Gifted Through the Lifespan

When School Funding Cuts Reach the Art Room

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 01:00:29 GMT

I grew up in Ohio and still have many friends and relatives living there. One of my friends sent this plea for help from her daughter. Here is what she wrote to her own family and friends:

“Family and friends,

I am fortunate to have kept my teaching position this year, but I am going to need some help with supplies. It’s just not possible for me to do this on my own. It would be a huge help if you are willing to forward the message and link below to friends and members of your community who might be in a position to help.

Thanks,

An Art Teacher in Ohio”

I left out the name of the district because it isn’t the district’s fault at all. Here is her plea for help as the new school year begins:

“Hello,

I am an art teacher in Ohio. For the 2026-27 school year, legislators abandoned Ohio’s Fair School Funding Plan that began in 2021 to fix an unconstitutional over-reliance on property taxes. This decision is leaving many of Ohio’s largest and neediest school districts drastically underfunded. My district cut about 20 teachers and staff in our three small schools for the upcoming school year. Additionally, when teachers returned to work this August, we were told that our classroom budgets had been effectively cut as well, leaving teachers and families to purchase any necessary supplies. Families in our district are typically low-income households. This request is a huge burden to them and is likely not realistic.

I teach art to nearly 500 5-10 year olds each week. In a typical school year we do countless drawings and paintings in addition to at least one sewing, weaving, printmaking, and ceramics project per child. We use a lot of supplies, because there are a lot of little artists!

My students flourish in art class. One of my greatest joys as an art teacher is seeing every student succeed at something whether it’s building a suit of armor with cardboard boxes or making a painting for Grandma. Your generosity means they will continue to express themselves creatively. It means the world to them and to me. Thank you.”

My best classes and experiences in elementary school were the “special classes”: art, music, physical education, and library. For those of you who aren’t sure what special classes are, this is what I got from Reddit:

In elementary school, “specials” are non-core classes outside the standard homeroom curriculum. Students rotate through these subjects, which are taught by specialized teachers, usually once a week or on a rotating multi-day schedule.

Common elementary school specials include:

Physical Education (P.E.)
Art
Music
Library / Media Center
Technology / Computer Lab
STEM / STEAM
Spanish or other foreign languages
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)

For almost all children, these are the classes where they can be themselves and enjoy hands-on learning. For me, sitting through “core classes” was horrible. I was bored and was a clock watcher. Seriously, by the end of the day I would watch that clock with the ticking long hand.

According to Steve Harding on Medium:

Those old school clocks make a loud click sound every single minute. A master clock in the main office sends an electrical pulse to move the hands forward. [1]

How School Clocks Work

A master clock controls all the clocks in the building.
It sends a pulse of electricity through wires every 60 seconds.
The minute hand jumps forward to the next notch all at once.
This system keeps every clock in the school showing the exact same time. [1]

Why Schools Used Them

No batteries are needed inside each classroom clock.
Every single room stays in sync for class changes.
They are very strong and last for many years.
Maintenance staff only need to fix one main clock if time changes.

Almost all of my happy memories from elementary school days were related to the “specials.”

The brightest students in a classroom were just as interested in special classes as children of different intellectual talent.

Things Have Changed Since I Was in Elementary School

Since the rapid changes in the 1960s opened the work forces to women, the most highly intelligent women were able to get into higher paying roles and many left the field of teaching. It became difficult to hire as many highly intelligent teachers as had been in the education workforce up until then. It’s possible that the reason more of the curriculum became mandatory and “pre-packaged” is because more teachers needed that kind of support. But at the same time—this change left teachers too little freedom to bring their own talents and on-the-spot observations about how to tailor the curriculum to fit their students. When it comes to “the specials,” those teachers have a higher requirement to become the specialists in their classrooms. Quite often, flexibility in the classroom—changing course when necessary—is predicated on the specialist’s skill, passion, and a way of reaching the students and what they need.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options in 2009. This is the original 5 Levels of Gifted book for parents and educators. Moderately Gifted, Highly Gifted, Exceptionally Gifted, and Profoundly Gifted children are the subjects of this book (78 of them) and their early milestones, behaviors, and parent journeys through how to raise and educate these children is a must-read. Parents who read this book can estimate their own children’s eventual IQs surprisingly accurately by the time they are age three to about six years old, before it is effective — or reliable — to have them professionally tested.

