is common in attention and hyperactivity disorder is not necessarily a problem. Just as the hunter-gatherer benefits from being constantly on the move, being driven by external stimuli, and hyper-focusing when finding something important and then acting impulsively. There are many situations where these characteristics are not detrimental, but rather highly desirable. Each item in the list below indicates weaknesses in executive functioning and all items fit into either a giftedness or ADHD identification list. . . . . . . .

low tolerance to monotony fast reactions disorderly behaviour in the absence of challenge abnormal perception noticing things that others don’t tirelessness high appetite for activity.

Moore et al. (2021) found that the neurodiversity of individuals with ADHD is also strongly related to aspects of entrepreneurial thinking. Their results suggest that entrepreneurs with ADHD have a more intuitive cognitive style and show higher entrepreneurial vigilance.

4.5 Executive Functions, Intelligence, and Creativity Talent is deviance. If you act and think like the majority, you will end up where the majority does (Gyarmathy & Senior, 2018). At first, all innovations are considered deviant, and then, accepted by the majority, strange ways can later become the norm (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2004). However, a certain degree of self-control is necessary for the creative process, so optimal development of executive functions can be a priority area of talent management. Several studies indicate the importance of executive functions in creative thinking, but it also turns out that this role is very different and fragmented (Krumm et al., 2018; Zabelina et al., 2019). In the study by Benedek and his colleagues (2014), fluid intelligence was strongly predicted by updating (working memory), but neither shifting (flexibility) nor inhibitory functions were correlated with fluid intelligence. Creativity was predicted by updating and inhibition, but not by shifting. Moreover, updating explained a significant proportion of the joint variance between intelligence and creativity. The separability of executive functions and intelligence is debated, and there is evidence that the two constructs are genetically indistinguishable in children and adolescents, but phenotypically and genetically distinct in older adolescents and adults. Results from research using a combined twin and adoptive test construct highlight the commonality and distinctness of executive function and intelligence.

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Abilities related to common executive functions are distinct from intelligence in adulthood, and intelligence is strongly related to updating (working memory) specific abilities (Gustavson et al., 2022). The study of executive functions is complicated by the fact that dysfunctions in everyday situations take a more complex form because affective and motivational processes interact with executive processes. These hot executive functions such as goal-oriented, future-oriented cognitive processes, and affective decisions have been shown to activate brain areas that control emotions and the brain’s reward systems. In contrast, traditional tests of executive functions activate cold executive functions that are less emotionally involved (Castellanos et al., 2006). Moreover, in addition to the neural networks responsible for executive functions, several other neural networks are involved in mental processes. It is quite different to solve tasks requiring executive functions in a laboratory than to act in everyday social situations or to achieve accomplishments. There is a part of the brain that really seems to work when the brain is not working—napping, and daydreaming when the mind wanders. This part of the brain, known as the default mode network, is involved in creativity and is also associated with empathy. This network is suppressed when the brain is focused on tasks, for example when executive functions are at a high level. Recent models of creativity describe creativity as a function between three cortical networks—the default mode network, salience, and the executive control network. Each of these networks is considered to encompass different aspects of creativity. The default mode network mediates spontaneous cognition, or stream of consciousness, and contributes to the flexible recall of memories and the generation of ideas. The salience network filters out useful and novel candidates for ideas and forwards them to the executive control network, which directs this flow toward a specific goal (Shofty et al., 2022). Shofty et al. (2022) found that creative performance is positively correlated with default mode network integrity. Direct cortical stimulation at default mode network nodes reduced fluency but not originality. Stimulation of areas that did not generate a default mode network, thus they are control operations, did not alter creative thinking. According to Vaisarova and Carlson (2021), the executive function network is inversely proportional to divergent thinking, taking into account age, intelligence and income. The results question the relationship between children’s divergent thinking and the role of simple executive functions. Divergent idea generation is primarily a bottom-up process that may be hindered by top-down systematic thinking. Bottomup thinking is when somebody focuses on the details in order to get to a bigger picture which saves the thinker from being affected by the obvious. Creative thinking seems to require several differently emphasized functioning of neural networks, and creative thinking does not depend on executive functions alone. One may find it difficult to prioritize, but it may just be that one’s priorities are not those that society values most. One may not be receptive to the expectations of others, but this makes it easier to break new ground. The trait known as impulsiveness

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may be simply a willingness to “start before you are ready”, as is characteristic of creative entrepreneurs. Lost objects, missed deadlines and big ideas swirling around in the brain suggest the image of the “absent-minded professor” (Gyarmathy & Senior, 2018). Difficulties in following through with creative projects could be prevented if we were to realize that the key to this is in brain function, which is just as much a skill as anything else, and that it can be developed. Developing is easy at a very young age, and at any time in life, it is possible therapeutically strengthen the needed executive functions, which do not affect creative functioning but help to achieve performance.

4.6 Profiling of the Executive Functions An acceptable level of executive functioning is necessary for social inclusion and outstanding development and performance. Perfection in all executive functions areas is not required. Some deviance can be explicitly beneficial, but greater deviance can make achievement and social integration more difficult and inhibit it. It is therefore essential to identify problems early and prevent failure through development, training, and therapy. The “Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory for Parents and Teachers (CHEXI)” and the “Adult Executive Functioning Inventory for (ADEXI)—Selfreport version” are free and available in several languages. These questionnaires can be used as an excellent monitoring tool and problems can be identified before disorders develop (Holst & Thorell, 2018). Even a gifted child’s self-esteem can be undermined if the level of executive dysfunction is so low that it leads to serial failures and conflicts. These children are more affected by failure than typically developing children. Strong inner drive and striving for perfection can turn into negative attitudes because of failure. They easily become defiant, hostile, insecure, and unaccepted by others. Frustrated by failures lead to avoidance of challenges. They are only willing to make some effort in areas of their interest, but even there they are easily discouraged by every small failure. The strong inner drive that characterizes giftedness can take even an antisocial turn. Often self-destructive behaviour is the result, but these frustrated persons can also become antisocial if they take the easy way out and destroy rather than create. Poor attention-control, hyperactivity, or impulsivity in themselves make persistent, systematic activity and social integration difficult. Underachievement can lead to cognitive challenge avoidance, lack of cognitive motivation, and oppositional defiant disorder as a result of conflicts. Recognizing these early helps to intervene, and the earlier the intervention, the more effective it can be. The Control Profile Questionnaire can be used to assess the areas and the extent of the individual’s difficulties. The results can be used to decide on the direction and extent of intervention needed.

4.7 Control Profile Questionnaire

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The assessment tool is not intended to give a new diagnosis, but to determine whether the disturbing behaviour has reached a level where professional intervention is needed. It also has an indicative value if there is a prominent problem in any area of the Control Profile. The signal can be used to trigger improvement or conscious coping built into everyday activities.

4.7 Control Profile Questionnaire In the space marked 0, please indicate the extent to which that is characteristic of the child being tested by a number from 1 to 5. Please consider the age of the child and base your scoring on age-appropriate behaviour. Statements 1

Requires a lot of physical activity

2

Avoids difficult tasks

3

Has a high need for stimulation

4

Spiteful, vindictive

5

Can only pay attention for short periods

6

Opposes adults

7

Restless: moves hands and feet, squirms in a chair

8

Difficult to control

9

Disorganized, messy

Answers 0 0 0 0 0

0 0

0 0

10 Gets angry and has tantrums

0

11 Can only pay 0 attention to what interests them 12 Irritable

0

13 Reckless

0

14 Can’t control their emotions

0 (continued)

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(continued) Statements

Answers

15 Fears failure, prefers not to do tasks

0

16 Does not like challenges

0

17 Has difficulty concentrating

0

18 Resists and refuses to comply with the requests of adults

0

19 Unable to follow 0 a longer conversation 20 Restless: always squirms

0

21 Driven by their impulses

0

22 Runs around, crawls, and climbs even when they know they shouldn’t

0

23 Feels easily frustrated during efforts

0

24 Always fidgeting 25 Inattentive, easily distracted

0 0

26 Shouts out answers without being asked

0

27 Avoids challenging situations

0

28 Angry, annoyed

0

29 Contemptuous when cannot solve a task, shows disinterest 30 Loses things, forgetful

0

0 (continued)

4.8 Training Possibilities

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(continued) Statements

Answers

31 Fails to finish what they have started

0

32 Can’t wait their turn

0

33 Jumps out of the seat

0

34 Contemptuous of others

0

35 Defiant

0

Scores per column Behavioural profile

Attention Hyperactivity Impulsivity Opposition Lack of cognitive motivation

Scores of a 12 typically developing child

12

9

9

9

1—not true; 2—usually not true; 3—more or less true; 4—true; 5—very true

4.8 Training Possibilities Attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity can be well managed and even prevented by strengthening executive functions. The balance system plays a major role in selfmanagement, so its training is one of the most important preventive and training options. Development from the level of motor control facilitates the development of emotional and cognitive control. Natural cultural solutions are generally recommended because they provide a broad range of skills support. For example, Tai Chi training enhances executive functions and fluid intelligence even in healthy older adults (Xiaojing et al., 2021). In children and young people, the effects are even greater and indubitable. A few studies suggest that bilingualism accelerates the development of mentalization skills (Diaz & Farrar, 2018; Schroeder, 2018) (see Ch. 7). Current evidence suggests that, although the benefits of bilingualism during typical development are not universal, it may in some circumstances provide an advantage for populations in which executive functions are compromised (Romero & Uddin, 2021). Diamond and Lee (2011) tested different activities to see how well they improve children’s executive functions. Their results show that computer training and noncomputer games are both effective. Physical-, as well as mind and body activities, such as aerobics, martial arts, yoga, and mindfulness have also been shown to be effective. All of these possibilities focus on repetitive exercise and the constant

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challenge of executive functions. Children with poorer executive functions initially benefit the most. Therefore it can be concluded that early executive functions training prevents later performance problems. If tests indicate that severe abnormalities are present, therapeutic intervention is needed. Such intervention can be done by a physical therapist, psychologist, or mental health professional with expertise in the field executive functions training. There are programmes specifically designed to prepare teachers for this task. PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies), for example, trains teachers to develop children’s competencies in self-control, emotion recognition and management, and interpersonal problem-solving. Young children usually experience emotions and respond to them before they can verbalize them and often react impulsively, without top-down control. Therefore, emphasis is placed, in this program, on practicing verbalization of emotions and conscious self-control strategies (e.g. waiting before acting and internalizing). When children get upset, they need to stop, take a deep breath, tell the adult in charge what the problem is and how they feel, and make a plan of action. The techniques teachers are taught in this program are to be generalized to other contexts, and aimed to help children use them during the whole school day. It has been shown that after just one year of teaching and applying PATHS to 7–9-year olds they showed better inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility than children in the control group. The Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) has been another approach, that provided teachers with extensive behaviour management training and suggestions for reducing stress. The strategies taught included: introducing clear rules and routines, rewarding positive behaviour and redirecting negative behaviour, etc. This programme deliberately did not train teachers for school use and did not provide curricula for subjects. The emphasis was on developing verbally skilled strategies for emotion regulation. Mental health counselors provided stress reduction workshops for teachers throughout the year. Attention, inhibition, and experimenter-rated impulsivity changed significantly over the year compared to control groups. There was no improvement in delayed gratification, but the children did significantly better than their controls in vocabulary, letter naming, and mathematics tasks. The improvement in academic skills was largely due to improvements in executive functions. Narrowly focusing on improving executive functions may not be as effective as addressing emotional and social development (curricula that improve executive functions) and physical development (the positive effects of aerobics, martial arts, and yoga) in care (Diamond & Lee, 2011). Inzlicht et al.’s (2014) cybernetic model of self-control relies on three distinct processes: goal setting, monitoring of non-goal behaviour, and implementation of goal-adapted behaviour. Within each of these stages, they incorporated recent research findings that identify key features of good self-control, including goal setting of the right type of goals; the role of conflict detection, attention, and emotional acceptance in goal monitoring; and the effects of fatigue, priority shifting, and intentions on the implementation of behavioural changes. By exploring how self-control

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depends on these different processes, they offered a more comprehensive perspective and ways to improve self-control. In the case of gifted persons, extra attention should be paid to behavioural, emotional, and cognitive characteristics. Therapies can only be effective if they focus on the interests of the gifted person. Physical and art therapies, development through strategic games, puzzle or projects, have a good prospects of success. Talents have a greater than usual need for autonomy, which needs to be taken into account. Selfdirected therapies are therefore more likely to have an impact than strictly guided ones. Behavioural and cognitive therapists should be involved as partners in the process, taking into consideration that in most cases gifted children like to maintain their independence rather than get orders and obey them automatically. As prevention is the most effective strategy aimed to minimize disorders, disabilities and illnesses, talent management programmes should include conscious training of executive functions and the monitoring of talent. Training for parents, teachers, and mentors, as well as giving access to reliable information to the gifted and talented about the nature and importance of executive functions, should be an integral part of talent management.

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Chapter 5

Neurodiversity and Supporting the Autistic-Gifted Child and Adolescent

5.1 Introduction Research data confirms that high intellectual potential is associated with very different developmental profiles. One of these has common features with autism spectrum disorders (Boschi et al., 2016). The co-occurrence of giftedness and autism is the prototype of what can be described as the oddly behavior of the gifted individual. Extraordinariness is mostly treated as disorders by the community until it manifests itself in outstanding performance. For this reason, autistic gifted people have to cope with even greater social-emotional challenges than would have been expected: difficulties inherent in their own exceptionality as well as those stemmed from their giftedness. Twice-exceptionality is the term used in the literature to describe individuals who are characterised by both high cognitive ability and neuropsychiatric disorders. Twice-exceptionality refers to the co-occurrence of special challenges and special talents (Cain et al., 2019). But the kind of exceptionality such people own may have paved a prolific routes of evolution. Deviating from the norm does not necessarily and automatically implie disruption; this has been known as a fact due to the finding that the developmental flexibility of the nervous system is much greater than previously assumed.

5.2 Neurodiversity Is an Opportunity for Evolutionary Survival Learning, attention, hyperactivity, and autism spectrum disorders can co-occur together with giftedness in different combinations and often overlap and mask each other. They are spectrums of syndromes, currently referred to as disorders, which are responsible in some cases for obvious, but often for severe problems of adjustment © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_5

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and performance, and can be interpreted as evolutionary responses to environmental influences. The term “neurodiversity” was first used by a group of high-functioning autistic people to describe their specificity, and then professionals broadened the scope of neurological differences and the natural diversity of those who belong to it. The concept of neurodiversity perceives atypical neurodevelopment as normal human variation, a natural biological difference that is essential for the survival of humanity, as it provides the diversity evolution needs. This attitude is based on practical thinking, that the acceptance of diversity, and the need to create and include as many individuals as possible is for the benefit of all. According to the principle of neurodiversity, the acceptance and inclusion of the exceptional is an evolutionary advantage. Evolution builds on neurodiversity, but not everything that is “different” will succeed. As evolution proceeds through adaptation, the environment, and its changes determine what is beneficial and what is not. The challenge facing humanity at the beginning of the twenty-first century is that technological advances are advancing at unprecedented speed, and thus cultural change is accelerating exponentially. It is difficult to pinpoint what is adaptive, but the increased interest in talent is a sign of the need for minds that work outside the box and can see problems and find new solutions. Creative talents can interpret situations in a way that is significantly different from the usual, made possible by a brain that is different from the usual, and that is becoming more common because of the environmental factors that cause the nervous system to develop in atypical directions. Statistics indicate an increase in the incidence of autism and other neurobiological abnormalities (GBD 2019 Mental Disorders Collaborators, 2019). If we consider Mrazik and Dombrowski’s (2010) model of the common neurobiological roots of high intellectual ability and various atypical forms of development, it is clear that creative talents could be more and more numerous, but for the time being, they are identified, in many cases, as psychiatric cases rather than talents. Paradoxically, while almost everybody admits that creative brains are needed in the twenty-first century, when developmental pathways are opening up in this direction, the environment identifies them as disorders.

5.3 Atypical Neurodevelopment and Autism Thinking about talent has long been associated with the image of the “mad genius”, and talent associated with a change in neural energy has been known as a concept since the Renaissance. According to this view, any deviation from the general expectation, whether madness and insanity, or genius and talent, indicates mental instability. Nisbet (1891) considered originality of thought, and quick, strong intellectual ability, as organically of the same origin as insanity. Geniuses were considered at best physically weak, fallible, and neurotic.

