In a qualitative study, we examined experiences from six Olympic coaches from medal winning sports in Norway. We sampled these coaches purposefully based on their athlete and sport development, results, and longevity as national team coaches. The semistructured interviews focused on these coaches' experiences and strategies, identifying a series…

The highly gifted create structures, generate ideas, and efficiently process information in ways qualitatively superior to moderately gifted and average ability individuals. Consistent, accurate, and valid feedback is more difficult to obtain, and the net effect of this is a tendency toward low self-esteem. (Author/CL)

Parents of gifted children need to understand the child's special emotional needs and recognize the importance of letting the children have time to be children without unreasonable expectations and demands. (CL)

Follow-up of 24 gifted students revealed that 16 had seriously contemplated suicide and that half of these 16 had made at least one attempt. The importance of career strategies as well a strategies for creative growth was emphasized. (CL)

Research is reviewed on the characteristics of highly gifted children, notably nonintellective factors such as creative/productive behavior cited by J. Renzulli and the traits of child prodigies in studies by D. Feldman. (CL)

The article asserts that culturally diverse gifted students need counseling to help them integrate their ethnic identity with their identity as gifted learners. (CL)

Universal considerations should be included in every program for the gifted, using the special needs of the students as the basics for the program. The author isolates responsibility, expectation, acceptance, and love of learning as necessary components. (Author)

Guidance and counseling needs of gifted students are described, and 10 policy recommendations for gifted programs are made, including that programs should help students develop adequate social relationships; stress achievement without regard to race, sex, or ethnic group; and develop an accurate sense of self. (CL)

Parents of gifted children must deal with their children's confusion and frustration at being advanced in some areas but not others. To be advocates for their children, parents must provide support for them and help school staff understand their educational and psychological needs. (CL)

The article describes some of the self-concept needs of gifted Black students and presents a model for helping Black secondary students develop positive self-concepts. (CL)

The relationships among adjustment problems, self-efficacy, and psychological distress were investigated in a sample of 207 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. A mediation-effect model specifying that adjustment problems had an effect on psychological distress mediated by self-efficacy was hypothesized and tested using structural equation…

A dilemma peculiar to gifted youth arises through the interaction of the psychosocial drives towards intimacy and achievement. Choosing to satisfy the drive for excellence risks forfeiting the attainment of intimacy with age peers; choosing intimacy may force the gifted into a pattern of systematic and deliberate underachievement. (Author/JDD)

A study of 174 academically talented eighth-grade students found they had significantly higher academic self-concepts than their peers but similar social self-concepts. Results found that talented females had stronger needs for achievement, dominance, and endurance than typical females, and high verbal students had less interest in relationships…

This essay takes the form of a dialog between the human "Self" and a questioner and explores the nature of individual self-consciousness, the Freudian model of the self, the development of the self in early childhood, the importance of parents in the self's development, and special problems of self-awareness in gifted students. (DB)

This qualitative study investigated the lived experience of depression in 10 gifted adolescents. Analysis of in-depth unstructured interviews revealed the gifted adolescent's absolute need for knowledge, for communion, and for expression. The gifted adolescent is at risk for depression when any or all of these needs are stymied. (Author/DB)