The issue of underachievement among the gifted has captured the interest of educators sporadically over the past thirty years. In the most basic definition, an underachiever is a student who does not achieve in the academic areas at a level consistent with his or her capability. When underachievement is applied to the gifted, it becomes a more complex issue which calls for a new conceptualization. UNDERACHIEVEMENT AND "AT-RISK" STUDENTS Students "at risk" is terminology borrowed from the field of health and wellness and applied to school problems. The question that often arises when the at-risk term is used is, "At risk for what?" The answer may be drug abuse, sexually transmitted disease, school dropout, delinquency, out-of-home placement, or underachievement-to name only a few of the potential dangers. The advantage of casting concerns about gifted problem students in terms of their being at risk, rather than merely underachieving, is that it broadens the net for identification and prevention. Both of these conceptualizations form the basis for this article. The conceptualization of underachievement in education has gone through many iterations in the last three decades. The whole field of learning disabilities grew from an attempt to explain underachievement as a disabling condition with causes attributed to one or more of the following: brain damage, emotional disorders, early language deprivation, poor acquisition of English for speakers of other languages, economically deprived home situations, poor nutrition, and physical or medical disabilities. Intervention programs have been designed to address these causes, some with more success than others. Clearly, these causes can contribute to underachievement among gifted students. This group is usually referred to as "learning disabled gifted"; they comprise a significant portion of the population of gifted underachievers. Most gifted underachievers appear to educators as "unmotivated," "lazy," or having behavior problems. Whitmore (1989) urges us to view this population as a result of "underachieving schools" and "underserved groups." This conceptualization helps us to move
There has been a good deal of conjecture about the relationship between giftedness and juvenile delinquency among adolescents. Many unfounded claims have been sensationalized and much of the research has been ignored. There continues to be contradictory evidence in the literature as to this relationship, but clearly there is no cause and effect determined. There are however some important indicators of which professionals in gifted education should be aware.This article attempts to put the issue of giftedness and delinquency in perspective based on a review of pertinent literature and a two year study of 268 delinquents in a suburban court system. Two juxtaposed theories evolve from this review about the likelihood of gifted youth to engage in inappropriate behavior and become delinquent.
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