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Lombroso (1891) used biographical data to demonstrate the mental strain of many great artists, such as Mozart, Burns, and John Stuart Mill, and characterised geniuses on this basis. His data found that the talents in his study were bodily small, pale, and thin. He stated that many were left-handed, alcoholics, drug addicts, and vagrants. He was convinced that the price of talent was melancholy, depression, and neurosis. The relationship between talent and mental disorders has been the subject of research since then, but the focus has shifted towards understanding the nature of the link. A nervous system with abnormal development and functioning, which is untypical among people of average behaviour and intelligence, embodies the potential for giftedness. Neuroplasticity, the resilience of the human nervous system, is the brain’s enormous capacity for renewal, regeneration, and compensation. Altered cognitive functioning is the response of children’s nervous systems to environmental influences. This manifests itself not only in performance problems but often also in exceptional performance. The natural diversity and extreme plasticity of the brain, and its prominent role in adaptation, are increasingly coming to the fore as the twentyfirst century is characterised by an unprecedented increase in the richness of stimuli and information, and by cultural change. In particular, evolutionarily relatively new neural networks and functions are and can be strongly shaped. This includes, not coincidentally, various forms of atypical neurodevelopment, including autism. Atypical neurodevelopment is a developmental difference in neural transmission processes. In autism, these neurobiological abnormalities cause disturbances in social behaviour, communication, and cognitive function. The main identifying feature is concrete or literal thinking. This peculiarity is also the basis of the deficit of the Theory of Mind (ToM) or mentalization. Mentalization is the ability of an individual to interpret the motives and emotions of others in terms of their expressions. Deficits in the Theory of Mind can occur in people with atypical neurodevelopment, especially in the case of autism. These processes belong to the so-called hot executive functions which are related to the functioning of neural networks in the prefrontal brain areas. Cognitive and emotional functions of the prefrontal cortex develop in synchrony with structural maturation. The long-term development of executive functions is consistent with neurophysiological changes in the prefrontal cortex. Autism, hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and other psychiatric disorders are associated with atypical development of the prefrontal cortex (Uytun, 2018). The structure–function relationship of the prefrontal cortex supports age-related improvements in executive functioning (Baum et al., 2020), meaning that these functions are highly malleable. Experience-dependent plasticity is of great importance for both typical and atypical development and is a particularly important aspect of talent management.

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5.4 “Cold” and “Hot” Executive Dysfunctions A defining feature of autism is a weakness in mentalizing. This function, as noted earlier is classified as a hot executive function, and is a fundamental component of human cognition, essential for cognitive and social behaviour, for attributing mental states (such as desires, beliefs, intentions, and emotions) to the individual concerning self and others. These mental states can be used to explain and predict the behaviour of others and to interpret situations. “Executive functions” is an umbrella term, referring to multiple, overlapping neural networks in the brain. The cold executive functions related to cognitive functions are associated with areas of the lateral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex. The hot executive functions, which are mainly emotional-motivational, are associated with the medial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex, and, accordingly, the emotional-motivationalreward limbic system is also strongly involved. In autism spectrum disorder, problems are mainly noticeable in the area of hot executive functions. Mentalization ability, or its functining level, is one of these problems, though the deficit profile of executive functions varies from one individual to the other. Zimmerman et al. (2016) examined the executive function profile of highfunctioning autistic individuals. The results showed an overall difference in cold and warm executive functions (i.e., working memory, response initiation and suppression, emotion recognition, mentalization) in the autistic group compared to controls. However, impairments in emotion recognition and mentalization were independent of the deficits in the working memory and response initiation and suppression. In other words, cold and hot executive functions were found to be independent on each other, so their functional efficiency might have been varied. In this study children with autism, although the cold (working memory and inhibition) and hot (affective decision making) domains showed age-related improvements, never reached the performance levels of the control group. Improvements in some aspects of executive functions in autistic children during school age are evident and highlight the crucial role that both cold and warm executive functions play in the development of mentalization. The neurons and neuron population of the nervous system are connected by a complex anatomical network of axonal bundles of fibers, the connectome shapes and determines neural activity to correspond to an orders set of patterns of coactivation which are the functional networks that support cognitive and other mental functions. Functional linkages are stronger between structurally connected regions, but this correspondence is far from perfect, and many functional links are formed through activities and experiences in the absence of direct structural links. If the development of executive functions is well controlled by the prefrontal cortex structure– function coupling it supports age-related improvements in executive abilities (Baum et al., 2020). These findings have crucial implications for experience-dependent plasticity in both healthy and atypical development and are of great relevance for talent management.

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5.5 Speech, Language, and Mentalisation Speech and language impairment is a common developmental problem associated with autism, which affects many other areas. Language development is one of the most important early training elements to avoid language disorders becoming a barrier and hindering cognitive and social development. Research by Durrleman and her colleagues (2019) suggest that adequate language development is one factor behind the ability of 20–50% of children with autism to overcome ToM difficulties. In order to overcome ToM difficulties, autistic children are likely to use certain verbal strategies. They may be aided in their mentalization by a specific grammatical structure, namely, complementary tag phrases such as “the doll thinks/believes/says that her ball is in the basket”. As mentalisation can be successful with language support, mentalisation problems may also exist in populations with language difficulties without autism, and this appears to be the case for children with developmental language impairment. In the case of delayed language development or disorder, the poorer development of ToM may lead the environment to suspect autism and the child may receive an autism diagnosis and autism-specific therapy, while language support therapy may also address the problem. Provisions and training should be based on the identification of the strengths and weaknesses, rather than a diagnosis in early childhood. It has been suspected that bilingualism may hinder the language development of children with autism. However, bilingualism does not appear to harm the language comprehension, production, reading, or writing of children with autism (Bird et al., 2012; Zhou et al., 2019). Literature also indicates that by school age, autistic children can become bilingual and may follow similar language development patterns as typically developing bilinguals (Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2019). A small but growing body of research also shows that children with autism who are raised in bilingual homes are at the same or better levels of language development than children with autism from monolingual home environments. There are also some reports suggesting that bilingualism also accelerates ToM (Diaz & Farrar, 2018; Schroeder, 2018). Language is a well-built system and that is a considerable help for a brain that is at home in the system thinking and can be successful at organizing. Two languages can have an even stronger organizing effect.

5.6 Pattern-Seeker Brain and Hyper-systematisation Fluent intelligence refers to a set of skills in which pattern recognition, working memory, processing speed, visualisation, and inductive and abstract reasoning play an important role (Buckley et al., 2018; Tachibana et al., 2014). Baron-Cohen (2020) called the autistic brain a “pattern seeker”. A common feature of autistic gifted is that they become experts at recognising repetitive patterns of stimuli, and consequently, they have a high level at one of the cognitive components

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of fluid intelligence—pattern recognition. In addition, systematic thinking plays an important role in intellectual functioning of gifted with autism. The essence of systematic thinking is to make clear inferences along with rules. Systematisation is the cognitive effort to analyse or construct systems. It can be any system: the essence of a system is that it follows rules, and in systematizing, the rules that govern the system must be identified to predict how the system will react. For example, if you flip the switch down, the light comes on, if it is Sunday you do not go to school, if you add even numbers you always get an even number. People with autism are characterised by a strong sense of order, which explains several features of autism: narrow interests, repetitive behaviour, resistance to change, and need for identity. In terms of hyper-systemization, it is best if everything is constant and only one thing changes at a time because then it is easy to keep track of what is causing a certain result, and check by repetition that the pattern or sequence is valid at the same time. Checking the reason-result relation makes the world predictable to the autistic person, who might perceive it, especially socially, quite unpredictable. Social cooperation may not be a problem either if there is an appropriate level of regulation. According to Fiebich’s (2022) analysis, high-functioning individuals with autism perform particularly well in cooperative activities that are strongly determined by the institutional context, social rules and regularities, and the role of the participants (Fig. 5.1). Hyper-systematisation by itself does not necessarily lead to talent development. In particular, the inadequate functioning of executive functions, an important component of high-level intellectual performance, can be a handicap. However, outstanding performance can be the result of a combination of different neural functions and combinations of abilities. Typically, individuals with autism can achieve superior inellectual achievements in areas with clear rules based on details. Additional support is the existence of sensory hypersensitivity and high level of attention to details in autism (Mottron et al., 2003).

Fig. 5.1 Hyper-systematization in the center of high intellectual abilities and autistic features

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5.7 Hyper- and Hypo-sensibility A particularly well-known problem in autism spectrum disorder is the disturbances in stimulus processing and filtering. Hyper- and hypo-sensibilities are often a feature of atypical neurodevelopment (Ghanizadeh, 2011). According to a study by Jussila and her colleagues (2020), 53.6% of children with autism and 8.0% of children without autism show abnormal sensitivities. In a previous study, questionnaire-based sensory profile studies indicated that approximately 90% of individuals diagnosed with autism have atypical sensory experiences (Marco et al., 2011). The large variation may be due to differences in the item numbers of the tests and differences in the testing instruments, but it is clear that sensory differences are a very strong characteristic of the autistic population. Autistic individuals have a more accurate visual perception, and in the auditory modality, the researchers found excellent pitch processing and excellent auditory discrimination ability, as well as extreme sensitivity to certain sound frequencies. Autistic children performed better in tactile acuity, but no difference in tactile discrimination was found between the autistic children and the control group. Other researchers have reported increased sensitivity to vibration and thermal pain in autistic children, while light touch and warm/cold perception were similar to the control group (Baron-Cohen et al., 2009). Almost 40% of children with autism and sensory disorders show altered sensations of smell and taste (Leekam et al., 2007). Sniffing odours is an automatically modulated function of the brain (strong sniffing for pleasant odours and subdued sniffing for unpleasant odours). Children with autism show abnormal sniffing responses because they sniff in the same way regardless of the odour (for example, they sniff strongly even when smelling rotten fish). Researchers have found that more severe autistics had a higher magnitude sniffs than the less severe; thus they have proposed the magnitude of sniffing as a new biomarker of autism (Rozenkrantz et al., 2015). The excellent attention to detail is itself a consequence of sensory hypersensitivity. Hypersensitivity is sensory, i.e., early, very low-level processing. Different sensory functioning can affect information processing in the early developmental stages, both by causing significant feelings of discomfort and anxiety, and by predisposing the unusual talent development (Baron-Cohen et al., 2009). Sensory hypersensitivity, which results in excellent attention to detail, is a prerequisite for hypersystematization, which in turn can lead to pattern recognition and superior intellectual performance.

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5.8 Outstanding Intellect Hyper-systematization predisposes individuals to a particular cognitive functioning, which can lead to particular talent development. Similar to hypersensitivity, hypersystematization is part of the cognitive style of autism and the two are also associated with higher intellectual performance. The link between autism and giftedness thus starts at the sensory level, involves excellent attention to detail, and eventually manifests itself in hyper-systematisation. Several neurobiological and social status characteristics identified by scientific research also confirm the link between high intelligence and autism: Large brain size, rapid brain growth, enhanced sensory and visuospatial abilities, increased synaptic activity, attentional focus, high socioeconomic status, more deliberate decisionmaking, interest in engineering and science, and positive genetic correlations between autism risk and intellectual ability levels are common co-occurrences (Crespi, 2016). This list could be called an autistic talent profile. In another approach, it was also found that the characteristics of high intellect are similar to those of autism. Riccioni and her colleagues (2021) compared a group of high functioning, autistic, and a non-autistic group with high intelligence levels. Both groups showed lower levels of adaptive skills. The researchers identified autistic symptoms as a common feature in the two groups, and, both groups were characterised by increased perfectionism. According to Crespi (2016), the alleles of autism overlap to a large extent with those of high intelligence, which may seem paradoxical given the high prevalence of below-average intelligence in autism. This paradox can be resolved by arguing that autism involves enhanced but unbalanced components of intelligence. However, ability testing for individuals with autism does not necessarily reflect the individual’s intellectual abilities because . . . .

misunderstanding the task, not being interested in the task, not being interested in performance, does not want to meet expectations.

Any of the reasons listed might cause doubting the results of tests on people with autism. The savant syndrome is a specific manifestation of excellence because they show extreme excellence in a well-defined area (See 2.5 and 2.6 in Chap. 2). This is an atypical neurological background that is very strongly associated with autism and is associated with varying degrees and forms of exceptional cognitive performance. Rimland (1978) described comorbid autism in 10% of savants, while almost four decades later Treffert and Rebedew (2015) reported that the proportion was 75%. The problems of studying savants make it difficult to establish a definite proportion, but the correlation can be identified.

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In savant syndrome, as opposed to autistic giftedness, excellence is limited to a very narrow range of abilities (language, numeracy, spatial-visual, music); these areas never overlap. Pattern matching can be a link between the highly intelligent autistic brain and the savant’s brain. The coexistence of pattern recognition and insular excellence with other talent characteristics is a crucial point in the question of gifted development. In terms of autistic giftedness, there are at least three main cases of savant syndrome: 1. insular exceptional ability with intellectual disability 2. insular exceptional ability with average intellectual ability 3. insular exceptional ability with outstanding intellectual ability. In case 1, there is a guaranteed question of whether it is a talent product that the individual creates. A defining characteristic of talent is creation, which involves creativity in addition to ability and task commitment. Ability and task commitment are not questionable in the case of savants. However, since the beginning of the concept of creativity, has been connected to intelligence. Guilford (1950) wrote that creative talent was to be accounted for in terms of high intelligence Later (ibid,1967) he concluded that “although high IQ is not a sufficient condition for high DP [divergent production] ability, it is almost a necessary condition” (p. 168). In McNemar’s (1964) words: “Having a high IQ is not a guarantee of being creative; having a low IQ means creativity is impossible” (p. 879). The abilities of an intellectually underdeveloped savant are typically comparable to those of a machine. Calculating savants can count quickly, like a calculator, but neither know what they are counting and why, due to lack of consciousness. A language savant is similar to a translation program. Visual arts savants work like scanner-printers. The create, namely paint or sculpture what they see. Musical savants play back exactly what they hear. They do not add any of their own flavor, or interpretation, to it, neither do they take anything from it. They are very similar to an MP3 recorder-player in this sense. As it is of extreme importance for the individual to fulfill their potential, it is essential to provide an environment that is right for the activity. The extent to which the product has value is another matter. It is not only the creative product that has value. The created product is desirable because of its special value. However, any product can be valuable, even if not original; the process of creation can also be valuable for the creator.

5.9 Creativity in Autism One of the ingredients of creativity is flexibility. In this respect, it is difficult to think of autistic people with their regularity seeking as creative thinkers. Among the executive functions, cognitive flexibility, the ability to change the perspective or approach to a problem, to adapt one’s behavior to new demands and rules, are

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among the inferior functions of autistic people. For example, a mother was asking her autistic son to sit in the back seat of the bus but the child stopped at the door. When the mother asked why he would not get in, the boy answered that there was a bag of oranges on the seat. However, even when inflexibility is so obvious, an autistic person can still be creative thanks to his cognitive functioning that is “outside the box”, the well-known slogan for creative thinking. Autistic individuals are characterised by stronger than usual association and systematisation abilities, which support the formation of imaginative patterns. However, the focus on details makes things difficult for the autistic person to interpret a situation. Let us think, for example, of body language. A small movement of the nose triggers thousands of combinations in the autistic brain, making it difficult to read the other person’s emotions, and everything becomes confused. On the other hand, when autistics do not have to deal with real people who are unfamiliar to them, they can imagine practically anything. Imagination is a much safer ground because it is its own, understandable and controllable. Sensory sensitivity causes a lot of perceptions that are rarely seen in the neurotypical nervous system. Milne et al. (2017), for example, found that 63% of their autistic group experienced touch and tactile sensation without external intervention, compared to 7% of the non-autistic comparison group. These sensations, combined with hyper-systematic thinking, can produce a very complex imaginative world.

5.10 Autism and Psychotic Disorders There is growing evidence that neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder or ADHD are risk factors for psychotic disorders and whom they share a common genetic and neurodevelopmental background (e.g., Rapoport et al., 2009; more recently Radwan & Mallik, 2021; Su et al., 2022). Both overlapping and contrasting features can be identified in the autism and schizophrenia spectra. Both conditions are associated with cognitive and sensory processing problems, both are highly heritable, and both are associated with atypical brain development. They are particularly similar in terms of social behaviour, for example, a lack of social communication or dysfunction, social withdrawal, or a lack of emotional reactivity. However, they differ, for example, in that attention to detail is characteristic of autism, whereas schizophrenia is characterised by hallucinations and delusions (Nenadi´c et al., 2021). The rate of psychosis in autism spectrum disorder is 5–35% higher than in the general population. The overlap between sensory and attentional processing disorders highlights the neurobiological basis of the association. Cases with a history of high clinical risk and autism spectrum disorder and subsequent psychosis show enhanced neural responses during attentional orienting tasks. This finding is consistent with other findings on this topic, which indicate that the combination of symptoms across the autism-psychosis spectrum may interact in unanticipated ways and does not follow a simple main effect framework. The results show that autistic individuals who also developed a comorbid psychotic disorder differed significantly in their autistic

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phenotypic profile from autistic individuals without psychotic symptoms in that the autism-psychosis group showed significantly less stereotyped, repetitive, or restricted interest/behaviour. Otherwise, the diagnostic profile of the autism-psychosis group differed from that of individuals with psychosis alone. The autism-psychosis group had lower rates of schizophrenia and higher rates of psychosis not otherwise specified. The duration of illness reported by individuals with autism generally did not meet the diagnostic duration criteria for schizophrenia (minimum of 6 months of disorder with one month of active symptoms) because it was more acute and transient than the criteria described (Foss-Feig et al., 2021). Although the relationship between autism spectrum and psychotic spectrum disorders, including their underlying neurobiology, is not yet fully understood, preparing for the mental burdens of everyday life is a crucial aspect of the treatment of childhood autism and autistic behaviour. This is not only true for diagnosable cases. Social relationship disorders are not always identifiable. The situation of gifted children who perform well differs from that of those who perform at or below average. Loneliness, interpreted as a special talent, is not given enough attention to. On the other hand, sometimes the environment forces the autistic child into social situations that are cognitively inappropriate and can cause significant discomfort and psychological distress.

