Will Enrichment Make a Child Gifted?

Children whose life experience has been enriched in many of these ways come to school ready to learn, and they usually excel in the early grades. They are bright, eager, and often socially adept -the public's (and sometimes parents' and teacher') idea of gifted students. But if the adults watch these children for a period of time, they may notice that by the third of fourth grade, some of the children are “leveling out,” -that is, they're performing like most of their chronological peers. They're still very intelligent, but their intellectual ability is now being challenged by more complex material. Although they may have appeared gifted in kindergarten and first grade, it's now evident that they are simply smart children who have had an enriched early childhood and who will excel in the so-called regular classroom.
Gifted children have different situation. These children may also have had careful, loving parenting, although they may or may not received the exceptional opportunities available to families with more resources. But so long as gifted children receive reasonable opportunities to explore, think, and create, their intellectual gifts generally can thrive, sometimes even with relatively little stimulation. Their giftedness is part of the genetic endowment -the potential they brought along with them when they were born. Of course, this needs to be nurtured and encouraged by their parents and others, but it exists by itself.
Introducing children to a wide variety of learning opportunities actually helps identify those who are gifted. For example, suppose a group of young children goes to the museum to look at dinosaur bones. All of the children will be fascinate by the skeletons, but the gifted child may suddenly blurt out hat brontosauruses must have been leaf eaters because they had long necks, just like today's giraffes. The gifted child is able to see relationships and make connections that aren't immediately apparent to other children. Gifted children soak up information rapidly an are usually on a constant, intense quest to learn more -and that intensity might be one of the earliest indicators of giftedness.
Gifted children are often autonomous learners and much of what they learn will be self-taught. Still, they need parents and teachers to guide them, particularly because their intellectual development often outpaces their judgment.
Just as a smart child who is hard worker and a high achiever may be mistakenly identified as gifted, a truly gifted child may be labeled as a troublemaker, a nuisance, a classroom pest, or even suspected of having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The bright child may end up in the gifted class, the gifted child in the principal's office, and neither of them is in the right place.
Of course, not every sassy, aggressive, acting-out child is gifted; many gifted children are patient, polite, kind, and helpful. Parents and teachers must observe the child over time to know precisely what they're dealing with.
Smart children may indeed be more sophisticated thinkers that children of prior generations simply because they've had more experiences and been exposed to more information earlier in life. Nonetheless, smart children can be overwhelmed by the rigor and demands of a gifted curriculum. Gifted children, on the other hand, generally thrive in this type of creative and challenging environment. In fact, if they don't receive the stimulation they need for their intellectual and social growth, some gifted students will simply “camouflage” and hide their abilities or let their talents wither and die.

"Helping Gifted Children Soar"
by Carol A. Strip, Ph.D with Gretchen Hirsch