Traditionally, levels of giftedness are defined by IQ scores, but anyone who knows me and my work knows that I struggle to define any level of giftedness by intellectual intelligence measures alone, though I admit that intellectual intelligence is an obviously important factor in the make-up of a gifted person. In considering their experience, it appears that their cognitive pattern is very similar to that of the highly and exceptionally gifted, but simply more extensive and speedy. This is not to make the same mistake in misrepresenting or under-representing the exceptionally and profoundly gifted among us, by lumping them into lower categories. For the sake of simplicity, I have focused on what I refer to as average (non-gifted) cognition, mild+ gifted cognition (mild and moderate giftedness), and high+ gifted cognition (high, exceptional, and profound giftedness). Through my work, I’ve sought to understand and explore the cognitive process and phenomenological experience of how gifted people at various “levels” take in, make sense of, see, and “feel” the world – as well as the sometimes vast differences between the experience of average (non-gifted) cognition and gifted cognition at the various levels. We all know that a mild or moderately gifted person can feel a strong sense of being an “alien” in a group of non-gifted people so too can a highly, exceptionally or profoundly gifted person feel a strong sense of being an “alien” in a group of mild or moderately gifted people (the same is true between profoundly and highly gifted too, and so on). With various levels and concepts of “giftedness” often grouped together into a one-size-fits-all description, the highly, exceptionally and profoundly gifted are misrepresented in important ways. The relatively little that has been written about the experience and cognition of the highly, exceptionally or profoundly gifted is proportionally consistent with the incidence of the phenomena, but the unfortunate result is that the net is cast wide in the existing literature on giftedness. The latter three types make up only a very small portion of that less than 5%. Giftedness is averaged to make up well less than 5% of the general population, and within that small number, there are subclassifications: mild, moderate, high, exceptional and profound giftedness. Written by Jennifer Harvey Sallin | originally published on rediscovering-yourself
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