5.11 Case Study of Gábor: No Happy Ending Gábor was always a strange child, and his mother, who worked for a cartographic company, also exhibited peculiar behaviour. Almost nothing is known about Gábor’s father, the mother raised her son alone. As Gábor was a very obedient child and an excellent learner, his eccentricities, his slightly odd speech, and his way of handling social situations were accepted by the educational institutions, although his peers were not always so forgiving. He often felt like an outcast, but usually had a friend or two. After graduating from high school with honours, he went to university, and after finishing it he got a job at the prestigious Central Institute for Physical Research. By this time, however, his mother was showing increasing signs of mental disturbance, and she became a burden rather than support as Gábor had to help his mentally unbalanced mother. Gábor was supported at this time by a fellow student, but the strain increased, and soon, Gábor was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He did not finish his Ph.D. thesis, and he could not fully carry out his work. The colleagues at the Institute were very patient because when Gábor was working, his calculations made a huge move forward in the tasks at hand. The psychiatrist identified childhood autism and schizophrenia. Gábor was medicated with strong drugs, which helped for a while, but after half a year it was no longer enough. Gábor wanted to stop being medicated, he had suicidal thoughts and psychotherapy was unsuccessful. One day he locked himself in his room and attempted suicide. His friend rushed him to the hospital in time and his life was

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saved physiologically, but he remained in psychological danger. He could not work; could not even leave his room. His sole activity was TV watching or, computer games palying. Indeed, high-functioning gifted children often do not receive the right psychological support and their autism side remains hidden and thus untreated. In Gábor’s case, the mother, who had outstanding spatial-visual and mathematical abilities, but probably suffered from mental disorders due to her atypical nervous system, did not find the most suitable way for raising and educating her son. In addition, diagnosis of autism was not well known or used at the time of Gábor’s childhood, and there was no appropriate care. He was therefore unprepared for independent living and the emotional burden that often accompanied it. His path from autism to psychosis led to a lack of talent development and achievement.

5.11.1 From Disadvantage to Advantage—Provision of the Autistic Talent Autism, like most neuropsychological disorders, is dual in nature. Typically, the more severe cases are identified by clinical symptoms: social isolation, and restricted, stereotyped behaviour. In milder forms, these may be signs of giftedness: a deep interest in a particular subject, and sensitivity to details. But judgment is not objective: the cultural-social milieu is a major determinant of the perception of the so-called odd individual. In general, if a person does not meet the expectations dictated by the social environment, especially by people of authority, he or she is very quickly seen as needing treatment for mental health problems. Therefore, a mild or less mild rebuke is be given, or, when not considered satisfactory, a psychiatric diagnosis and prescribed medication and therapy will follow it. Understanding and interpreting actions and the underlying neurocognitive processes in a broader framework is key to designing optimal care. Let us take, for example, 8-year -old Samuel, who hads outstanding abilities, as confirmed by his ability tests, but also had inexplicable outbursts of anger at school and was aggressive with his peers. In one-to-one situations, he was a great partner and communicated well. Hearing tests showed that he has hyperacusis and auditory hypersensitivity; his nervous system did not filter stimuli properly. Samuel was disturbed by noises; as is well known, school classroom are rarely silent. Samuel did not know what was making him tense, he could just feel the tension, and was upset by what was going on around him. In fact, a neurological dysfunction, hypersensitivity caused the behavioural disorder. When moving to a very small class, of just 8 students, the behavioural problems disappeared, and Samuel also learned how to avoid noises which had caused him so many problems. The findings of Foss-Feig and her colleagues (2021) indicated that repetitive behaviour an important sign of autism, is less common among autistic children who later develop psychotic symptoms. In the absence of a a diagnosed disorder, a child

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would not get help and is not able to learn about his or her specific neurological functioning in order to adapt optimally. Giftedness itself is based on specific neurological functioning and overlaps with autism. Superficial judgment identifies one or the other and fail to realise that the interaction of these features can musk and amplify neurological processes that strongly influence development and behaviour. Neither the identification of giftedness nor the diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental disorder is a solution because the essential specificities are not addressed. Complex assessment and care are particularly important in the case of twice-exceptionalities. In the case of developmental oddities or signs of autism, a list of the most common autism characteristics in childhood can be a guide to optimal care and successful adaptation of the talented autistic: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

They think in concrete terms. They often have difficulties in social interaction. They may have unusually intense and prolonged emotional reactions. They often find it difficult to change routines. They may be unusually sensitive in one or more areas. They may do the same thing over and over again, or they may talk constantly about specific things that interest them. 7. They may show an unusual interest in subjects or topics. 8. They may have a high ability in one area and difficulties in others. 9. They often behave in a self-centered way. 10. They may show language deficits and/or use unusual expressions. The characteristics of autism indicate specific neurological functioning, which in the case of twice-exceptional talent also has the advantage of resulting in a nonregular development of giftedness. Autistic brain development is not only the basis for gifted development in terms of what is considered positive characteristics. The autistic brain can develop into a gifted brain by traits that are not always considered positive. A more focused discussion of the characteristics of autism can help in contextualising our understanding of their behaviours. Here are some explanations of the above mentioned 10-signs list. They think in concrete terms.—Clear rules and patterns help them think, but their mentalization and communication difficulties can make it difficult for them to integrate socially. Knowing and applying the most important rules in social situations can be based on concrete thinking, so the strong side helps to build on them through the practice. They often have difficulties in social interaction.—In addition to preparing for mainstream communication, the community also needs information on how to communicate successfully with an autistic person. Part of the provision of giftedness is shaping the environment and building well-ordered situations for co-operation. 1. They may have unusually intense and prolonged emotional reactions.— Because of the specificity of executive functions, in the case of autism, the

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individual feels much deeper and lives more emotionally than neurotypical individuals. The channeling of these experiences begins with awareness, which is supported by the hyper-systematization and has a good chance of turning in the direction of creation. Thus, building on strength again, a potential source of disturbance can be controlled. They often find it difficult to change routines.—The insatiable desire for established systems can be satisfied by minimising change. Routines help efficiency, but as circumstances change, a routine can become a barrier. Small changes, or major changes with lengthy preparation, can be managed by building on systematic thinking and seeing through the process and consequences. They may be unusually sensitive in one or more areas.—Sensitivity is also a very common feature of giftedness, which can lead to considerable suffering and social conflict but also greater attention to detail. Hypersensitivity is one of the causes of tantrums and behavioural disorders because these children often do not know the cause of their feelings of tension and are unable to express what exactly is bothering them. Whether autistic, gifted, neither, or both, the child’s signals need to be listened to. And for gifted and autistic children, this problem can be anticipated and neurodevelopmental training and support for adaptation to the environment can prevent negative outcomes. They may do the same thing over and over again, or they may talk constantly about specific things that interest them.—Systems give pleasure, it feels good to experience them over and over again, although it can be confusing for the environment because the autistic person is less aware of the signals from the environment and does not stop. Strengthening control functions and increasing awareness helps in this area, too. They may show an unusual interest in subjects or topics.—One of the most important elements in talent development is motivation. Interest is a motivation with concrete direction and such as, it is a very effective means. Anyone, and especially an autistic person, can be reached best through interest. In other words, a deep interest is both a goal for the gifted and a means for the provision of autistic gifted persons. They may have a high ability in one area and difficulties in others.—Building on strengths is an effective way to address areas for improvement so that they do not become a barrier. A holistic approach is needed to handle the very different levels of abilities. They often behave in a self-centered way.—Low levels of mentalisation and intersubjectivity can help autistic gifted people to go on their way and not conform to expectations. This is also typical of non-autistic talents. However, strict selfcentredness is mainly a predisposition of the autistic brain that can be the basis for maladaptive behaviour and consequently mental disorders. Awareness-raising, understanding social situations, and developing self-reflection as part of the provision of gifted can help to prevent disorders. The self-centered behaviour of an autistic person is mistaken for narcissistic behaviour. Although there may be some overlap between autism and narcissism, such as a lack of empathy, there is little evidence to suggest that the two conditions are related.

References

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8. They may show language deficits and/or use unusual expressions.—Communication could be hindered by unusual verbal functioning, but childhood training can achieve relatively rapidly good results. This can lead to significant improvements in communication and handling social situations, while non-standard language cognition can also be the basis for special achievements. Human development is about wide opening the potential of the brain and the soul. To this end, awareness of the individual’s specificities and their adaptive, even beneficial, translation into care for both neurotypical and neuroatypical individuals must be addressed.

5.11.2 Closing Thoughts As stated in the chapter on the profoundly gifted (2), giftedness is a form of neurodiversity, that can be one of the talent pathways. There is a spectrum of giftedness; many ways of talent development co-exist with autism. The neurocognitivist approach explains autistic behaviour in terms of characteristics within a framework of over-regulation and under-empathisation. In another approach, the problem stems from a disturbance of intersubjectivity, which hinders access to a shared world of linguistic meaning. According to Chapman (2019), however, the autistic person develops as a minority in a world other than his or her own, and over-systemization is the basis of autistic cognition, which Chapman sees as a reaction to pre-epistemic and semantic anxieties. A minority-focused approach is directed toward human rights, towards the issue of human dignity. Whether it is differences in ability and mobility or atypical neurodevelopment, each group represents a particular culture, way of life, and view. The deaf have their voice; the blind have their writing, autistic people have their communication system. From an inclusive perspective, they all have value and a place in society. To facilitate connection, minorities need to understand and use the tools of the majority culture, but at the same time, the majority culture needs at least to understand and accept minority cultures. The provision of gifted has a special potential in this respect, as a society can benefit enormously from a different way of thinking, which can be atypical and disturbing, but also a pathway to excellence.

References Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). The pattern seekers: How autism drives human invention. Basic Books. Baron-Cohen, S., Ashwin, E., Ashwin, C., Tavassoli, T., & Chakrabartiet, B. (2009). Talent in autism: Hyper-systemizing, hyper-attention to detail and sensory hypersensitivity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 364(1522), 1377– 1383. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0337

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Baum, G. L., et al. (2020). Development of structure-function coupling in human brain networks during youth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(1), 771–778. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912034117 Bird, E. K., Lamond, E., & Holden, J. (2012). Survey of bilingualism in autism spectrum disorders. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 47(1), 52–64. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1460-6984.2011.00071.x Boschi, A., Planche, P., Hemimou, C., Demily, C., & Vaivre-Douret, L. (2016). From high intellectual potential to Asperger syndrome: Evidence for differences and a fundamental overlap—A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1605. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01605 Buckley, J., Seery, N., Canty, D., & Gumaelius, L. (2018). Visualization, inductive reasoning, and memory span as components of fluid intelligence: Implications for technology education. International Journal of Educational Research, 90(1), 64–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2018. 05.007 Cain, M. K., Kaboski, J. R., & Gilger, J. W. (2019). Profiles and academic trajectories of cognitively gifted children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism. https://doi.org/10.1177/136236131880 4019 Chapman, R. (2019). Autism as a form of life: Wittgenstein and the psychological coherence of autism. Metaphilosophy, 50(4), 421–440. Crespi, B. J. (2016). Autism as a disorder of high intelligence. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10, 300. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2016.00300 Diaz, V., & Farrar, M. J. (2018). The missing explanation of the false-belief advantage in bilingual children: A longitudinal study. Developmental Science, 21(4), e12594. https://doi.org/10.1111/ desc.12594. Durrleman, S., Burnel, M., De Villiers, J. G., Thommen, E., Yan, R., & Delage, H. (2019) The impact of grammar on mentalizing: A training study including children with autism spectrum disorder and developmental language disorder. Frontiers of Psychology, 19. Fiebich, A. (2022). Minimal cooperation: Insights from autism. Adaptive Behavior, 30(2), 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712320961842 Foss-Feig, J. H., Guillory, S. B., Roach, B. J., Velthorst, E., Hamilton, H., Bachman, P., Belger, A., Carrion, R., Duncan, E., Johannesen, J., Light, G. A., Niznikiewicz, M., Addington, J. M., Cadenhead, K. S., Cannon, T. D., Cornblatt, B., McGlashan, T., Perkins, D., Seidman, L. J., Stone, W. S., Mathalon, D. H. (2021). Abnormally large baseline P300 amplitude is associated with conversion to psychosis in clinical high risk individuals with a history of autism: a pilot study. Frontiers in psychiatry, 12, 591127. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.591127 GBD 2019 Mental Disorders Collaborators. (2019). Global, regional, and national burden of 12 mental disorders in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1016/S22150366(21)00395-3 Ghanizadeh, A. (2011). Sensory processing problems in children with ADHD, a systematic review. Psychiatry Investigation, 8(2), 89–94. https://doi.org/10.4306/pi.2011.8.2.89 Gonzalez-Barrero, A. M., & Nadig, A. S. (2019). Can bilingualism mitigate set-shifting difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorders? Child Development, 90(4), 1043–1060. https://doi. org/10.1111/cdev.12979 Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 444–454. Guilford, J. P. (1967). The nature of human intelligence. McGraw-Hill. Jussila, K., Junttila, M., Kielinen, M., Ebeling, H., Joskitt, L., Moilanen, I., & Mattila, M. L. (2020). Sensory abnormality and quantitative autism traits in children with and without autism spectrum disorder in an epidemiological population. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50(1), 180–188. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04237-0 Leekam, S. R., Nieto, C., Libby, S. J., Wing, L., & Gould, J. (2007). Describing the sensory abnormalities of children and adults with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(5), 894–910. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0218-7 Lombroso, C. (1891). The man of genius. Walter Scott.

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Chapter 6

Counselling, Treating, and Helping Gifted Children with Dyslexia and Other Specific Learning Difficulties—The 3D Learners

6.1 Introduction Despite centuries of scientific research, it is still extremely difficult to identify and understand the causes, consequences, and other specificities of dyslexia. Recent brain research studies also merely and mainly conclude that the reading function of the brain of dyslexic individuals differs from neurotypical reading. However, it is not yet exactly clear which are the exact syndromes of and whether dyslexia even exists as a separate disorder. The complexity of the phenotypic definition reflects the highly polygenic nature of dyslexia. In the early days of genetic dyslexia research, researchers only associated a few genes with dyslexia and even attempted to identify specific gene-specific correspondences. As research progressed, it became clear that a large number of genes are involved in each irregularity, including dyslexia (Erbeli et al., 2021). For almost four decades, however, it has been known that gifted children may have specific learning difficulties, a phenomenon that was considered paradoxical at the time (Baum, 1984). Students who are described as twice-exceptional may be gifted in different cognitive domains while having specific disabilities. There is a long list of dyslexic high achievers, including two Nobel Prize-winning scientists. This has demonstrated that there may be some kind of neuropsychological link between dyslexia and talent. Carol Greider and her two colleagues discovered the telomerase enzyme and were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009. Jacques Dubochet was the second dyslectic who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry-in 2017, with two colleagues. They won it for the development of a cryo-electron microscope for the three-dimensional observation of biochemical processes. There is also growing evidence from scientific research that the dyslexic brain has ‘hidden potentials’ that might grant it cognitive advantage (Eide & Eide, 2011). In this chapter, we are to focus on these neurobiological potentials of dyslexia, because the development of twice-exceptional giftedness and counselling for dyslexics and other learning disabilities must be grounded in these inner potentials. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_6

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6.2 Dyslexia and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders Dyslexia is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders, affecting 5–12% of school-age children according to data from different countries (Peterson & Pennington, 2015). It is a complex, multifactorial disorder with strong genetic components. Estimates from twin studies suggest a 40–70% heritability (Paracchini et al., 2007). Despite this, the existence of dyslexia is still debated, and the problem is that the distinction between the categories of ‘dyslexia’ and ‘poor reader’ or ‘reading disability’ is scientifically unsupported and arbitrary (Elliott, 2020; Elliott & Gibbs, 2008). In the 1980s, researchers identified dyslexia as a language disorder, a failure to acquire phonological skills. This was despite the fact that many dyslexics do not appear to have any speech or language problems, but language problems in children from low socio-cultural backgrounds can also lead to poor reading skills. In the ‘second decade of the brain’ (Human Brain Project 2013–2023), dyslexia research has also turned towards neurophysiological studies, with a focus on the functioning of the nervous system to define, identify and treat dyslexia. That gave hope to clarifying the phenomenon. The phonological theory of developmental dyslexia argues that children with dyslexia do not learn to read because they do not acquire the ability to separate the sounds in words and match visual letters with their corresponding sounds. Recent imaging studies have clearly shown that the phonological problems of dyslexics are associated with significant abnormalities not only in brain connectivity but also in cortical structure, and in particular affect the left hemisphere language network (Stein, 2018). These findings show that phonological theory is far from being completely wrong, it is just incomplete. Dyslexia is a hereditary temporal processing disorder associated with abnormalities in the development of magnocellular neurons that affect the ability to learn to read but do not affect verbal and non-verbal reasoning abilities (ibid, 2018). Dyslexia often co-occurs with other forms of atypical neurodevelopment and is often associated with language impairment, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD, and autism (e.g. Melillo, 2009; Moreno-De-Luca et al., 2013; Pauc, 2005). It is often not easy to identify dyslexia, especially, because often a mixed spectrum of disorders is formed by neurotransmitter abnormalities. Comorbid diagnoses of dyslexia and dyscalculia occur in approximately 40–65% of identified cases (Wilson et al., 2015). Similar to the reading disability group, individuals with dyscalculia show significant deficits in phonological processing and rapid naming tasks, regardless of whether the stimuli are letters or numbers. In addition, there is a tendency to show weaknesses in verbal short-term memory, which is likely to link the two disorders through working memory problems (Wilson et al., 2015). The findings of Cheng and his colleagues (2018) showed that dyslexia, dyscalculia, comorbid dyslexia, and dyscalculia all share deficits in numerical processing and visual perception.

