Emotional Response to Testing in Gifted and Highly Gifted Children

Abstract

Whether intellectually gifted children have a greater emotional response when tested is still unclear. This may be due to the marked heterogeneity of this particular population, and the fact that most studies lack the power to reduce the noise associated with this heterogeneity. The present study examined the relationship between performance and emotional response in 468,423 Italian fifth-graders taking a national test on mathematics and language. Analyses were performed using statistical models with polynomial terms. Special attention was paid to estimating the mean emotional response of the children who were gifted (1.5-2.5 standard deviations above the mean) or highly gifted (more than 2.5 standard deviations above the mean). The results showed that, although a lower emotional response correlated with a higher achievement, this relationship is nonlinear, and the estimates for gifted and highly gifted children were virtually the same. Girls showed a greater emotional response than boys on all levels of performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Cognitive characteristics of intellectually gifted children with a diagnosis of ADHD

“…showing that the method can also be used in the case of the higher tail, i.e., of giftedness, despite the difficulties emerged when emotional responses to testing were considered (Cornoldi et al, 2021). Our findings, however, do not rule out the risk of a few gifted children being misdiagnosed, and clinicians should be cautious about making a differential analysis between ADHD and giftedness.…”

“…Evidence is needed to show that the procedure can also be used in the case of giftedness. A study by Cornoldi, Giofrè, Mammarella, and Toffalini (2021), however, suggested that the characteristics of highly-gifted children did not match those predicted based on the general population. Specifically, the mean emotional response to testing in the population with very high achievement did not reflect the linear relationship observed between achievement score and emotional response in the general population.…”