Here are links to the 5 Levels of Gifted book on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/5-levels-of-gifted-deborah-ruf/1126358834 and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-School-Educational-Options/dp/0910707987 or directly from the publisher: https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html

The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). This is a 20-year longitudinal study follow-up about the original gifted child subjects in 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009). In it, Dr. Ruf covers every conceivable topic to ask the 60 of the original study group of 78. She also shows readers how it is that people of the same original promise to succeed have vastly different outcomes. https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709.

Keys to Successfully Parenting the Gifted Child (2023). Need answers fast on what to do now? This is a short book — 80 pages including pictures — that is a great starter for parents just wanting some answers … fast! The content was originally from a PowerPoint I created for the parents of gifted children presentations around the country. The contents zero in on some of the most important things about raising gifted children that parents want to know. On Amazon, Keys to Successfully Parenting Gifted Children (2022, 2023) Print and ebook. The Nook version is also now on B&N.

Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted Children Left Behind (Oct. 2024). This is the first book in a Trilogy meant especially for educators, parents, adult gifted, and therapists. Questions for discussion are at the end of every chapter. The book provides a detailed analysis of the different levels of giftedness, the concept of “good fit” in educational settings, and the impact of various school environments on gifted children. It also includes personal stories and experiences of gifted children and adults, highlighting the challenges they face in finding appropriate educational and social environments. Available now on both Amazon and B&N. It is not the old purple book from 2005. Also, the Kindle and Nook versions are formatted so readers can click back and forth easily and find their place again. Follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DL3BSC9X or this link: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/losing-our-minds-deborah-ruf/1146410968?ean=2940185888872

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Gifted, Bored, and Misunderstood: Why School Can Fail Bright Children

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:23:49 GMT

Notice that I don’t use the word “schools” but use the singular “school.” Very few schools understand or provide for the differences among their students. These issues come up in every kind of school, even expensive or “best” schools. It’s not just in intellectual abilities but in what intrinsically motivates and works for different personalities and ways of being.

The people giving the descriptions are the mother or father of a gifted child who volunteered to work with me as I wrote about their experiences. These are all pseudonyms from my longitudinal study work. And no, things never seem to change in schools for very long and with great exceptions.

Different Reasons and Possibilities for Why Gifted Children Don’t Always Thrive in School

Poor Fit Between Some Teachers and Gifted Children

Phil Burns — On parents’ visiting day, I watched Phil’s preschool teacher asking the children various questions. When Phil didn’t raise his hand, I asked him why he didn’t. After continued prodding, he finally raised his hand, and when the teacher didn’t call on him, he got upset, tried to hide his head under the table behind him, and then pulled on and rocked the table. The teacher told Phil that if he couldn’t get control of himself, he would need to go out into the hall. She didn’t ask what the problem was. I took him out into the hall myself so as not to interrupt the other parents and found out that he had raised his hand often at the beginning of the school year, but he didn’t anymore. He thought that if the teacher didn’t call on him, it meant she didn’t like him. When she didn’t call on him in front of his mother, he was hurt and embarrassed.

Author note: Highly intelligent children have the answers so frequently that the teacher often has to ignore them in order to give other children an opportunity to participate. But the gifted child enjoys attention as much as any other child. The intelligence of the gifted child does not translate into maturity, patience, or discernment when it comes to interpreting the big picture or the teacher’s motives. If Phil were in a classroom with more children near his age who were very bright, his teacher would not have to selectively ignore and become impatient with him. This issue is so common and so emotionally important to the mental health of our highly gifted children that it is imperative that districts make changes. Magnet schools are one solution; they provide opportunities for grouping, instruction, and social interactions with other bright children who can understand and accept them. Magnet schools can answer many needs and cost little to organize and run.

Ross Oliver — Some teachers looked at Ross’s unwillingness to do certain things over and over again as laziness or as him thinking that he was better than everyone else in his class. One said, “Let’s color in the letter ‘J’ so you can learn it, Ross,” yet he read at a sixth-grade reading level. When he was in third grade, he got in trouble frequently and was given lunch detentions for reading when he shouldn’t and for asking too many questions.