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Berninger and her colleagues (2008) found that dyslexic learners also have problems with handwriting and literacy, again indicating comorbidity of disorders. Snowling and Melby-Lervåg (2016) directly indicate that dyslexia tends to co-occur with other disorders, including specific language disorders, speech sound development disorders, and ADHD. A multivariate analysis by Brimo et al. (2021) showed that dyslexics have more than eight times the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders and problems compared to typical readers. Quantitatively measured symptoms of inattention, language problems, and atypical sensory perception significantly predicted dyslexia diagnosis. According to Huang and her colleagues (2020), dyslexia and autism also share a common molecular pathophysiology. Of note, however, Brimo and colleagues (2021) found that inflexibility in autism was inversely related to dyslexia. Williams and Casanova (2010), who compared between dyslexic and autistic brains found brain hyperconnectivity in autism, and hypoconnectivity in the dyslexic brain. These research findings would contradict other research findings and even everyday experiences, which show the frequent co-occurrence of all these atypical developmental features if brain connectivity was considered a static system. However, brain connectivity is a dynamically complex system in which different developmental differences in the same neural networks can produce different connections and outcomes. Too many connections and too few connections can also lead to atypical processing, which can result in disturbances and abnormal behaviour, abilities, and performance. These can also be beneficial, as has been shown for example in the case of the autistic brain. The advantages and disadvantages of dyslexic brains can be similar and different to those of other neurodevelopmental disorders.

6.3 Specific Reading Disorder and Evolutionary Developmental Biology The development of dyslexia, also known as a specific reading disorder or decodingbased reading disorder, is caused by different but highly interrelated genetic, neural, and cognitive factors, but is also depends on environmental influences. Neurobiological models explaining the diversity of reading disorder phenotypes are increasingly numerous and diverse, as is the reading disorder itself. Both childhood and adult education profoundly alter cortical organisation. According to Dehaene (2013), literality enhances the phonological activation of speech in the planum temporale and allows top-down activation of spelling. Their fMRI study of reading and writing showed changes in the way good readers process speech. When listening to spoken language, literate people were able to activate the orthographic code from top to down. Massive activation was shown in the visual word form area when good readers had to decide whether a spoken item (for example “ploot”) was an English word or not. Illiterates, on the other hand, could not mobilise

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their “alphabet” in this way. In other words, literacy involves the ability to visually transcode speech. This helps to consider the possible spellings of a sound before the brain decides whether or not it is a meaningful word. Derawi et al. (2022) investigated the speech recognition abilities of dyslexics compared to typical readers. They found a greater top-down lexical bias in phoneme identification in the dyslexic group under high cognitive load, and this change was greater than that found for typical readers. Presumably, impairments in low-level perceptual learning limit the ability of dyslexics to form accurate phonological representations, making speech recognition based on low-level cues less robust. An additional line of research focuses on the linguistic and sensory processing that underlies phonological disorders and how it is altered. According to Soltész and her colleagues (2013), the phonological deficit characteristic of dyslexia is related to impaired auditory connectivity to speech through lower frequency neuroelectrical oscillations. Impaired temporal connectivity to lower frequency temporal modulations affects the development of prosodic and syllable structure in speech. Another avenue of research is the neurobiological structural and functional connectivity disorders (Finn et al., 2014) and atypical neural migration, which has long been a focus of study but has recently been questioned by Guidi and colleagues (2018). An approach integrating neurobiological research suggests that excessive neural noise in cortical regions involved in reading is a factor in reading disorder (Hancock et al., 2017). Multifactorial sources of neural noise, such as neural overfiring associated with risk genes of reading disorder, can disrupt two key processes important for reading, phonological awareness and multisensory integration of visual symbols and their associated speech sounds. Excessive noise exposure to neural synchrony and sensory representations thus results in a disruption of two domains (Hancock et al., 2017). It is thought-provoking that results from a study of creativity by Peña and colleagues (2019), in which transcranial random noise stimulation applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortical area, in turn, effectively enhances verbal divergent and convergent thinking. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is also used in the treatment of depression, adds neural noise to the perceptual process, which seems to be inherent in the dyslexic brain. In contrast, it has advantages that could be exploited. Nicolson and Fawcett (2019) also suggest that dyslexia is associated with minimal brain dysfunctions that lead to increased noise in neural networks associated with hearing and speech (and perhaps more senses or activities). Increased noise is localised in different brain regions from individual to individual, leading to specific forms of processing and learning. In their theory of Delayed Neural Commitment (DNC), Nicolson and Fawcett (ibid) came to the conclusion that dyslexia is related to specific difficulties in language/cerebellar procedural neural networks. The cerebellum plays a crucial role as a key structure for automation functions. According to their theoretical framework of delayed neural engagement, dyslexic children are slower to build the neural networks on which reading acquisition and fluency depend. Delayed neural engagement is a feature of the dyslexic brain that may be responsible for the delayed development of specific skills and automaticity. It involves delays

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both in the construction of new neural networks and in the bypassing or elimination of earlier, less efficient neural networks. In short, automation processes are not stable enough. However, delayed neural engagement is not only a disadvantage but also a way to develop a more conscious approach (ibid). Delaying automatisms can be seen as adaptive neural functioning in a changing environment where few important, stable, repetitive skills are needed and it is not worth storing temporary information, so it may have an evolutionary advantage. The ability to process and forget superficial information may also be a useful approach in the rapidly changing, overloaded information world of the twenty-first century. It is more economical, and in some cases more expedient for the brain not to build strong neural connections, and to be more aware of how it perceives and processes stimuli and responds to situations (Gyarmathy & Plosz, 2021). Another evolutionary biology approach suggests that dyslexia is associated with the expression of stress-related genes and dysregulation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal stress axis. In other words, prenatal and early childhood stress may be a risk factor for dyslexia, and thus dyslexia may be a natural outcome of an evolutionarily conserved adaptive response to stress. Stress can enhance robustness at the expense of neuroplasticity, which is essential for cognitive growth. Stress can potentially impair overall cognitive growth but is expected to place greater stress on actively developing, emergent neural regions and networks that support the acquisition of relatively new cognitive skills such as literacy. An important implication of this is that reading ability has a lower threshold for stress-induced environmental compromise than general intelligence. Therefore, dyslexia can develop at all IQ levels in response to relatively lower intensity stress with moderate stress dysregulation (Kershner, 2020). The two approaches are complementary if we assume that the changing situations are stressful. Greater awareness is an adaptation to the changing world. The weakening of automatisms, that is related to human cultural development can be adaptive. In short, the dyslexic brain prepares for a changing, uncertain environment. The looser wiring, higher than usual neural noise, and the weakness in the formation of automation make it more open to environmental stimuli, while comparatively new evolutionarily functions that are beneficial in human culture, such as literacy, are relegated to the background.

6.4 Loosely Wired Brain Williams and Casanova (2010) found that the autistic brain is more folded and makes more local and fewer long-term connections than a “typical” brain. The dyslexic brain, on the other hand, has fewer folds than a “typical” brain. All brain folds are wider, which makes the white matter area within the folds more spacious. This affects the way neural connections are made. A dyslexic brain structure makes more longdistance and fewer local connections than a “typical” one. It is through these differences in brain structure that Williams and Casanova have developed their hypothesis

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that autism is at one end of the spectrum and dyslexia at the other, and that those considered “neurotypical” are somewhere in between. The previous chapter on the relationship between autism and giftedness has shown that the unusual functioning of a brain structure can be beneficial if the developmental process is capable to optimise the exceptionality, namely, to bring its advantages to the fore. In the case of dyslexic brains, similar neural networks are involved in developmental differences as in autism, and the task is also to exploit the advantages. Someone with a brain structure with a typical density of neural networks, or a brain structure with dense connections or loose, rather distant connections, could be outstanding in a different way. Intelligence is also shaped by several factors. In the previous chapter, on autism, we discussed the role of fluid intelligence in pattern recognition and organisation, as well as inductive and abstract thinking. There are also other factors to consider, for example, Brancucci (2012) suggests that intelligent people process information more efficiently and may therefore show less domain and neural activation than the intelligent. Studies have shown weak neural connections at rest, which correlate with fluid intelligence and dyslexia (Barbey, 2018; Schurz et al., 2015). The loose wiring of the dyslexic brain may be the basis for effective thinking and creativity, which requires the establishment of new connections. This effectiveness was demonstrated in a study by Cancer and her colleagues (2016), in which dyslexic learners performed significantly better than their typically reading peers in a connecting task involving the construction of unusual combinations of ideas. This was confirmed by a second study, which found a negative correlation between connecting skills and reading skills in dyslexic secondary school students. Global information processing depends on the formation of weak connections that contain nodes with a small number of connections. Weak connections are globally more efficient than strong connections and create a so-called small-world topology (Gallos et al., 2012). Weak connections allow the system to operate in many hard-toreach states, which gives it the ability to adapt to new situations by engaging mechanisms of flexible, intelligent behavior (Barbey, 2018). Because strong connections are characteristic of crystallized intelligence, dyslexic talents may have problems in this area. It should be noted that Pérez Rivero and Martínez Garrido (2015) found that there is no significant difference between measures of the two types of intelligence (fluid and crystallized) in autistic individuals. Dyslexic people seem to be efficient with loose, flexible, distant connections, whereas, in the autistic brain, high-density, close connections may represent a beneficial cognitive constellation.

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6.5 Specific Hemisphere Dominance There are fundamental neurobiological differences in brain development among individuals, and these differences are the cause of their specificities, strengths, and weaknesses in abilities. The same is true of learning to read: there are individual neurological differences in the phonological and orthographic functioning of the brain, and the more challenging features of dyslexia make learning to read difficult and disruptive for dyslexic children. Researchers usually find decreased brain activity in the left hemisphere in dyslexia. While people with dyslexia have slightly less developed left-hemispheric connections, their right-hemispheric connections are much more extensive than those of their non-dyslexic peers (Leonard & Eckert, 2008). According to a summary study by Richlan (2012), it is not the under-functioning of a single area that is characteristic, but rather the so-called ‘reading network’ of the left hemisphere, which includes the occipito-temporal, inferior frontal, and inferior parietal areas that function in usually. According to Richlan (ibid), the left occipitotemporal cortex is a kind of interface area that links high-level visual representations and possibly also representations from other sensory modalities with linguistic and conceptual representations. In their 2008 study, Leonard and Eckert present a significant brain difference as a possible advantage. In the case they analyse, a severely dyslexic male had a long planum temporale without a planum parietale in the left hemisphere and the reverse in the right hemisphere, leading to the extreme asymmetry of the planum temporale and planum parietale in opposite directions. Previously, experts had told his mother that the boy was mentally underdeveloped, possibly autistic, and unteachable. But the mother persisted in seeking appropriate professionals to treat his severe dyslexia, and he became a successful architect and an ardent advocate for dyslexic children. His success in a career requiring good spatial skills confirms that anomalous brain development is associated with a specific neuropsychological profile. The authors also mention another case in which dilated parietal lobes were associated with unusual developed visualization abilities. In the photographs of Albert Einstein’s brain, the ascending ramus of the Sylvius fissure rises behind the central sulcus in both the left and right hemispheres, leading to the truncation of the temporal lobes and the dilatation of the parietal lobes on both sides. Einstein was a late talker, and throughout his career, he had difficulty with mathematical facts (which presumably the temporal lobe would process automatically). But he also possesed an unusual ability to visualise complex spatio-temporal relationships processed in the parietal lobe. Leonard and Eckert (2008) found small plana temporale and large plana parietale in both the left and right hemispheres in two other subjects. These were associated with enlarged parietal lobes in both the left and right hemispheres. Both individuals chose occupations in which excellent spatial-visual processing ability was required, and they were highly successful despite their great difficulty with written language. These cases provide further neuropsychological support for the idea that the combination of exceptional talent in spatial-visual functioning and dyslexia may be associated

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with enlargement of the parietal lobe at the expense of the temporal lobe. This type of bilateral enlargement is quite rare. In a sample of 200 college students, only 9 individuals were found to have larger plana parietale than plana temporale in both hemispheres (ibid). The dominance of the right hemisphere functioning may be a feature of the dyslexic brain that is better suited to holistic information processing than usual and may provide a suitable background for seeing the ‘big picture’ (Gyarmathy, 2020). In a novel situation for which the individual has no coping strategy, the right hemisphere of the brain primarily tries to deal with the situation, while the left hemisphere deals with routines (Goldberg, 2018). These routines are beneficial in school but less useful in solving novel problems and finding new solutions. If a child’s neurological functioning is not close enough to normal, even if they are gifted, they will not fit into either a regular classroom or a programme, where basic skills such as literacy and numeracy are usually key competencies for success, and considered as a significant part of giftedness. In the twenty-first century, reading, writing, and arithmetic are still important skills, but less so than they were when reading thick books were required to access information, and numeracy was needed to perform complex calculations. School skills have never been as important in creative thinking as novel approaches, seeing the ‘big picture’ by combining different modalities, verbal processing, and conceptual representations. In the age of info-communication, this tendency intensified.

