High Functioning Thinkers’ Uniqueness Perceived as a Disability in Society: A Case for a Broader Evaluation and Empowerment of Profoundly Gifted Persons

Highly gifted persons are people with an IQ of 145 and above[1]. Those with an IQ of over 180 are considered “Profoundly Gifted”[2]. At that level, it is difficult for people around such a person to understand and appreciate their views on things. As such, profoundly gifted persons are likely to be categorized as abnormal or perceived as disabled persons.

Many in our times simply call profoundly gifted persons “Nerds”, which leads to exclusion for abnormality or unusualness (though we may not want to think of it that way).

There are also people whose profound giftedness is specialized and/or limited to a specific field. A person might be extremely good at music and weak at every other thing. Others might be extremely gifted in academia, but might be limited in the application of abstract ideas.

What unites most profoundly gifted persons is their challenges in fitting into the society of their place and time.

The abnormalizing tendencies of society often lead to the exclusion and ostracism of highly gifted persons.

Many struggle to fit in, and simply lose interest in trying to belong to a social system.

The conception of giftedness as an element of formal education and specialized education is fairly new. It is linked to the cookie cutter model of formal education which is a century or so old.  

There are many dimensions within which giftedness is perceived and used as a means of nurturing extremely excellent persons in specific fields.

Basically, “giftedness” is a label or a social construct[3]. That means it is a reflective of the dominant views of a society and/or the relevant or necessary competencies of a given place and time. Thus, what might be considered a sign of “giftedness” in a remote hunting community in a vast tropical forest will not be the same as the standards for desert dwelling nomads – it will also vary greatly with the notions of “giftedness” in a modern urban metropolis like New York, London, Tokyo, or Sao Paulo.

Thus, a pragmatic conception is used to judge and recognize giftedness.

At Disability Capabilities, we seek to document research and advocate for the efficient engagement and participation of all persons – including uniquely gifted persons who might not meet all the normative social and behavioral standards of their place and time.

In a study that compared gifted children with the majority of other children showed that the gifted children exhibited:

“…superior abilities of the former ones in verbal working memory, inhibition, geometric problem solving, increased speed in attention-switching and elemental information processing. Consistently, psychophysiological assessments demonstrate heightened and accelerated brain activity during effortful cognitive processes.”[4]

This provides a straightforward fact-based documentation of the nature of gifted children in contemporary modern or modernizing societies around the world. These standards are universally coded into the formal educational systems of almost every country on the planet today.

Thus, it is fair to say that most “profoundly gifted” children will get extraordinary scores on various tests.

However, when the ambit of the study of profoundly gifted person is extended, there are interesting observations that indicate that while the extremely gifted might get supernormal test scores, they are likely to struggle with other social, emotional, and behavioral elements of their lives.

A comprehensive study by Wood and Laycraft factored in different elements of measuring intelligence. The researchers included the following characteristics in the study:

1.      Social

2.      Emotional

3.      Physical

4.      Altruistic

5.      Cognitive

6.      Behavioral, and

7.      Developmental characteristics[5]

The findings showed that there is no single measure of “high intelligence”, but rather a “multifaceted” one that can be used to understand people on different levels.

It can be observed from this study that it is highly unfair for society to simply grade and classify students according to their academic test scores only. That is because such systems only favors a few gifted persons whose competencies are useful in the job markets or worse, recognized only by the educational authorities.

When one looks at intelligence from the broader multifaceted approach, many “profoundly gifted” persons will naturally appear to be highly deficient persons in many other areas.

And with the broad evaluation of gifted persons, there can be an understanding of their deficiencies in other areas. These deficiencies can be construed as disabilities and enhanced to help gifted persons gain the social balance they need to function effectively.

Indeed, the social exclusion of gifted persons is prevalent. A study showed that many in the gifted community share the same personal characteristics as others in terms of empathy, responsibility, societal involvement, and interest in social development, however, they express these traits differently from most people in their place and time[6]. This almost always leads to avoidant perspectives by society which leads to their social exclusion.

Wood and Laycraft concluded in their study, that:

“… we need to inclusively understand, identify and promote the positive growth and well-being of the highly-profoundly gifted population and the developmental potential in all of us and in generations to come.”[7]

This means positive inclusion and engagement of the highly gifted is essential. While they may be great at developing complex codes in extremely useful apps or manage a nuclear research program, gifted and talented persons remain equal citizens who must be integrated.

It is therefore conclusive that we need to avoid viewing gifted persons only for their academic or competence-based activities. We need to use comprehensive measures to understand, appreciate and help them integrate into society as best as we can. This involves understanding the diversity in the gifted population, appreciating their deficiencies, and working with them to engage in the most efficient way possible.

By: Sam Yeboah

[1] Henk Guldemond, Roel Bosker, Hans Kuyper & Greetje van der Werf. "Do Highly Gifted Students Really Have Problems?" Educational Research & Evaluation 13 (6) 2008 pp555-568

[2] Abraham Tannenbaum. "Early Signs of Giftedness: Research and Commentary" Journal for the Education of the Gifted 15 (2) 1992 pp104-133

[3] Scott Barry Kaufman & Robert J. Sterberg. "Conceptions of Giftedness" Handbook of Giftedness in Children. (London: Springer, 2008) pp71-91

[4] Eizaveta Kunetsova, Anastasiia Liashenko, Natalia Zhozhikashvili & Marie Arsalidou. "Giftedness identification and cognitive, physiological and psychological characteristics of gifted children: a systematic review" Frontiers of Psychology 15 2024

[5] Vanessa R. Wood & Krystyna Laycraft. "How Can We Better Understand, Identify, and Support Highly Gifted and Profoundly Gifted Students? A Literature Review of the Psychological Development of Highly-Profoundly Gifted Individuals and Overexcitabilities" Annals of Cognitive Science 4 (2) 2020 pp143-165

[6] Roland S. Persson. "The Myth of the Antisocial Genius: A Survey Study of the Socio-Emotional Aspects of High-IQ Individuals" Gifted & Talented International 22 (2) 2016 pp19-34

[7] Vanessa R. Wood & Krystyna Laycraft. "How Can We Better Understand, Identify, and Support Highly Gifted and Profoundly Gifted Students? A Literature Review of the Psychological Development of Highly-Profoundly Gifted Individuals and Overexcitabilities" Annals of Cognitive Science 4 (2) 2020 pp143-165