5 TRAITS OF A GIFTED CHILD

All parents feel their children are gifted and talented. I agree. I believe all children have their own special gifts, but some children exhibit the high levels of abilities in the following areas: intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership capacity, or specific academic fields.
These children qualify for services that are not available to all students. If you wonder if your child has characteristics of giftedness, consider these traits of a gifted child. If your child shows high performance levels in more than one of these areas, your child might be gifted.

1. Intellectual traits

Intellectual traits of gifted children include large vocabulary, problem-solving skills, intense curiosity, being an independent learner, having diverse interests, early reading skills, keen observation, excellent memory, critical thinking, and more.

2. Creative traits

Gifted children who exhibit creative traits will show several of the following characteristics: willing to take risks, inventiveness, flexibility, ability to create new ideas, produce a variety of ways to solve problems, high level of wonderings and questioning, a great or unusual sense of humor, intense concentration, persistence, and more.

3. Artistic traits

Artistically gifted children are a little harder to identify, but children who show these types of characteristics might be artistically gifted: unending imagination that builds upon ideas, do not need to stimulate imagination, easily perceives space, color and other artistic values, many draw well before the age of two, may have a favorite art form like watercolor painting or sculpture, extended ability to concentrate, and more.

4. Leadership capacity traits

Children who show giftedness in the area of leadership will present the following characteristics: automatically assume the leader role and it is responsibilities, are liked among peers, highly organized, confident, have high expectations, are deep thinkers, keen sense of justice, and more.

5. Specific academic fields

When looking at specific academic fields in the area of giftedness, children will usually focus on one specific field, like science for example, or more specifically within that area. Here are other traits that may be seen: excellent memory, early skill development in the specific area, focused attention and interest in reading on the specific area, knowledgeable about that specific field, and may display enthusiasm and expertise within the specific area.