6.6 Dyslexic Reading Pathways While dyslexic brains have general characteristics, the manifestation of the disorder can be very diverse in the interaction of personal and environmental factors. As reading requires a combination of multiple linguistic, motor, visual, auditory, and executive functions, it is likely that different patterns of dysfunction may shape different reading difficulties in children. There is no single causal mechanism for dyslexia and a number of plausible causes have been identified. The best-understood cause is poor phonological awareness, which predicts dyslexia and is a characteristic, though not the only, concomitant. Learning to read changes the language areas of the brain, reorganising phonological processing, the most important language function for reading. Waldie and her colleagues (2017) investigated how learning to read alters the neural networks responsible for phonological processing in children who develop dyslexia or are at risk of developing dyslexia. It was found that typical readers without the risk of dyslexia activate the structures responsible for phonological processing at the very beginning of literacy learning. After a while, they show reduced brain activation during phonological processing because phonological skills become automatic. However, in children who develop a reading disorder, the development of phonological structures is delayed. There were children in the study who had a family risk

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of dyslexia, yet they learned to read at a level appropriate for typical readers, and nevertheless showed atypical development of neural phonological structures, which was present at the start of reading instruction and two years later, too (ibid). The researchers assume that these children used an efficient neural mechanism of phonological processing based on the activation of magnocellular neurons in the precentral and postcentral gyri primary motor cortex, and with this neuroatypical pathway, they reached a typical level of phonological awareness. Gifted children’s strong motivation to learn, and their accelerated development can lead to early reading achievement in some areas, which is not disruptive if there are no significant neurological differences that alter the reading trajectory. But in some cases, the reading pathway of gifted children is so different that it is incompatible with the reading instruction in school. For example, a nursery-aged little girl learned to read using her excellent visual memory. Later, at school, she could manage with letters, but when at school she had to read by combining syllables, it interrupted the reading path she had built before and she developed severe dyslexia. Another case was of an English-Hungarian bilingual boy who learned to read at age five by spelling and syllabification, but his speech sound discrimination was not yet correct—he mixed up the l-r and s-sh sounds. So while reading, he kept trying out the sounds in the words until he finally got a word that made sense. This made his mental orthographic lexicon unclear and his reading became significantly slower than expected. Some subskills need to be automated in order to develop the overall reading skill, but it is not clear yet whether each subskill should be automated separately, in isolation (which is easier), or all the needed subskills should be automated in conjunction with the overall skill: by learning to read. Because of the developmental delay in subskills and neural networks due to delayed neural engagement, the overall system required for reading is still to be studied in the dyslexic brain. The combination of executive functions and the skills that precede and are necessary for reading ensures successful acquisition at the beginning of formal reading instruction. The aim of delaying the onset of formal reading instruction to ensure adequate reading acquisition is to achieve a school-ready and reading-ready brain, rather than the isolated development of individual subskills (Nicolson & Fawcett, 2019). However, as shown above, one can acquire reading in different ways with different skill sets. Compensation processes are triggered, wittingly or unwittingly, when a child needs to read or wants to read. According to Stanovich (1980), deficits at any level of the hierarchy of cognitive processes related to reading can be compensated for by greater reliance on other sources of knowledge. Individuals with dyslexia who achieve adequate reading performance read differently both from typical readers and from typical dyslexic readers. According to Stanovich’s interactive-compensation model, individual reading paths may be widely varied. It is clear, however, that individuals whose strengths are cognitive have particularly good potential for compensation.

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In their research, Cavalli and his colleagues (2017) found an earlier and stronger contribution of morphological processes in high-achieving dyslexic adults compared to normal readers, and that early morphological processing relies primarily on the semantic properties of morphemes. The results suggest that in dyslexics the reading network undergoes greater spatial and temporal reorganization, and morphological information in frontal brain regions is activated earlier. Fink (1998) studied the reading and reading development of sixty successful dyslexic people. She found that they developed best through reading in their areas of interest. When they read about a particular topic, they became familiar with the vocabulary, typical terms, and concepts. Reading about a favourite topic broadened their background knowledge and allowed them to gain reading experience, which in turn helped them to read more fluently and develop the skills they needed. Although they were able to comprehend complex texts, they still lagged behind in some basic skills, although they made up for their deficits quite well. Two groups could be distinguished on the basis of partially compensated errors: one made only spelling errors, while the other showed weaknesses in word recognition and word reading in addition to spelling. Cognitive abnormalities may develop due to genetic causes and neurophysiological differences in dyslexia, but these do not always adversely affect reading performance because reading can occur at multiple levels through multiple pathways. Clearly, different neurological characteristics and factors related to learning to read lead to different compensations and residual symptoms.

6.7 Holistic Stimulus Processing—3D Cognition The subcomponents of visual-spatial ability are spatial visualization, mental rotation, and spatial perception (Linn & Peterson, 1985). In general, researchers investigate the ability to move different two- or three-dimensional shapes and mentally combine, transform, and move these shapes to create new constructs. An often-mentioned strength of dyslexics is their visual-spatial skills, which can be a significant advantage. Research demonstrating the importance of these skills is compelling. Many studies support the idea that visual-spatial skills promote learning of mathematics and increase the likelihood that individuals will succeed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers (Wai et al., 2009). If dyslexics do have such strengths, they are particularly noteworthy for talent development; a lot of research has been conducted in this direction, but the results are conflicting. Wang and Yang (2011) found no difference between dyslexic and non-dyslexic individuals in terms of correctly solving visual-spatial ability problems, but found a significant difference in response speed: dyslexic participants responded faster than control group members. The researchers claimed that dyslexic individuals had better visuospatial abilities because they achieved higher speed without error rate increase.

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On the other hand, Brunswick et al. (2010) found no task in which dyslexic universityage students outperformed a control group using the virtual reality test and the paperand-pencil test. However, a gender effect was observed; dyslexic males outperformed dyslexic females and non-dyslexic individuals on several measures. One of the main reasons for the differences in test results might be differences in test methods. Visual-spatial ability covers a complex set of skills and determines the outcome in terms of which components are identified. Two complex constructs are closely connected, reading and spatial-visual ability. The dyslexic brain is different from the non-dyslexic in both, though it varies from one individual to another. Small differences in the development of neural networks can also cause large differences in these abilities. There are differences between performance of two- or three-dimensional tasks of both groups. A growing body of research indicates that dyslexic learners are consistently more accurate at processing 3D information than non-dyslexic. For example, dyslexic adolescents performed better in virtual reality tasks when asked to reconstruct a 3D house from memory compared to non-dyslexic (Attree et al., 2009). Moreover, dyslexic learners are better at learning and learning rules in threedimensional space (Fokides et al., 2019; Maskati et al., 2021). Dyslexic brains do not only have an advantage in spatial-visual processing but they rather differ from non-dyslexic brains in their specific perception and processing of stimuli, including auditory stimuli. Geiger and colleagues (2008) investigated success of dyslexic and non-dyslexic individuals in visual and auditory stimulus environments. Dyslexics were significantly worse than typical readers at recognising central stimuli, but they recognised words from the surrounding speech mask at a higher rate compared to words from the centre. This study showed that dyslexics have a broader range of perceptual modalities than typical readers, at least one modality, and 69% in both modalities. This suggests that a broad and diffuse multisensory perceptual mode is common in dyslexia. Gyarmathy (2000) found that global visualspatial processing, and holistic vision, are both associated with giftedness and that the exceptionalities that cause learning disabilities consist a potential for gifted development in general, and for double-exceptionality, giftedness and learning disability in particular. A holistic vision is not only about spatial-visual, three-dimensional information processing, but also about episodic memory, which provides a framework and relationships for information, which is also a multidimensional framework. Episodic memory is the result of a scenario construction process. Sequences become meaningful when they are linked to a meaningful whole by a sequence of successive details. For example, an outstanding musical youth, who at the age of 14 was admitted to the music academy’s excellence group, had difficulty learning the many pieces which were expected because of her dyslexia. She could only remember the pieces by connecting the notes into a story and then remember their sequence, ad did her peers. It has long been known that the hippocampus plays a crucial role in declarative memory and is key to the construction of spatial maps (Johnston & Amaral, 1998). The dyslexic brain appears to rely mainly on the rather conscious declarative functioning than on procedural conditioning.

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According to the procedural neural network deficit hypothesis, dyslexia is largely explained by alterations in the procedural memory system of the cortico-basal ganglia (especially the striatum), while the (hippocampus-dependent) declarative memory system is intact and may play a compensatory role. Based on their research, Hedenius and Persson (2022) hypothesize that less efficient striatal activation predicts sequence-specific procedural learning difficulties, which in turn predict reading problems. According to Eide and Eide (2011), the strength of narrative thinking in dyslexics means that episodic memory, which is part of declarative processing, is the preferred memory storage pathway for individuals with dyslexia. The narrative thinking style allows the dyslexic individual to excel in learning and memory by transforming abstract information into narrative information, for example through stories. Episodic processing, which carries context, spatial–temporal information, and emotions, provides a multidimensional framework for cognition that can lead to exceptional intellectual performance.

6.8 Specific Cognitive Development—Predisposing and Triggering Factors Talent is very diverse and varied in its development, and even intelligence, which is much more circumscribed than talent, is not a homogeneous entity. Hill and his colleagues (2019) compared DNA variants of more than 240,000 people. Their analysis identified 538 genes associated with intellectual ability and 187 regions of the human genome associated with cognitive ability. They have shown that about 50– 80% of the variation in intelligence among individuals can be attributed to genes, but environment also plays a significant role. Not surprisingly, children raised in a well-nourished, safe, pollution-free, and stimulating environment perform better on IQ tests than those who are not. When Hill and his colleagues analysed the DNA of a group of different people, they could predict only 7% of the differences in intelligence between individuals. As discussed above, dyslexia is also highly polymorphic (Erbeli et al., 2021), but the presence of genetic specificity does not explain the broad phenotypic spectrum observed. A recent study by Theodoridou and colleagues (2021) shows that researchers have identified a number of predisposing genes, but there is also growing evidence that environmental influences, particularly stressors, are a trigger for the risk of developing dyslexia. Studies on dyslexia have identified various factors that influence the onset of dyslexia. Thus, family acceptance and milieu, the socio-economic situation of the family, lifestyle, and educational circumstances, all have an impact on the extent to which a predisposition to dyslexia causes dyslexia. Psychosocial stressors, such as peer non-acceptance, and bullying in school, play a much greater role in the onset of a phenotypic discrepancy than previously suspected.

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The differences in reading achievement found by Waldie and her colleagues (2017) in children with a tendency to dyslexia are likely to be due to these predisposing factors. It can be assumed that the development of an alternative reading pathway requires additional energetic investment and will be successful if extra environmental stressors do not impede the atypical developmental process. Given the variability of the genetic basis and the diversity of environmental influences and their complex interactions, it is understandable that cognitive abilities and performance are shaped in very different combinations. General intellectual ability is only a small part of talent. The ability factors of talent extend to specific abilities, the functioning of information channels, and neural network connections. In addition, executive functions also influence development and performance. A wide range of influences shapes individual’s attitudes, from the internal energy-motivation system to what the individual thinks about his or her own abilities and potential. The environment strongly determines what the individual will consider important, such as doing well in school, helping others, constantly expressing new ideas, being able to see the world differently from others, or being able to engage in special interests. The best way to support development and learning is to lean on each individual’s exceptionalities. Ignoring them makes it much more difficult for individuals to develop harmoniously because it reduces their coping spaces and makes them more vulnerable to the effects of environmental factors. Respect for individual pathways is of great importance for the development of individual potential.

6.9 Cognitive and Socio-emotional Resilience Resilience is the process of constructive adaptation and effectiveness in the face of significant risk or negative events, leading to resilient adaptivity in the face of trauma, tragedy, threat or significant deprivation, disadvantage, and stress. Both cognitive and socio-emotional resilience are determinants of the development of dyslexia. Cognitive resilience is in action when a predisposition to dyslexia, i.e. the neurobiological risk factors for dyslexia are present (e.g. predisposing genes, family history of dyslexia, or phonological processing disorders), not if no difficulties or just mild ones appear. For example, those described as ‘flexible readers’ in the study by Haft and colleagues (2016) rely more on contextual information or place more emphasis on the morphological structure to decode words more quickly despite decoding difficulties in order to read successfully. Socioemotional resilience is reinforced by attributes such as a sense of control in various situations, openness to a growth mindset, and hopeful thinking, as well as strong interpersonal relationships and a supportive classroom environment. Cognitive and socio-emotional protective factors may reduce the severity of the disorder and are likely to interact to influence reading achievement and together contribute to adaptation to the situation. Factors that increase stress increase the risk of developing dyslexia (Theodoridou et al., 2021). Care should not only focus on skills directly related to reading from its early stages, but also on the early development of

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oral language skills and executive functions. Resilient or compensated readers can gain a further advantage by building on cognitive strengths to compensate for any underlying deficits through increased confidence and optimism. The goal is to make children with dyslexia feel that they have control over their learning and academic outcomes. The characteristics of gifted children with a tendency to dyslexia, an inner drive to cope, creativity, outstanding intelligence, spatial-visual abilities—often lead to flexible reading. However, this adaptive cognitive pathway may mask neurophysiological differences. The resulting compensation requires extra mental energy, in addition to the differences in other cognitive domains caused by brain physiological abnormalities. These may be disorders, but they may also be beneficial for talent.

6.10 Counselling, Compensation, and a Supportive Environment Problems with reading and writing can be solved, especially when children are given the opportunity to learn and act according to their own neurodevelopment at an early age. Physical activities, art, and strategy games that support the maturation of the nervous system help to develop excellent three-dimensional cognition, as well as two-dimensional literacy, and switch easily among dimensions in thinking. Effective counselling presents ways to address problems through the strengths of the individual. It focuses not on problems but also on opportunities so the child learns that he or she is competent to manage his or her own development, rather than feel disabled and in need of help. The key of self-confidence can be built through a multi-dimensional acceptance. The developmental environment, therefore, makes the individual aware of his or her strengths in order to overcome the weaknesses, whether or not he or she is dyslexic. A twice-exceptional talent can be a master of compensation because he or she is aided by a number of excellent skills and a strong inner drive. Patterns. The dyslexic brain perceives the world as patterns, a sense of connectedness. This spatial perception is very useful in many areas, for example, in science, engineering, or the fine arts, but it is also true beyond spatial areas, such as for learning musical notes, perceiving emotions, and perceiving concepts. It helps to learn, remember, and solve problems. Dyslexic people do not always realise that might not own this gift. Most people have to make an effort to see the structures in which the dyslexic brain organises the world. Mathematics. Difficulties in numeracy are very often associated with dyslexia which is sometimes diagnosed as dyscalculia. Dyscalculia is not a weakness in mathematical reasoning, but a different way of processing information, which is also the cause of dyslexia, and which mainly affects arithmetic operations. Mathematics is the science of patterns, the language of describing patterns, including numbers and

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arithmetic operations. However, school conflates arithmetic and mathematics, so dyslexic children who are bad at arithmetic quite often are not given the opportunity to demonstrate their mathematical ability. Often they are directed to remedial classes where they learn simple numeracy tasks, like multiplication tables, and have little opportunity to be introduced to real maths. Difficulties in arithmetic can also be overcome through patterns. Visualisation, linked to movements, can be used to solve arithmetic problems in a mathematical framework. Even children who get confused at the stage of counting can advance in mathematics, simply by using a calculator. Speech and language. Based on reading and writing problems, most people assume that dyslexic people will also have language problems. However, dyslexics can have a large vocabulary and their spoken language is often years ahead of their age. It is no coincidence that many dyslexic individuals are successful in the field of literature. Dyslexic people typically use descriptive language, often with more expressions than necessary. This is probably also a result of seeing patterns. Dyslexic persons with strong language skills express their thoughts by “seeing” imaginary scenes in their head and looking around in 3D representations. Those who have limited language skills cannot express such rich imaginary scenes using words; quite often they prefer to express their thoughts visually. Reading. People with dyslexia can learn to read, but reading will be slower, words may be missed, and misreading is common. We could call this ‘creative reading’. Dyslexics are very bad at reading aloud, because converting the text into speech is an extra burden on their brains, and they make a lot of mistakes by misreading. Rapid pattern recognition can lead to errors due to poor sequentiality and phonological uncertainty, but also to a new composition. This can be built upon reading by skimming and scanning—getting the big picture, gaining insight, finding the pattern, and searching for and assigning details to quickly process written information. Second language. Dyslexic people often find it difficult to learn foreign languages because they are taught as memorising learning. The dyslexic brain needs context and structure, so it is much easier to grasp a foreign language in communicative situations, through songs, video games, novels, and films. Writing. Spelling problems are a typical residual symptom of dyslexia in adults. Much can be improved with practice and a good visual memory, using rules and context, but spelling remains one of the most difficult parts of learning a foreign language. Another problem is handwriting, which is an organisational problem due to sensorimotor weakness, lack of rhythm for cursive writing, and clumsiness of the hand can also exacerbate the disorder. Writing in block letters is a refuge for many dyslexics. Word processing software, spelling-checkers, and speech-to-text assistive technologies are available and solve many of these problems. Clumsiness. Dyspraxia is a problem described as a weakness in fine motor skills, typically due to disturbances in cerebellar function, and could be lessened by sensorimotor training in early childhood. Proper functioning of the balance system is

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required to successfully coordinate the different parts of the body and the movements. Because of the slow development of automatisms, even in adulthood, movements need to be consciously controlled. Awareness has its advantages, but it is also demanding. Some degree of dyspraxia is common but not necessarily inherent in dyslexia. Dyslexic people can excel in this area—there are many brilliant surgeons among dyslexics. Even clumsy hands can turn to be dexterous with practice. Sport, dance, martial art, and any forms of regular exercise are part of the dyslexic person’s lifestyle. Memory. Information is often lost due to poor working memory. The sequence of pieces of information is difficult for the dyslexic brain to retain, so details are forgotten, and important information or instructions may be missed. However, because of context-dependency, this can be compensated for, albeit not easily. If the individual can recall the situation in which the information was given, it can be remembered. Making notes, lists, and reminders can save the situation. Episodic memory can be built on, so learning for dyslexics is particularly effective through activities. The ability to perceive the world as a pattern and to simulate possible scenarios is also an advantage in remembering and problem-solving. Time management. The dyslexic brain’s strength is spatial perception, and it has more difficulty with temporality. Its perception of time is more subjective than usual—one gets lost in an activity and forgets about time, and if one has to wait, the passage of time becomes unbearably slow. But with conscious practice and some technical tools, stopwatches and alarms, these can be overcome. The increased attention to time pays off and can even help the dyslexic to become a master of precision. Stimuli screening. One of the characteristics of a dyslexic brain is that it does not filter stimuli well and peripheral information interferes strongly with information processing. Dyslexics, therefore, have difficulty in group learning in school and later in large offices. A solution may be small group, seclusion during study and work. Closed eyes, and staring at the wall help to shut out the world, but it is necessary to indicate to the environment that this is not a lack of attention, but a way for attention. Also wearing earplugs or headphones can help eliminate noise. Flood of information. The flood of information, facts, and the unstructured environment are difficult for everyone, but for the dyslexic brain, it is a nightmare. Unable to filter and structure it fast enough, the brain is overwhelmed by information, leading to disorganisation. In this condition it is very difficult to carry out any mental activity, learn, or make decisions; sometimes it can even turn into panic. Only by taking control, which can be achieved by doing one’s own activity methodically, such situations can be prevented or overcome. That means for each individual finding their own, specific framework, having conscious control over it, and conscious choice of stimuli and activities, while exclusion of others as far as possible. If this is not possible, one must give up any trials to change in order to "fit in", in many cases that means to leave the unsuitable frame (e.g. school, work, etc.). That seemingly extreme step must be taken when choosing the environment is not possible.

