The brains of gifted or very capable children have their advantages, but also certain limitations, process information very quickly, have a highly developed analytical capacity and a very sophisticated critical sense, however, these children are not always able to reach their potential. , nor to develop a strong enough mind capable of deftly managing your skills, as well as the emotional universe that results from it.
What may initially seem like a great blessing, for many people does not work exactly like this, any gifted or very capable child will have the normal difficulties of each child of his age, added, of course, to those derived from his high IQ.
- The brains of gifted or highly cognitive children develop differently than children with a medium or normal level of intelligence.
In this way, and while we often hear about the remarkable benefits of a brain with extraordinary abilities, other factors that also characterize this part of the population are not always considered: we are talking about anxiety, low self-esteem, disconnection with an environment that does not adapt to your needs, isolation?All these problems begin to become more apparent around the age of 11.
Do state associations or even non-governmental organizations working with these children have very clear guidelines, is it not enough to use all possible means to identify the disease at a very young age?It is estimated that the ideal is between 3 and 5 years. We also need to understand what the brains of gifted children look like. It is a priority to understand how it develops and how we must deal with each marker of neural development, with the most appropriate reinforcements and supports possible.
Neuroscientists have always had a keen interest in understanding the brains of gifted children. What sets you apart from children with medium or normal intelligence?What exceptional neural resources do these children have to have a much more developed capacity?responded thanks to new advances in brain study science, such as contrast techniques and electromagnetic resonances.
Below, we list and explain some of the recent discoveries that we have available to the public, and that we can consult in specialized spaces of scientific journals, such as the British Psychological Society.
This fact is very striking, but it is something that neuroscience has already shown very clearly. Studies of the brains of people with a very high IQ, like Albert Einstein, have confirmed that they have no larger brains. Even more impressive, children with superior abilities often have a smaller cerebral cortex. However, depending on age, the development of this part of brain mass will become slower and thicker slowly but consistently until the beginning of adolescence.
In a child with a normal IQ the opposite happens, in childhood these children have a thicker cerebral cortex, reaching 12 or 13 years the area tends to shrink, reducing their total size, what does that mean?Basically, a child’s brain with high cognitive abilities will become more sophisticated and specialize over time. Its most potential moment is adolescence.
Gifted children also have more gray matter in certain areas of the brain. Let’s remember that gray matter is related to cognition, intelligence, and our ability to process information, which essentially means that gifted students have more ease and ability to process, analyze, and draw. conclusions of the data.
There are 28 brain regions related to our ability to reason, act, focus attention and respond to external sensory stimuli, children with high capacity have a greater specialization in each of these brain areas.
While gray matter contains and processes information, white matter or substance is the one that allows the mobility of information, because it guarantees the connection between neurons, you can already guess that in the brains of gifted children, this is undoubtedly the part that has one of the most remarkable characteristics. Its neural efficiency is enormous.
The brain has, it can be said figuratively, many more roads and neural streets to transport data, information and concepts. In addition, these roads are all interconnected, in a vast network that makes the brain sophisticated and hyperconnected, allowing a very fast operation. Now? This same feature also has some drawbacks.
Traffic jams can occur multiple times. That is, the child with a high cognitive ability can collapse into so much processed information, in the face of so many relationships that the brain creates between one idea and another, so sometimes there is a blockage. In the face of so many ideas, assumptions and inferences, there is a system failure. There is so much mental and neuronal activity that these children can often take much longer to complete an exam, or even answer a fairly simple question.
Much of the neuroscientific work highlights the large plasticity capacity of the brains of gifted children. As we said at the beginning of the article, its cerebral cortex grows more slowly, but in the meantime, it specializes and develops regularly. New connections are being created, new paths are being opened to facilitate learning.
When a child pays attention to a new experience, their brain changes, specializes, new neural pathways are built to create a greater connection between areas, regions, and structures. The plasticity of gifted children is so wonderful that many neuroscientists classify them as an interaction-hungry Hungry Spirit, whose expectations are not always met by most of us, mere mortals around us.
In conclusion, there is something we need to take into account all the information that has been provided to us, this is how the brains of gifted children develop, development is progressive, but sophisticated, and culminates in adolescence, while children with normal IQ have at their peak brain maturation between 5 and 6 years of age , it is adolescents with high abilities who require the greatest demand when they reach this stage of life.
First, they need a context that favors them and allows them to use the potential of their abilities, increasing their brain plasticity, if this child’s environment between the age of 10 and 11 is poorly structured and not suitable for his abilities, the most common is that he faces ostracism and frustration, so let’s be more sensitive to these awake spirits , but also fragile in many ways.