A developmental perspective on giftedness

Abstract

This study of gifted older adolescents provided an opportunity to capture some individuals in transition from formal to post-formal reasoning and to test a cognitive developmental model of giftedness. The cognitive developmental model varies in several important ways from trait and creativity studies of giftedness, on the one hand, and studies of eminence on the other. The participants were 40 gifted older (Grade 12) adolescents. They completed paper-and-pencil tasks that assessed formal operational reasoning and post-formal reasoning. They were individually interviewed for 1 of the post-formal measures. Individual performance and verbal and full-scale Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children IQ scores were made available for all of the participants. Principal components analyses revealed 4 meaningful factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.00. These factors collectively accounted for 78% of the variance and were for the most part consistent with the proposed model.