Exceptional Intelligence

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 4

Exceptional Intelligence

Gifted Children. By Margaret Branch and Aubrey Cash. . Souvenir Press. 222 pp.

At the age of fifteen, Robert left school to begin work. He had managed to complete his schooling without passing one single examination. “You've hardly got the brains to be an errand boy,” his headmaster declared. Robert became a trade apprentice and was allowed to take courses at a nearby Technical College. There he found a teacher who believed in him. At 23 Robert was one of the youngest senior computer analysts in Britain.

It is a mistake to assume that the path of the highly intelligent and gifted child is inevitably a smooth and successful one. As in Robert’s case, outstanding gifts may remain unrecognised. Such children may irritate their parents and teachers and find it best to hide their brilliance to avoid trouble. Gifted children may find themselves bored and frustrated; they may work below their capacity and even .retreat into delinquency. The authors, a social worker and journalist respectively, have produced an admirable documentary which explores the problem—how do you recognise exceptional intelligence and imagination and see that it is not wasted? The description of the various experiments in the education of the specially gifted is both competent and entertaining, and should interest teachers and parents. The authors describe thej work of some remarkable' schools which have arisen to meet the needs of gifted children. Amongst those I introduced to readers are: | Millfield, one of the fewj public schools where thej child with the really high IQ. can get a place whether; his parents can pay the fees' or not; Yehudi Menuhin School where children have; the chance to develop their talent for music; Delarue School, the first Grammar school for spastic children in the world; and Finchden Manor w’here boys with high intelligence and emotional problems learn to live with themselves and others. The fact that children are gifted and recognised as such does not mean that they l

are all going to become creative genius or even be competent parents. In his follow-up study of “A Thousand Gifted Children” the late Lewis Terman reported rather sadly that they had not produced a single writer, composer, artist or sculptor of outstanding merit. They did produce some professionals with talent.

A great deal of time and money is spent in trying to promote the development of children at the lower end of the scale of intelligence. It is good that this should be so. But it would be foolish to overlook the needs of the gifted two per cent of the population. Those who bear with what can become the “handicap” of brilliance also deserve the chance to develop fully and to be preserved from unnecessary unhappiness and frustration.