Author note: These qualities in Ross should be nurtured, not punished. If he had been grouped with others of his intellectual ability, he would have been more normal among his classmates — most of whom would read and ask lots of questions every chance they got.

Rebecca Resnick — During middle school, Rebecca got to attend some special seminars for high achieving students. She complained that some of the teachers simply wasted her time, she didn’t learn anything new, and they weren’t very good at what they did. In a tenth-grade Enriched Biology course, the teacher did a broad overview of the different disciplines that encompass the field of biology. Rebecca asked some in-depth questions. He told her to look them up on the Internet or gave her answers that barely scratched the surface. I asked him about this, and he said that biology wasn’t his area of expertise and that he couldn’t spend class time going into a more thorough study of one sub-specialty area.

Emily Newton — Our “experiment” of grade-level advancing Emily in the private school for several subjects didn’t go very well. A contributing factor was that her second-grade teacher was never enthusiastic about the plan to begin with. Emily decided to return to her old public school near our home.

Author note: Many teachers disagree with any grade skipping or subject acceleration and actively undermine the process. Often, the child herself will ask to give up on the plan rather than experience obvious lack of support or even open hostility from the teacher. The original Templeton Report and an updated 2008 report [1] cite research of the 70 years before its publication to show that subject acceleration and grade skipping work very well for highly intelligent children [2].

Gifted Students Learn Poor Study Habits

When gifted children don’t develop good study skills and habits, parents and teachers fear that they will underachieve as a result. Underachievement is very different, however, from not doing what is expected. When children score well on achievement tests but don’t finish and turn in high quality assignments, they are not exhibiting underachievement; they are displaying noncompliance. Teacher and parent complaints related to underachievement or noncompliance include the following:

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Top of Form

Bottom of Form

(1) not doing or turning in homework,

(2) doing the bare minimum rather than selecting challenging projects,

(3) being disorganized,

(4) not paying attention in class, and

(5) distracting others.

Whenever any of these issues are present, there is a strong likelihood that the academic environment is wrong for the child. Children whose work is either too easy or too difficult will often exhibit these kinds of behaviors.

Mixed-ability classrooms, also known as age-level grouping, are poor venues for the development of good study skills. Slow learners are not interested in material they cannot understand, and faster learners are not interested in material they learned — or figured out for themselves — years ago.

The point of studying is to teach or reinforce new learning. It is impossible to develop good study skills if no studying is needed.

Teachers and parents alike frequently lose sight of this point. When the pace and curriculum are at an appropriate level for students, paying attention and completing assignments becomes meaningful and truly allows them to develop study skills.

Not Completing or Turning in Homework

Nothing seems to bother teachers and parents more than having a bright child who will not complete assignments. In Level Two to Level Five students, this refusal is often interpreted as arrogance, passive-aggressiveness, or even oppositional behavior. Some personality types are more prone to exhibit these behaviors, which is why families should consider temperament and personality when they try to determine the best course of action for their child in school.

Parents who try to get the schools to make lessons and assignments more relevant and meaningful for their children often run into road-blocks. What they find, among other things, is that teachers award grades based on assignment completion rather than on subject mastery. Thus, many parents worry that their children are “failing,” when what the children are actually doing is refusing to comply with teacher demands.

Other than taking the child out of the school, one remedy for parents is to remove themselves from the situation and allow the student to earn poor grades for a while. The homework problem usually corrects itself by the time the gifted child reaches high school, because the courses are more intellectually challenging (and more often grouped by readiness for the subject matter which draws in more like-minded students) and the student can see a connection between assignments, learning, mastery, and grades, as well as a correlation to future goals such as college and career.

Some highly intelligent children will do their homework — but not the way that the teacher has instructed. When gifted students protest showing their work or giving detail (such as with math problems), adults need to explain why these things matter. If these children are given sensible reasons why it is important to show their work, they are much more likely to do it.

Teachers can explain that as you get older, you get to work on progressively longer and more detailed problems. If you don’t get the answer that you expect, or if the answer is wrong, you need to be able to go back through your steps to see where you made an error. If you need help from anyone else, then they need to be able to follow your process in order to know where you made an error because only then can they help you. Finally — and this works well with Level Four and Five high school kids (exceptionally and profoundly gifted) — teachers can pose this question: What if one day you are a famous researcher and you are very close to a cure or an elusive solution to a problem that has troubled humankind for centuries, but you die before you can get the patent or get it published? You would certainly want someone to be able to read through your work and put it to good use. These are the reasons why it is important to learn how to organize and show your work.

