General Characteristics of High Ability Students

Lisa Rubenstein, Ph.D.Ball State UniversitySLC Training 2015

What characteristics do you exhibit?

Now, does this characteristic list represent all SLCs?

Now, does this characteristic list represent all SLCs?

Is it helpful? Unhelpful?

General Characteristics of High Ability Students

Overview/Analysis of General, Social, and Emotional Characteristics

Asynchronous Development

Perfectionism

Motivation

General CharacteristicsLook at the characteristic lists.

Could you make these lists more manageable? Categorize? Synthesize?

What are the most important characteristics of which SLCs should be aware?

How do these characteristics affect high ability students?

Social Characteristics

Social Characteristics

Which characteristics would affect high ability students social relationships?

The Power of Introverts

Susan Cain

Introversion

Greater percentage of high ability introverts compared to the general population

Gather information about students...see extraversion/introversion scale items

Why might this characteristic be useful to consider?

Big Fish Little Pond Effect (Marsh)

Identity Formation

What factors influence identity formation?

Marcia’s Stages

Bronfenbrenner

Identity Formation

Social connections

Opportunities to experiment/redefine

Crisis of identity is possible and not necessarily bad.

Social Recap

Introversion/Extraversion

BFLPE

Identity Development: Importance of society and challenges

Emotional Characteristics

Emotional Characteristics

Which characteristics would affect high ability students emotional well-being?

What about depression?

What about overexcitabilites (Dabrowski)?

Emotional Characteristics

Which characteristics would affect high ability students emotional well-being?

Overexcitabilities

psychomotor - heightened movement

sensual - heightened senses, responses to stimuli

imaginational - heightened imagination

intellectual - heightened curiosity

emotional - heightened emotions, sensitivity

Leading to high intensity

Limont, W., Dreszer-Drogorób, J., Bedyńska, S., Śliwińska, K., & Jastrzębska, D. (2014). 'Old wine in new bottles'? Relationships between overexcitabilities, the Big Five personality traits and giftedness in adolescents. Personality & Individual Differences, 69199-204. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.06.003

Stressful SituationsDiscovering problems with multiple solutions or no one perfect solution

Academic challenges: identity, others’ perception

Social challenges

Mixed messages

Multi-potentiality?

Stress

Self-Talk

Rational Irrational

PotentialCognitive Distortions

Polarized/Generalized thinking

Personalization

Catastrophzing

“Shoulds”

Emotional Recap

Heightened senses (overexcitabilities)

Stressful situations

Cognitive distortions

Characteristics Affecting Multiple Areas

Characteristics that Affect Multiple Areas

Asynchronous Development

Perfectionism

Motivation

Asynchronous Development

Mismatch among physical, mental, social, emotional levels

Higher IQ leads to greater mismatch

Why would this matter?

Perfectionism

Take the perfectionism quiz

What are the forms of perfectionism?

Recent literature - concern over mistakes and personal standards

Cognitive Distortions and Self-talk

Motivation

Importance of realistic goal setting

Achievement Orientation Model

Mindset Theory

General ApplicationsRecognize the issue.

Help students recognize the issue. LISTEN. (Repeat back, adding feeling.)

Discuss potential solutions.

Mindfulness? Self-acceptance? Meditation?

Professionals?

Programs? Group discussions?

Provide ongoing support.

Questions?