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Stress. Processing information differently than usual and the stress that comes with it, makes compensational processes difficult. Many children with dyslexia have tics, nail-biting and other signs of anxiety. The unstructured environment, combined with sensory overload, can cause severe anxiety and panic and increase dysfunction. Therefore, the most important thing for dyslexics is to create harmony. Under more harmonious environmental conditions, the brain is able to mobilise energy to cope, build effective networks of connections, and find new ways of coping. This is the essence of talent.

6.11 Summary The ‘3D’ trait—dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia—often appears as mixed atypical development, which can be associated with attention, hyperactivity, and autism spectrum disorders. Unusual brain wiring and its adaptation are features of ‘3D minds’ that may also form the neural underpinnings of giftedness. Exceptionalities, particularly when they occur in conjunction with unusual giftedness, are often diagnosed as disorders. In the case of differences in neurodevelopment and brain functions enabling excellence, common neurological processes underlie the overlap. These processes may be abnormal in one respect but may provide cognitive benefits in another. Developmental exceptionalities indicate both opportunities and obstacles. Counselling should build on strengths and make the twice-exceptional gifted person aware that, in addition to the difficulties, the atypical neurodevelopmental system has advantages. Both by counselling and providing a suitable developmental environment, the introduction of new, effective ways of reading (Fink, 1998), and the use of 3D spatial-visual learning (Gyarmathy, 2020), dyslexics can be successful. They can make progress and learn more effectively, and enhance self-confidence, which might further develop adaptive compensations based on strengths. Taylor and Vestergaard (2022) suggest that dyslexia may represent an evolutionary advantage, as it has persisted in high proportions in the human genetic stock. Collective intelligence is at the heart of Homo sapiens’ exceptional adaptability that requires the cooperation of many different cognitive functions. In addition to the systematic development and use of currently available options, new options and solutions need to be found. Taylor and Vestergaard hypothesised that the evolutionary role of the dyslexic brain is that it is specialised for search. This approach raises the possibility that dyslexia exists only as a disorder in narrow cultural perspectives and systems. In other words, the features described for the dyslexic brain do not simply reflect human differences but suggest that these differences are part of a pattern of specialisation and have been selected for during our human evolution. Developmental specialties indicate both opportunities and obstacles. Counselling should be build on strengths and make the twice-exceptional gifted person aware that, in addition to the difficulties, the atypical neurodevelopmental system has advantages. Both in counselling and in providing a developmental environment, the introduction

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of new, effective ways of reading (Fink, 1998), and the use of 3D spatial-visual learning (Gyarmathy, 2020), through the cases of successful dyslexic persons are of great importance. These can make progress and learning more effective, on the one hand, give self-confidence and even bring further adaptive compensations based on strengths, on the other hand.

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Maskati, E., Alkeraiem, F., Khalil, N., Baik, R., Aljuhani, R., & Alsobhi, A. (2021). Using virtual reality (VR) in teaching students with dyslexia. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 16(09), 291–305. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v16i09.19653 Melillo, R. (2009). Disconnected kids: The groundbreaking brain balance program for children with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurological disorders. Perigee Press. Moreno-De-Luca, A., Myers, S. M., Challman, T. D., Moreno-De-Luca, D., Evans, D. W., & Ledbetter, D. H. (2013). Developmental brain dysfunction: Revival and expansion of old concepts based on new genetic evidence. The Lancet Neurology, 12(4), 406–414. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S1474-4422(13)70011-5 Nicolson, R. I., & Fawcett, A. J. (2019). Development of dyslexia: The delayed neural commitment framework. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 13, 112. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2019. 00112 Paracchini, S., Scerri, T., & Monaco, A. P. (2007). The genetic lexicon of dyslexia. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 8, 57–79. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.genom.8.080706. 092312 Pauc, R. (2005). Comorbidity of dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette’s syndrome in children: A prospective epidemiological study. Clinical Chiropractic, 8(4), 189–198. Peña, J., et al. (2019). Improvement in creativity after transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Scientific Reports, 9, 7116. https://doi.org/10.1038/ s41598-019-43626-4 Pérez Rivero, P. F., & Martínez Garrido, L. M. (2015). Inteligencia fluida y cristalizada en el autismo de alto funcionamiento y el síndrome de Asperger. Avances en Psicología Latinoamericana, 33(2), 347–366. https://doi.org/10.12804/apl33.02.2015.12 Peterson, R. L., & Pennington, B. F. (2015). Developmental dyslexia. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 11, 283–307. Richlan, F. (2012). Developmental dyslexia: Dysfunction of a left hemisphere reading network. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 120. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00120 Schurz, M., Wimmer, H., Richlan, F., Ludersdorfer, P., Klackl, J., & Kronbichler, M. (2015). Restingstate and task-based functional brain connectivity in developmental dyslexia. Cerebral Cortex, 25(10), 3502–3514. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhu184 Snowling, M. J., & Melby-Lervåg, M. (2016). Oral language deficits in familial dyslexia: A metaanalysis and review. Psychological Bulletin, 1–48. Soltész, F., Sz˝ucs, D., Leong, V., White, S., & Goswami, U. (2013). Differential entrainment of neuroelectric delta oscillations in developmental dyslexia. PLoS ONE, 8(10), e76608. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076608 Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 32–71. Stein, J. F. (2018). Does dyslexia exist? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 313–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2017.1325509 Taylor, H., & Vestergaard, M. D. (2022). Developmental dyslexia: Disorder or specialization in exploration? Frontiers of Psychology, 13, 889245. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889245 Theodoridou, D., Christodoulides, P., Zakopoulou, V., & Syrrou, M. (2021). Developmental dyslexia: Environment matters. Brain Sciences, 11(6), 782. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci1106 0782 Wai, J., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2009). Spatial ability for STEM domains: Aligning over 50 years of cumulative psychological knowledge solidifies its importance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(4), 817–835. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016127 Waldie, K. E., Wilson, A. J., Roberts, R. P., & Moreau, D. (2017). Reading network in dyslexia: Similar, yet different. Brain and Language, 174, 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2017. 07.004 Wang, L., & Yang, H. (2011). The comparison of the visuo-spatial abilities of dyslexic and normal students in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 32(3), 1052–1057.

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Chapter 7

The Neural Basis of Language Talent in Bilinguals

7.1 Introduction Most scientific literature discussing the bilingual gifted has concentrated on the underrepresentation of English learners (ELs) in gifted and talented programs (e.g. Danzak, 2020; Gubbins et al., 2020; Hamilton et al., 2020; Mun et al., 2020); its focus has been underprivileged, first- or second generation immigrants. Many other studies have been about financially disadvantaged children not admitted to prestigious gifted programs. These studies were about facilitating the way towards high achievements in spite of the many obstacles in the identification process and actual participation (e.g. Angelelli et al., 2002). The first connections between bilingualism and giftedness goes back to the 60ies (e.g. Peal & Lambert, 1962), but the first studies of the cognitive advantages of bilinguals were published only in the 90ies (e.g. Bialystok & Majumder, 1998). In the beginning of the twenty-first century research shifted from children acquiring a second language through learning towards those learning both languages under “natural” circumstances, e.g. by parents who communicate with them in a different language than that of school (e.g. Priven, 2010); children living in a bilingual country, or children in a re-located family, quite a common phenomenon among the highly-educated (e.g. David, 2014). For example: Canadians living in a French– English environment; Arabs living in Israel enrolling in Christian schools, learning Arabic, Hebrew, English or French since kindergarten, and French or English as a fourth language in elementary schools (ibid), Nigerians of well-off families attending English-speaking private schools and communicating at home in one of the ~500+ African mother tongue (e.g. David, 2012).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_7

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7.2 Definitions of Bilingualism Bilingualism has a variety of definitions; not even one is accepted-by-all. Rosselli et al. (2015) use the APA Dictionary of Psychology (2022) definition of “balanced” versus “unbalanced bilingual”: “a person who has proficiency in two languages such that his or her skills in each language match those of a native speaker of the same age”. Nicolay and Poncelet (2013) use “early bilingualism” and “early L2-immersion”. This is not a definition per se, it is practical as many gifted children, adolescents and even adults learn a second foreign language at various stages of their lives. Being proficient in more than one language influences the brain, as has been shown by many. For example: Yokoyama et al. (2006) found that acquiring English as a second language among Japanese at a later stage activated different brain areas than when learning it earlier. Such fine distinctions show us that there is still a long way to go in the study of connections between brain structure and activity and bilingualism, especially between giftedness and bilingualism. However, we can already conclude that these connections will probably be better explained by neuropsychology—brain structure and brain activity.

7.3 Short History of Intellectual Advantages of Bilingualism 7.3.1 Literature Review Current literature about giftedness and bilingualism is scarce. It includes works such as that of Angelelli et al. (2002), aimed at educators of the gifted who teach linguistically gifted bilinguals, or more specifically, as Castellano’s (2003) work, at including more underprivileged, minority students in gifted programs, assuming that bilingual students have an inferior “starting point” in comparison to monolinguists. While the assumption that bilinguals have intellectual advantages has emerged in giftedness research at the beginning of the twenty-first century (e.g. Bernal & García, 2009; Bialystok, et al., 2009; Garcia & Náñez, 2011; Priven, 2010), the study of these advantages had further developed only in the second decade of the twentyfirst century (e.g. Blom et al., 2014, 2017), especially among bi- and multi-lingual researchers, working with bi- or multi-lingual teams (e.g. Prior & Gollan, 2011; Tao et al., 2015; Weissberger et al., 2015). Giftedness research has always been linked to the study of verbal and mathematical-logical abilities. However, while the study of mathematical giftedness has had a central place by researchers and educators, linguistic giftedness, which is the basis of high achievements in science as in humanistic and social sciences, has not. Bilingualism of gifted children—which is one of the most important aspects of

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high verbal ability—has been quite neglected, judging by the comparatively small number of studies published in this area. Furthermore: works that had been published included usually small samples; others were case studies of gifted bilinguals, typical to a research area in its infancy.1

7.4 The Failure of the Theory of Right Versus Left Brain Activity in Language Learning—And the Emergence of the Brain-Thickness Theory The “right versus left brain theory”, namely, that some people are “good at mathematics and science” and others are “humanistic” has puzzled the first author for a long time, as everybody around her, capable of learning high level math, was also able to master history, literature, or biblical studies. The other way round was not true at all, as she had noticed during her 30-year career at the Hebrew literature department of the Tel Aviv University. The right-versus-left-brain theory has also been proved wrong in a long series of studies (e.g. Fiebach & Friederici, 2004; Luders et al., 2009). Though many changes have taken place in the education system in Israel, the first author’s country, one of the most important ones has been the massive number of young- and adolescent girls who transferred from the humanistic subjects to more prestigious scientific tracks. These tracks, such as medicine, computers science, engineering and other math- and science-related professions have been perceived as more rewarding, both socially and financially. But the myth about being “scientifically versus humanistic” has still remained quite solid, in spite of the opposite actual facts. The change came with the development of brain sciences, especially the huge progress of the last two decades. The right-versus left hemispheres theory has been partially replaced by the discovery of the positive correlation between the thickness of the corpus callosum and intelligence (e.g. Luders et al., 2007; Pliatsikas et al., 2020; Shaw et al., 2006). These correlational studies have been tightly connected to new findings about the role of executive functions (see Chap. 4), whose contribution, both to knowledge about general intelligence and more specifically—to verbal intelligence, the basis of bilingualism, have been shown in recent studies (e.g. Giovannoli et al., 2020; Poarch & Van Hell, 2012).

1

For a personal short summary of the author’s experience with treating gifted bilinguals see Appendix.

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7.5 Pathway to Bi- or Multilingualism and Giftedness Bialystok and colleagues (e.g. Bialystok & Majumder, 1998; Bialystok et al., 2008, 2009, 2012) have contributed an essential link between brain sciences explaining the different actual parts of the brain and both their connectivity and functions; they explained the “gifted brain” in terms of physical entities as well as functional processes. Bialystok and Majumder (1998) found, that 8-year old bilingual children who were given a nonverbal problem—block design from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), outperformed monolinguals of the same age when the tasks included distractions. A similar result was found in other nonverbal tests. For example, in naming the font color, task switching resulted in smaller costs; in a theory of mind task a better ability to maintain an attention task, as well as more susceptibility to negative priming (Bialystok et al., 2009, 2012). Another important result of this study was that bilinguals manage attention to their two language systems using the same networks that are used by monolinguals performing nonverbal tasks. In addition, Bilingual experience may also alter the capacity of the control network by altering the density of grey matter in one or more control regions. It may also affect the white matter connections (Mechelli et al., 2004). In a series of three studies examining inhibitory control, Martin-Rhee and Bialystok (2008) showed that bilingual children maintained their advantage on tasks that required control of attention. In another study of executive control, Colzato et al. (2008) demonstrated that bilinguals did not differ from monolinguals in terms of active inhibition but had acquired a better ability to maintain action goals and use them to bias goal-related information. Koziol et al. (2010) have already shown that adaptation, expertise and giftedness are highly connected to cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar network contributions.

7.6 How Is Bi- or Multilingualism Related to Giftedness? Quantitative studies of mutual connections between intelligence and bilingualism go back to the middle of the twentieth century. Peal and Lambert (1962) examined the effects of bilingualism on the intellectual functioning of children and explored the relations between bilingualism and achievement of 10-year old English-French bilinguals. This study found that bilinguals performed significantly better than monolinguals on both verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests. Studies conducted during the second decade of the twenty-first century confirmed these findings (Nicolay & Poncelet, 2013; Weissberger et al., 2015; Woumans et al., 2016). For many years, researchers of genetics and giftedness have argued about the existence of “intelligence gene(s)”; these arguments are still going on. Connections between bi- and multilingualism and giftedness have not been directly explored, but the development of brain sciences in both fields has opened a gate of connecting them by intelligence as the mediating variable. For example: the monumental work of Kalbfleisch (2004, 2008, 2015) has been about functional neural anatomy of talent,

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using cognitive neuroscience to explore the nature of human ability and performance. It has served as a solid base for exploring neural processes for the understanding of giftedness, as well as expanding the knowledge about bilingualism. Other works in this area have been done by Dick et al. (2007) and Jones et al. (2004); they found links between the cholinergic muscarinic 2 receptor gene (CHRM2) on chromosome 7 and evoking EEG oscillations, involved in neuronal excitability, a characteristic of giftedness (see Chap. 3 in this book) synaptic plasticity (see Chap. 1) and feedback regulation of acetylcholine release, which is implicated in higher cognitive processing (Gosso et al., 2007; Jones et al., 2004), typical for the gifted.

7.7 The Role of White and Grey Matter in the Study of Bilingualism and Giftedness White matter refers to areas of the central nervous system, which affects learning and brain functions, modulating the distribution of action potentials, connecting different brain areas and enabling communication among them. Its volume influences attention, declarative memory, executive functions, intelligence, and academic achievements. The brain of the gifted increases its neuroplasticity by learning and intense activation. The density of the brain’s grey matter has similar influence on attention, memory and executive functions, all needed in order to materialize giftedness, high potential or intelligence. Schmithorst et al. (2005) discovered a possible relationship between cognitive abilities and white matter structure as assessed by magnetic resonance Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). In a study of 47 5–18-year olds, they discovered regions displaying significant positive correlations of IQ scores with fractional anisotropy (FA) bilaterally in white matter association areas, including frontal and occipitoparietal areas. More findings related to brain structure and activity and their relationship to intelligence have been reported by Schmithorst and Holland (2006), in a much larger sample, of 300 5–18-year old boys and girls. Many more scholars have studies white and grey matter both among gifted and bi- or multilingual samples (e.g. Chen & Buckley, 1988; Strangmann et al., 2019).