Samantha Forrest — From the time Samantha started school, we had trouble getting her to do homework. Even in kindergarten, she told us that she was not learning enough and that the assignments were pointless.

Gary Lundquist — Gary’s second-grade teacher wrote that he worked slowly. He read 153 books independently that year, and she didn’t understand why he didn’t bring the same level of motivation to all of his school assignments.

Greg Cooper — We finally persuaded the teacher to agree to send all of Greg’s unfinished assignments home and not keep him from recess, music, or gym anymore when he didn’t finish his work.

Author note: Young children need a physical outlet. For many gifted children, it is lunch, recess, and special subjects like art, music, and gym class which make their days tolerable.

Tyler Lundquist — Once Tyler was exposed to a topic and thought he understood it, he tended to lose interest. He earned low grades on his homework due to lack of organization and logical progression in his solutions. There was no doubt that he had the capability of being an excellent student; he just needed to work harder on his homework. By the time he finally had access to instruction at a level that was appropriate for him, he’d already developed bad habits that made it hard for him to transition to more difficult material.

Books by Deborah Ruf, PhD

The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). This is a 20-year longitudinal study follow-up about the original gifted child subjects in 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009). In it, Dr. Ruf covers every conceivable topic to ask the 60 of the original study group of 78. She also shows readers how it is that people of the same original promise to succeed have vastly different outcomes. https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709.

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Giftedness Across a Lifetime

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 01:54:38 GMT

It matters that people be aware of typical education policy. And yet, we all go to school for at least a little while, and we hope and trust that the schools know what they’re doing. When I write about gifted children and schools, I am writing about adult readers, as well. These realities and experiences helped to form you.

But the reality is that too few people—including educators—understand the vast range of abilities, styles, and needs of our brightest students.

The Deck is Not Evenly Stacked

Over the past 20 years since creating the 5 Levels, I continued to learn about the state of education—and the policies and processes that affect it—in the United States. So, although the early milestones and behaviors that make up the 5 Levels of Gifted haven’t changed significantly, I discovered that some of the intake forms from the gifted families I served in my consultancy, there are sometimes circumstances where caregivers are not in a position to notice as much of the early milestones as stay-at-home parents do. This also means that there are families who don’t have the ability, for a variety of reasons, to provide as much readiness training or intellectual stimulation during the years before school, even if they have a child of great intellectual promise.

In the past, I assumed all smart people have a similar ability to access opportunities to meet their interests and needs. When I started to interview the subjects and write a follow-up book, I had no idea how significant socioeconomic status is in the educational process and how it impacted some of these subjects in the book. It also became clear that socioeconomic status often isn’t related to how hard any one person works or how smart the person is.

Some of the initial content from the first book, early handouts, and personal presentations about the Five Levels of Gifted showed my lack of awareness about the degrees to which some families are impacted by poverty, systemic racism,[i] and lack of access to testing, guidance, and appropriate schooling, compared to some other families in the study and throughout the United States. Socioeconomics and access issues related to the subjects and their families are included in the stories I continue to share with readers.

Before we review the characteristics—in the form of early milestones, interests, and behaviors—of the 5 Levels of Gifted—it is important for readers to have some background on public school services for gifted learners in the United States. If you live in another country, seek out information on what rules exist where you live and blend them into the advice given here so that it functions better for you and your family.

Background on Gifted Education Services in the United States

To understand why finding the best fit for the gifted child’s school years is often problematic, difficult, and expensive, one needs to know several things:

(1) there are usually no guaranteed services for gifted children,

(2) there are no federal mandates and little financial support of programs for the education of gifted students,

(3) it is only through decisions made in each state—and each school district—that any programming, rules, or requirements for gifted students might be available,

(4) such programs, if they exist, are usually funded by each locality’s tax base for the educational budgets.

