Characteristics of Profoundly Gifted Children

Profoundly gifted children seem to be characterized by their uniqueness; each is different from others their age and from others who are highly and profoundly gifted. There are, however, some characteristics that seem to be common among such children. These include both marvelous traits that provide joy and fulfillment to the individuals and those that result in deep frustration and despair as they confront structures that have no space for them and attitudes that have no understanding.

Some of the most often found characteristics are:

• Extraordinary speed in processing information.
• Rapid and thorough comprehension of ideas and concepts.
• Unusual ability to perceive essential elements and underlying structures and patterns in relationships and ideas.
• The desire for precision in thinking and expression resulting in the need to correct errors and argue extensively.
• Ability to relate a broad range of ideas and synthesize commonalities among them.
• Early development of a high degree of ability to think abstractly.
• Appreciation of complexity; ability to find myriad alternative meanings in even the most simple issues or problems.
• Ability to learn in an integrative, intuitively nonlinear manner.
• An extraordinary degree of intellectual curiosity.
• Unusual capacity for memory.
• A long concentration span.
• A fascination with ideas and words.
• An extensive vocabulary.
• Ability to perceive many sides of an issue.
• Argumentativeness.
• Advanced visual and motor skills.
• Ability from an early age to think in metaphors and symbols; a preference for doing so.
• Ability to visualize models and systems.
• Ability to learn in great intuitive leaps.
• Highly idiosyncratic interpretations of events.
• Awareness of detail.
• Unusual intensity and depth of feeling.
• A high degree of emotional sensitivity.
• Highly developed morals and ethics and early concern for moral and existential issues.
• Unusual and early insight into social and moral issues.
• Ability to emphatically understand and relate to ideas and other people.
• An extraordinarily high energy level.
• A need for the world to be logical and fair.
• Conviction of correctness of personal ideas and beliefs.