7.8 Plasticity of the Brain, Giftedness and Bilingualism Plasticity of the brain of bilinguals is tightly connected to the advantage of bilinguals in executive functions, which are a substantial ingredient serving intelligence. According to Valian (2015), cognition can even be narrowly interpreted as executive functions. Pliatsikas et al. (2020) have summarized these connections by mentioning

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the finding that executive functions have a more substantial role in bilinguals than in monolinguals, especially because of the switching of and the control between languages (Abutalebi & Green, 2016; Mateos-Aparicio & Rodríguez-Moreno, 2019; Valian, 2015). Kuhn et al. (2021) found that the intellectually gifted had larger subcortical structures and more robust white matter microstructural organization between those structures in regions associated with explicit memory. These different neurodevelopmental trajectories suggest different learning strategies. Sulpizio et al. (2020) came to a similar conclusion when measuring functional connectivity of bilinguals. They showed that bilingual experience—defined as a continuous and multifaceted phenomenon—impacts brain plasticity by modulating the functional connectivity both within and between language and control networks.

7.9 Bilingualism and It Connections to Executive Functions, Executive Attention, and Executive Control The interchangeable terms: “executive functions”, “executive control” and “executive attention” refer to a broad collection of higher-order cognitive functions that allow individuals to flexibly regulate their thoughts and actions in the service of adaptive, goal-directed behavior. According to Diamond (2013, p. 135), they “refer to a family of top-down mental processes needed when you have to concentrate and pay attention, when going on automatic or relying on instinct or intuition would be ill-advised, insufficient, or impossible” (Burgess & Simons, 2005; Espy, 2004; Miller & Cohen, 2001). Bilingualism scholars have been interested in the issue whether bilingualism actually improves executive control. Colzato et al. (2008) found, that though bilinguals do not differ from monolinguals in terms of active inhibition, they just acquire a better ability to maintain action goals and use them to bias goal-related information. Under some circumstances, this ability may indirectly lead to more pronounced reactive inhibition of irrelevant information. Only at the beginning of the twenty-first century there were actual proofs that the prefrontal cortex plays a main role in achieving a high executive control, namely, bring in full charge of the variety of executive functions while recruiting the different components that comprise attention for this task (e.g. Miller, 2000; Miller & Cohen, 2001; Miller et al., 2002). During the second decade of the twenty-first century very many studies have confirmed the theory about the location of the brain-parts in charge of executive functions, and the role of these functions in inhibition (e.g. Dong & Li, 2015; Spielberg et al., 2015).

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7.10 Advantages of Bilinguals that Contribute to the Materializing of High Ability According to Krizman et al. (2014), bilinguals who use both languages on a daily basis improve their inhibitory skills, and as a result their attentional control increases. As Aubry and Bourdin (2021) have shown in their study that compared 55 intellectually gifted to 55 intellectually average children (aged 8–14), intellectually gifted children made fewer errors than average children in the processing of the ANT (about the ANAT—Attention see MacLeod et al., 2010). In terms of attention network scores, they also outperformed intellectually average children in executive control. Pliatsikas et al. (2020) have shown, that bilingual children had a higher potential of both grey and white matter than similarly-aged monolinguals. Bilinguals also lose less brain matter as they grow older (ibid.). Flexibility of the human brain is needed for learning a new language as has been statistically proved for special populations; Buchweitz and Prat (2013) showed that it has a major role in learning. Adi-Japha et al. (2010) had shown that the drawings of bilingual children were more flexible than those of monolinguists. Ikizer and Ramirez-Esparza (2018) have proved that bilinguals were better adapted socially than monolinguists.

7.11 More Advantages of Bilinguals Related to Giftedness The executive functions advantage of bilinguals has been since the 60ies (Peal & Lambert, 1962) and into the twenty-first century (e.g. Barac et al., 2014; Bialystok et al., 2009, 2012). Bilinguals have also shown better performance than monolinguists in accuracy and execution speed. One of the most impressive studied was that of Yang et al. (2011), who examined four groups of young children: 4-year-old U.S. Korean– English bilingual children; English monolinguals in the US; Korean monolinguals in the U.S.A.; and Korean monolinguals in Korea. The bilinguals were the most accurate and fastest among all groups. Their advantage was in the speed of attention processing, inverse processing efficiency independent of possible speed-accuracy trade-offs, and the network of executive control for conflict resolution.

7.12 Brain Neuroplasticity, Giftedness, and Bilingualism The ability to change—both functionally and physically—is one of the most striking characteristics of our brain, called neuroplasticity. Rubio-Fernández and Glucksberg (2012) have shown the advantage of bilinguals in reasoning about other people’s beliefs; Prior and MacWhinney (2010) have proved their advantage in task switching. Abutalebi et al. (2012) have connected the ability of bilinguals to learn early in life

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to resolve language conflicts to their better-designed, better-functioning of the dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC), the brain region aiding both cognition and motor control. This better functioning influences many abilities, such as empathy, impulse control, emotion, and decision-making. Thus, bilinguals can better resolve cognitive conflicts with less neural resources, and adapt better to conflicting situations (e.g. Costa et al., 2008) in many domains. The exact mechanism in the basis of the influence of the learning a second language on the brain’s neuroplasticity is still to be learned. There are studies that have examined the actual, physical changes or re-configuration of the brain as a result of learning a second language, whether simultaneously with the first one (e.g. Yang et al., 2011), during later childhood stages or at later stages of life, as young adults (e.g. Yang et al., 2015), or when older (e.g. Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Hernandez, 2013; Li, 2013). Many such studies had been published since the beginning of the twenty-first century (e.g. Mechelli et al., 2004), and more precisely—since its second decade (according to Hernandez, 2013; Li et al., 2014). Some of the more comprehensive studies (e.g. Costa, 2021; Garbin et al., 2011; Zou et al., 2011) suggested that bilinguals use neural regions similar to those responsible for nonverbal cognitive control, which include, in addition to the dACC, the prefrontal cortex, and the caudate nuclei, which is in charge of deep brain structures. They function as planners of the execution of movement, as well as in learning, memory, reward, motivation, emotion, and romantic interactions. Shaw et al. (2006) have shown that children with superior levels of intelligence experience a markedly different pattern of brain development from children with average and high intelligence. Such children have thinner prefrontal cortices, followed by a rapid increase in cortical thickness, which peaks around age 11 and then wanes later in adolescence. The prefrontal cortex facilitates processes associated with higher-level cognition such as working memory, inhibitory control, and reasoning. The authors suggested that this pattern create the opportunity for optimal plasticity over the course of development and may help explain some of the individual differences we see in high-ability children. Li et al. (2014) had studied the occurrence of neuroplasticity in the brain as a function of an individual’s experience with a second language, relying on the assumption that certain anatomical and functional changes are induced by the learning and use of multiple languages. They observed that second language experience induced changes, e.g. increased grey matter density and white matter integrity, at all ages. Mechelli et al. (2004) showed that these brain changes resulted the learning a second language as learning a second language increases the density of grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex. In addition, the degree of structural reorganization in this region is modulated by the proficiency attained and the age at acquisition; Stein et al. (2012) came to the same conclusions.

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7.13 Bilingualism, Giftedness, and Immigration It has been argued in the gifted literature since the 70ies, that it is much harder for bilingual students to materialize their giftedness (e.g. Bernal, 1976; Grant & Renzulli, 1971; Llanes, 1979). But in David and Wu (2009) this assumption has been disproved, as all case studies described were of bi- or multi-lingual children, first- or second generation immigrants. Jews in diaspora used to teach their children to communicate in several languages (e.g. Benor & Tirosh-Becker, 2020). As shown already by Pearson and Moul (1925), excellent achievements and university distinctions have been gained not only by second generation immigrants to the UK from Russia and Poland, but also by some of the first generation new comers. More than 100 years ago, Columbia University already started the Numerus clausus policy, in order to reduce the number of accepted Jews, mostly first generation Americans (Brodkin, 1998). As IQ was still measured on a regular basis then, Young (1922) had informed that Jewish children, all bilingual, many of first generation families, had similar IQ to that of American-born non-immigrants.

7.14 Two Vignettes Here are two examples of gifted young people—gifted by many criteria—and their way towards acquiring Hebrew as a third or fourth language. Anton arrived in Israel from Romania in the early 70ies, at age 18. He had just finished school there, and intended to start studying mathematics when his family immigrated to Israel. Upon his arrival he had to learn both Hebrew, the spoken language, and English, the scientific one. At the end of the year he could already communicate in both, in addition to Romanian, his mother tongue, and French, which he had mastered in school. At 19 he started studying mathematics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he got the dean’s prize for excellence two years consecutively. During the summer vacation, when he just turned 20, he started teaching mathematics in the preparatory class of the university; his students were immigrants from multiple countries. During the next years Anton’s multilingualism was also an advantage. While in many cases Israeli mathematicians of his generation struggled with language problems at their Ph.D. or post-doctorate stage, Anton chose to do his Ph.D. in France, and his post-doc in The UK, both at top universities. Later he moved to the US, where he had been offered a permanent position. For many years he spent either full- or half-sabbatical years in Israel, in order to be close to his family and friends. He used his multilingualism as a gate to a wider world of mathematics, with very many open professional and personal availabilities.

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Stefania arrived at Israel in 1969: she and her parents were among the ~13,000 Polish Jews leaving their country after the anti-Jewish campaign beginning in 1967. Upon her arrival she knew Russian, in addition to her Polish mother tongue, but did not even recognize the Hebrew alphabet. During her first year in Israel she lived in the dorms of the Tel Aviv University, but had to return home every Thursday afternoon2 in order to help her elderly parents. They, too, started learning Hebrew shortly after arrival, but did not adjust well to Israeli mentality, nor learnt Hebrew good enough even for everyday life tasks which they preferred to ask their daughter to take care of. Stefania learnt Hebrew very quickly; she also learnt written English, necessary for learning all scientific subjects at university level. Her major was chemistry, which enabled her to use Russian math and physics books, many students immigrating from communist countries during the 70ies used to pass from each other, in order to help their friends. Stefania married in her early 20ies and started her family immediately. Right after graduation she accepted the position offered to her, as a librarian in a major Israeli hospital. Since then she climbed in the administrative ladder of the organization and served as the spokeswoman of the institution for many years, while raising a 4-child family. She felt she had materialized her abilities—both as a professional and as a mother of a large family, which was for her, an only child, a materialization of a dream.

7.15 Summary and Conclusions When discussing a psychological issue that has consequences on both the emotional and the cognitive advantages and disadvantages of children, a special care should be taken before coming to any conclusions that influence actual ways of upbringing, treating and teaching children and youths. One such issue has been bilingualism; no wonder both educators and psychologists have debated for a long time whether children should be exposed to more than one language since early childhood or not. For many years this disagreement relied mainly on opinions and the personal experience of researchers and educators rather than on solid scientific base. By explaining the mechanism of bilingualism—aided by the existing literature about brain structure and processes, and relying both on the developing literature about the bilingual gifted and neuropsychology, we hope that this chapter has shown that the answer of the question whether or not the advantages of bilingualism substantially surpass its disadvantages is a simple yes.

2

Israeli working week starts on Sunday morning and usually ends on early afternoon of Friday.

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Appendix During the last three decades I have met very many bilingual parents; some living in Israel but most of them were Israeli-born couples living abroad but thinking of returning to Israel, and Jews living in The US, Canada, France and the UK, considering immigration to Israel. Among the children who I met regularly were nine English-Hebrew speakers, three Spanish-Hebrew boys, and one French-Hebrew girl. Given the fact that the vast majority of bilingual children in Israel are Arabs, and the two main groups or immigrants in the last 30 years have been from the ex-USR countries and Ethiopia, but they did not seek counseling for their multilingual children, the fact that knowledge about giftedness and understanding the need for counseling is still in its first stages among the populations most in need of it.

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Chapter 8

Understanding and Supporting the Homosexual and Trans-sexual Gifted Child and Adolescent

8.1 Introduction The chapter discusses twice-exceptionality of the homosexual/lesbianbisexual/queer gifted child and adolescent from neuropsychological point of view. Non-cisgender gifted have come into the center of giftedness research only around the last decade of the twentieth century, a long time after other sub-subjects of giftedness, such as gender, twice-exceptionality, emotional- and psychiatric problems of the gifted have been already a main part of both theory and practice in the field of giftedness. Thus, the intersection of gay studies and giftedness is still in its infancy, and its study from the neuroscientific point of view is even more limited.

8.2 Research on Homosexual and Trans-sexual Gifted Child and Adolescent Research of gifted non-cis students—both quantitative and qualitative—already consists of some significant works. However, even those conducted and published in the twenty-first century concentrate mainly on psychological, social, and educational aspects, while almost ignoring developmental findings of neurology that could have shed more light on this issue. Such an example is that of Shepard et al. (2011), which take into consideration social masculine versus feminine roles, contradicting, in many cases, the reality of lesser gender differences among the gifted (e.g. Deligeorge, 2013; Howard-Hamilton & Franks, 1995; Kerr, 1997; Kerr & Cohn, 2001; Miller et al., 2009; Piirto, 2004; Sheely, 2000; Tolan, 1997; Wilcove, 1998). Since the 90ies, double-exceptionality of the homosexual/lesbian-bisexual/queer gifted child has been discussed mainly in American scientific literature (e.g. Friedrichs, 2009; Hutcheson & Tieso, 2014; Peterson & Rischar, 2000; Sewell, 2020;

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. David and E. Gyarmathy, Gifted Children and Adolescents Through the Lens of Neuropsychology, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22795-0_8

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Sewell & Goings, 2019; Treat, 2006, 2010, 2016; Wexelbaum & Hoover, 2014; Whittenburg & Treat, 2009; Wiley, 2020). But almost all these studied have been written from an educational point of view; in addition, they deal only with western, mainly American, society (about other conceptions of gender and sex see, for example, Vasey & Bartlett, 2007). In any case, some of these works have contributed major insights to the base of knowledge about the non-cisgender1 gifted child and adolescent; for example: the works of Cohn (2002, 2003), as well as several instruction booklets (e.g. Keener, 2013; National Association for Gifted Children, n.d., 2015). Among the Education scholars dedicating more than a decade to the study of the non-cisgender gifted, Friedrichs (e.g. 1997, 2012, 2014, 2018a; Friedrichs & Sedillo, 2021), and Sedillo (e.g. 2013, 2015, 2021) have made an exceptional contribution. Discussions of non-cisgender studies and giftedness from other than western points of view, various geographical places, in non-Christian areas, various religions and cultures are still missing from this growing body of knowledge. Another problem of the developing research about the non-cisgender gifted is the need of quantitative studies relying on solid, large-enough statistical samples. While a large part of this literature has been done on small samples that do not allow significant results, there are many case studies (e.g. Manzella, 2014; Peterson & Rischar, 2000; Treat, 2010). Case studies have played an important role during the first developmental stages of many scientific areas, but they have gradually been replaced by quantitative results, confirming the former knowledge or refuting it. As the study of the non-cisgender gifted is still in its prime, every case study published should be welcome, but its contribution for advanced research is meager (Fig. 8.1).

Fig. 8.1 The non-cisgender gifted

1

As the Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Queer & Intersex Life (2022) includes currently no less than 20 items, I rather use the term “non-cisgender” which includes both present groups and leaves space for more potential self-defined sub-groups.

8.3 The Coming Out Experiences of Gifted Non-cisgender Students: When, …

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8.3 The Coming Out Experiences of Gifted Non-cisgender Students: When, to Whom, and Why Not The coming out experience of non-cisgender children and youths has gone through substantial changes during the last decades. Dunlap (2016) had conducted a quantitative study that included 1131 gay, lesbian and bisexual participants aged 18–85, divided to 5 age-cohorts, and calculated the average coming out age of each of them. The mean age of the oldest men’s group was 66.8; that of the oldest women’s—66.7; the mean age of the youngest men’s group was 20.5; that of the youngest women’s was 20.7. While the first stage, the awareness of not being straight, did not substantially change for the first, oldest men’s group (from the mean of 11.5 to 11.1), the mean age of the 7th stage: “told family” declined from 33.7 to 17.9 among men and from 36.1 to 17.4 among women. There is no comparative study of the coming out age among the gifted, so these results can only be compared to data collected from life stories published in the media—all demonstrating a much younger age (than even in the youngest group of the Dunlap study, ibid.) of coming out among non-cisgender children. Though some limited studies claim that the “coming out” age of non-cisgender students is similar to that of the general population (e.g. Tuite et al., 2021), most studies show that in the general population, the age of “coming out” is comparatively higher than among the gifted. According to Friedrichs (2018b), “approximately 30% of gifted children are LGBTQ or ‘questioning’”. Wexelbaum and Hoover (2014) explain the high rate of “questioning” among the gifted by their “exploratory nature which makes them less likely to conform to social norms and more likely to accept ambiguity and diversity than their peers”. Kanazawa (2012) examined this hypothesis in three large longitudinal American studies. He found that (a) A higher rate of intelligent children than less-intelligence ones were more likely to become adults identifying themselves as homosexual and express homosexual attraction; (b) More intelligent individuals have had twice as many more homosexual partners during life than same-intelligent heterosexuals; (c) More intelligent children under 16 had significantly more same-sex cohabitation partners than less intelligent children 30 years later. Peterson and Rischar (2000) found, in a qualitative study of 18 gifted gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) young adults that most of them had seriously wondered about their sexual orientation before leaving elementary school. This is another reinforcement of the assumption that the coming out age of the gifted is younger than that of the non-gifted. A quite striking evidence of the comparatively young age of forming non-cisgender identity among the gifted can be found in the media: films and TV programs about transgender children. Looking at the IMDb list, in 2022 there have been 50 movie-titles “Sort by Popularity”—Most Popular Movies and TV Shows tagged with keyword “transgender-child” (2022). The list consisted of long movies and TV shows with exceptionally smart, eloquent, strong willing, mature, emotionally developed children, able to formulate an argument, understand

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their own as well as others’ feelings and motives, convince prejudiced and narrowminded adults to change their views, and strong enough to persist when believing they were right. These characteristics might as well define gifted children. One such documentary is “My transgender kid”, a British 2015 film (Young & Sweeney, 2015), which had been praised by many (e.g. Hennigan, 2020). It starts with the sentence: “today, children as young as 3 say they had been born the wrong gender”, and the child-hero says at age 3.5: “I don’t want to be a girl, I am a girl”. Both 7-year old starring were persistent and highly verbal. Another example is the Emmy-Winning (2018) documentary, about Kai, a 7-year old trans-girl, raised in a Texan religious community. She demonstrated high cognitive abilities, and verbal richness and accuracy. This documentary had received about 39,000 comments (until January 2022); almost all positive.

8.4 The Non-cisgender Brain: Confronting Parents, Schools and Society Schools and society in general are institutes where conformity is considered one of the main bases needed for social and academic acceptance. Landau (1991) had already pointed at the contradiction between the need of the gifted girl “to be like everybody else” and that of her internal need to “be herself”, to act according to her inner wishes rather than her parents’, school’s or society’s expectations. Three ˙ decades later Folkierska-Zukowska et al. (2020) have added the gender and sex conflict both boys and girls have to confront when their sexual orientation does not fit the “norm” of their society. In an fMRI-assisted study they explored connections among male sexual orientation, gender nonconformity, and neural activity. Rahman et al. (2011, 2017) and Xu et al. (2020) have conducted several studies connecting gender nonconformity to both intelligence and sexual orientation. The “deviations from the norm” these scholars have found among non-cisgender gifted children and adolescents have been a source of suffering for the gifted, as they influenced their behavior. When learning in conservative, rigid, and not understanding institutes, or when parents were religious, highly traditional or very conforming, it might have been difficult to help the gifted young to materialize their giftedness while struggling to survive in such an environment. Sensibility, good taste for beauty, music or art are usually perceived as “feminine” traits, but they are common to many gifted males, hetero- or homosexual (e.g. Dinev, 2019); there is a large body of research about the androgynous characteristics of the gifted (e.g. Deligeorge, 2013; Howard-Hamilton & Franks, 1995; Kerr, 1997; Kerr & Cohn, 2001; Miller et al., 2009; Piirto, 2004; Sheely, 2000; Tolan, 1997; Wilcove, 1998). But all these cognitive and personality characteristics cannot explain the supposedly higher occurrence of non-cisgenders among the gifted than among the non-gifted. However, they can help understand the high representation of nonheterosexuals—even quite young—in the media. The children or youths appearing

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there are very intelligent, many are nonconformist, which is another characteristic of the gifted, so they are neither ashamed nor afraid appearing in exotic hairdressing or special outfits. Sometimes it is boys wearing dresses or skirts, or using make up; in other cases, it is girls who refuse answering when approached by their “too feminine” given names, or even referred to as females. There are some unique phenomena that contribute to the difficulties of the gifted gay student (e.g. Treat, 2016). Peterson and Ray (2006) have already stated that gifted students are much more prone to being bullied than non-gifted. Other scholars have also agreed with this statement (e.g. Espelage & King, 2018; Gordon, 2021; Parker, 2010). Cianciotto and Savic (2003), Kosciw et al. (2020); many others have written about bullying and harassment of non-cisgender students in the education system. Thus, being both gay and gifted is a double risk. The issue of overexcitabilities (see Chap. 7), common to many gifted, is of special importance and adds extra-difficulty to the life of the non-cisgender gifted (e.g. Miller et al., 2009; Treat, 2006, 2010, 2016). After acknowledging that many gifted children tend to be intellectually and emotionally androgynous, namely, they exhibit the characteristics and interests of both genders, the next step would be to face the fact that parents, educators and society in general might find it more difficult to accept that the gifted child is not cisgender, especially when they “come out” earlier than the non-gifted. The immediate reaction might be “wait a little”, or “how do you already know it, you are still so young”. When taking into consideration the high sensitivity of the gifted, this might result in child-parent alienation, or a non-belonging feeling in school, even dropout. It can be challenging for parents who have lived a heterosexual life style when their gifted preteen discloses they are non-cisgender or questioning. The challenge depends on personal characteristics, as well as on religion, religiosity level, community and family norms, culture and the law. It has also to do with the often re-occurring social/emotional issues that are difficult to handle and accept in many cultures (e.g. Lo et al., 2021; Sedillo, 2015).

8.5 Gender Versus Sex and the Brain Until the end of the twentieth century, sex differences in many domains of life, such as personal characteristics, behavior, cognitive abilities, professional tendencies, and preferable life style were heavily discussed as an integral part of social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, or education. The turn of the twenty-first century has offered a unique contribution of neuroscientific knowledge to these—as well as to life- and natural sciences relevant to sex and gender. The accelerated development of brain sciences added to the study of sex and gender means such as EEG or PET scans—techniques that measure physiological functions by measuring blood flow, metabolism and the function of neurotransmitters (e.g. Cahill, 2006; Cahill et al., 2001; Geary, 2017). The possibility of studying ALL brain areas by exact, reliable means, both in resting- and functioning situations, was no less than a revolution that

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followed the first study of sex differences in the brain (Levine, 1966), when only one brain region was mentioned, the hypothalamus. 40 years later, the work of Cahill (2006) showed sex differences both in the brains of humans and animals which led to behavioral differences. The work of Hyde et al. (2019) went “one step ahead” by describing all five sets of empirical findings undermining the gender binary: 1. Neuroscience findings that refute sexual dimorphism of the human brain; 2. Behavioral neuroendocrinology findings that challenge the notion of genetically fixed, nonoverlapping, sexually dimorphic hormonal systems; 3. Psychological findings that highlight the similarities between men and women; 4. Psychological research on transgender and nonbinary individuals’ identities and experiences; 5. Developmental research suggesting that the tendency to view gender/sex as a meaningful, binary category is culturally determined and malleable. The consideration of these five findings has accelerated the study of non-cisgender studies, and advanced the neglected area of theory and practice of giftedness and non-cisgender identity. For example: during the end of the twentieth century it was already known that some connections existed between brain size and intelligence, which could have had implications on the study of giftedness. The study of Allen and Gorski (1992) showed connections between sexual orientation and the size of the anterior commissure in the human brain; they found that the anterior commissure of homosexual was larger than that of heterosexual men. This structure, typically larger in women than in men, is connecting the left and right temporal cortexes and is involved in sex differences related to cognitive abilities and language. In the next decade Swaab (2008) studied brain structure as the basis to sexual orientation and function. The next step in building the bridge between neuropsychology and intelligence was finding that early ripeness of the frontal lobe helps developing selfrestrain (e.g. Arain et al., 2013; Baum et al., 2017; Buckley et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2006). Ripeness of the frontal lobe is essential for self-investigation, a process that takes a longer time for the non-gifted in comparison to the gifted; high-level executive functions are needed for the gifted in order to achieve highly, but they are also needed for successful social and emotional success. A non-gifted individual struggling in gender and sex issues uses these resources in order to “come to peace” with their non-cisgender identity feels, many a time, that this task is heavy enough and thus academic advancement is not their first priority. The gifted, needing less resources for academic success, can use the “excess resources” for school success while exploring their gender and sexuality. Furthermore, Lee et al. (2006) found that while the frontal lobe, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and the posterior brain regions were activated among the gifted and the non-gifted in their study, the posterior brain regions (BA7, 40, 19) showed stronger activation among the gifted participants. These findings suggest that the interactions between the frontal and posterior brain regions play an important role in the neural basis of intelligence.

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8.6 Mediating Variables Connecting Intelligence and Non-cisgender Identity Brain areas activated during arousal can supply us with the link between gender preference of men and women and emotional as well as sensual overexcitabilities. At the end of the twentieth century it was already shown that brain activity differs among homosexual men and women when being exposed to women’s or men’s pictures, respectively (e.g. Rauch et al., 1999; Stoléru et al., 1999). The connection between high rate of homosexuality and giftedness might be explained by the mediating variable of overexcitabilities: as overexcitabilities can be of use in identifying of the gifted (see Chap. 3), and sexual arousal is connected to high emotional and sensual overexcitabilities, there is a potential link between the high brain activation of the gifted and that of homosexuals. Another possible mediating variable that has potential for explaining neuropsychological phenomena of non-cisgender identity and giftedness is the influence of testosterone on language areas (Hahn et al., 2016). Due to ethical issues, this influence has not been explored under strict scientific conditions, but it has been observed, that female-to-male transsexuals, who underwent 4-week testosterone treatment, showed decreased gray matter volume with increasing levels of bioavailable testosterone exclusively in Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas. While Broca’s area is related to the production of speech, Wernicke’s area is the region of the brain important for language development. Particularly, this may link known sex differences in language performance to the influence of testosterone on relevant brain regions; connections between giftedness and verbal abilities are obvious. Flexibility has been defined as one of the characters of the highly gifted (e.g. Barfurth et al., 2009; Clark, 2008; Shore, 2000; Whittenburg & Treat, 2009). Flexibility has also been found as one of the three main “gifted” characteristics involved in the identity of the gay or gender-and-sex questioning gifted child and adolescent. The other two are: early cognitive development (e.g. Borovay et al., 2019; Spain et al., 2016; Thomas, 2018), and self-understanding (e.g. Hoge & Renzulli, 1993). Flexibility includes, among other things, out-of-the box thinking about categories such as subject areas, well-accepted thoughts or ideas; early cognitive development, including curiosity about reading and writing, math doing and learning in general, and early self-understanding, including sensitivity and self-consciousness. All these components have the potential of early questioning the connections between gender and sex, and thus being curious about gender self-identity and acting courageously enough to explore it. The revolution in gender versus sex perception and non-cisgender identity acceptance took place mainly in Europe and North America, and thus the research it is based on is heavily inclined towards this specific part of the world population, who shares a similar culture. Quantitative literature about other-than-neurological or brain-related non-cisgender populations has spread to all continents, in a variety of cultures. For example; there is a wide literature about non-white non-cisgender populations (e.g. Duran, 2019; Friedrichs, 1997, 2012, 2014, 2018a; Hutcheson &

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Tieso, 2014; Mitchell Jr. & Means, 2014; Sewell, 2020; Sewell & Goings, 2019; Tuite, 2020; Whiting, 2006a, 2006b, 2009). But brain-related as well as physiologyand genetically-research, which are still in their infancy, relies mainly on data of European-origin people, living in western culture. The work of Savic et al. in the last 15 years (Berglund et al., 2006; Burke et al., 2017, 2018; Khorashad et al., 2021; Manzouri & Savic, 2018, 2019; Savic & Lindström, 2008; Savic et al., 2005) has reinforced these findings while making a substantial contribution to the understanding of gender/sex incongruence. These scholars studied the influence of cross-sex hormones on several brain areas that are in charge of a variety of functions (Khorashad et al., 2021); the influence of putative pheromones, which modulates psychological, physiological and hormonal responses without detection as an odor, on the brain of homosexual men (Savic et al., 2005) and women (Berglund et al., 2006), the using of Positron Emission Tomography (PET), a technique that measures physiological function by looking at blood flow, metabolism, neurotransmitters, and radio-labelled drugs, in order to show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects (Savic & Lindström, 2008); the effect of testosterone on the brain in transgender men (Burke et al., 2018); The use of multimodal MRI in order to show that male homosexuality is probably linked to changes in the midline of the cerebral structures (Manzouri & Savic, 2018, 2019; Votinov et al., 2021) suggested that there were possible neurological bases of homosexuality and gender dysphoria. The use of fractional anisotropy (FA) as a measure of white matter connections enabled showing consistent sex differences (Burke et al., 2017). In this study it was found that the neuroanatomical signature of transgenderism was related to brain areas processing the perception of self and body ownership; homosexuality seemed to be associated with less cerebral sexual differentiation. Klimaj et al. (2022) have studied potential gray matter and activity of homo- and bi-sexual men and women. They found that heterosexual women had larger right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) than lesbians. This influences the processing of information in terms of the ability of an individual to orient attention to new stimuli. Hahn et al. (2016) had found that testosterone had affected the language areas of the brain. Taking into consideration the finding of Harasty et al. (1997), according to which language-associated regions are “proportionally larger in the female brain”, they wondered if a similar effect results from applying progesterone to male–female trans-genders, namely, a decline in mathematical-logical abilities.

8.8 Summary and Conclusions

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8.7 Why Are Homosexuality, Binary-Sexuality and Trans-sexuality More Common Among the Gifted than in the General Population? The Neuropsychological Basis Gender differences in mathematics and spatial abilities have been extensively studied since the second half of the twentieth century from several points of view. Their research from a neuroscientific point of view had started some decades later, but since the beginning of the twenty-first century the focus of research has made a turn. For example: O’Boyle et al. (2005) have found that mathematically gifted male adolescents activate a unique brain network during mental rotation. They showed that when performing 3-dimensional mental rotations, mathematically gifted male adolescents engage a qualitatively different brain network than those of average math ability, one that involves bilateral activation of the parietal lobes and frontal cortex, along with heightened activation of the anterior cingulate. Al-Khalil and O’Boyle (2018) found structural and functional characteristics of the math-gifted brain. Thus, while until connections between brain sciences and mathematical giftedness was proved, most programs for bridging the gap between boys and girls in math, science and computers science achievements focused in social variables causing these gaps. Since neuro-science has taken a central place in many areas of study, it has become clear that neurological reasons should not be ignored any longer, especially after the more common use of MRI and fMRI. Additional brain-related studies produced the works of Geake (2009), as well as Ma et al. (2017), and Tetreault and Zakreski (2021) about neuropsychological characteristics of the academically and creatively gifted. Both giftedness and homo- or trans-sexuality have been linked to hormones, brain structure, and brain connectivity. Kreukels and Guillamon (2016) had summarized findings from neuroimaging studies focusing on brain structure and concluded that the brain phenotypes of trans women and trans men differ in various ways from those of control men and women with feminine, masculine, demasculinized and defeminized features.

8.8 Summary and Conclusions The study of connections between giftedness, high potential or creativity and higher tendency to self-identification as cisgender is still in its very beginning. However, there are first directions for studies that can lead to finding such connections through the hormonal system mediator, the electrical brain circuits or—more probably—both. The study of the hormonal system and of neurology have been “adapted” by psychologists as promising directions for a better understanding and thus having a potential for better treating children, adolescents and adults. Nowadays neuroscience is studied in many thousands of higher education institutions all over the world, and

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practiced as an additional tool not just in hospitals and clinics, but also in non-medical systems, such as houses of the elderly and schools. The hormonal system, previously studied just for limited uses, such as fertility interventions, or in search for a remedy for disorders, e.g. hyper- or hypothyroidism, have been enormously widened. For example: Hashimoto’s encephalitis, which is causes by lack of the thyroid hormone, might cause dementia as well (e.g. Anand et al., 2014). These neuropsychological developments give hope that soon enough the study of non-cisgender children and adolescents in general and that of non-cisgender gifted in particular will also benefit from these developments, and improve the life of those currently suffering from ignorance, prejudices and good intentions that might lead to hell.

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