This last one is particularly problematic for underserved populations who have been impacted by systemic racism that relegates many to neighborhoods with poorer functioning schools. For a current list of states that help with gifted education funding or have mandates, see the Davidson Institute website[ii] and Hoagies.[iii]

Why Aren’t There Uniformly Effective Practices for Serving the Gifted Population?

In the 1970s, several different iterations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act[iv] were passed. Called IDEA, the legislation guaranteed children free access to screening, testing, support, and appropriate remediation for their learning disabilities through age 21 at both federal[v] and local district expense.

Because high intelligence is not technically a disability, proponents of gifted services did not want giftedness included in these bills, mandates, or access to funding. The exception to IDEA’s coverage is when the gifted child also has a learning or other disability.[vi] This is why many parents look for 2e (twice-exceptional) disabilities or learning difficulties to get their children more of what they need.

Children in low socioeconomic households and communities often cannot afford or have access to the kinds of testing, classes, schools, social norms, social capital of generational knowledge, and support about higher education, etc. This, I believe, is a primary reason many people have come to believe there are no gifted children in many of our schools. But children who are hungry, who may live in unsafe neighborhoods, who have to move often, or have parents with untreated drug or mental health issues, or those who can’t find time or space for homework or school activities because they must share in raising and caring for family members, often do not appear to be gifted but “street smart.”

There are many indicators of giftedness that do not include being a good student.

I will keep sharing more information on this topic. I have occasionally invited other people with more experience and expertise than I in some of the areas to add their thoughts.

And, for those interested in more background on previous longitudinal studies about how gifted children turn out as adults, there are several good sources. I recommend the summary by Miraca Gross, Tips for Parents: What we Know from Longitudinal Studies of E/PG Children.[vii] She gives references to finding numerous studies in their entireties. For readers interested in learning more about what is available from past studies, I recommend an Internet search with the keywords “longitudinal studies of exceptionally and profoundly gifted.”

[i] Generally, systemic racism is when institutions, legal authorities, or systems have policies and views that harm the people in a racial group other than their own. For more information see https://www.racialequitytools.org/.

[ii] https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/gifted-education-in-the-u-s-state-policy-legislation/

[iii] http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/mandates.htm.

[iv] https://www.understood.org/articles/en/individuals-with-disabilities-education-act-idea-what-you-need-to-know

[v] https://www.nea.org/resource-library/individual-disabilities-education-act-idea-funding-gaps-school-district

[vi] For more information see https://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-gifted-education

[vii] See the Davidson Institute website: https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/tips-for-parents-what-we-know-from-longitudinal-studies-of-e-pg-children/

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Introduction to a Longitudinal Study about Gifted Children and Adults

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:50:22 GMT

Yes, that’s what I do. I’m an investigative author who looks into why people turn out the ways that they do.

In the summer of 2023 I released a book about the gifted children and their families with whom I’d worked in the early 2000s. Those kids are now grown up.[i] The book is The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). At Amazon or at Barnes & Noble

Because the book is long and has three clear topic sections, I decided to release a series of three stand-alone smaller books after the bigger 2023 book came out.

The series is called The 5 Levels of Gifted 20 Year Study Results.

Each one of smaller books contains discussion questions and has titles that make it clear what the focus of each book is. The first one “went live” on October 24, 2024, and is titled Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted Children Left Behind. The book explores how background experiences and opportunities during childhood shape the adult lives of the gifted children in my first book, 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009), as they reach adulthood. The importance of a “good fit” in the home, community, and educational environment play a significant role in their futures, and this is most notable for the exceptionally and profoundly gifted children. The book offers insight, as well as a practical metric - the Five Levels of Gifted - allowing readers to compare people of equal promise and different levels of high ability as they progress on their educational paths. The book describes just how deeply postsecondary and career choices diverge related to the gifted children’s quality of good fit throughout their childhood years. The 2024 book is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Remember, the first book of the series is about the school years and based on nearly 20 years of the longitudinal case study I created.

What’s the first book in The 5 Levels of Gifted 20 Year Study Results book about?

This book first book, Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted Children Left Behind is about how background experiences and opportunities affected the different ways a specific group of 78 gifted children — those from the first book[i] — turned out as they reached adulthood. I shared many details of the subjects’ early lives and school years in the earlier 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options book. That book listed how the subjects scored on multiple, often different, ability tests, what they were like in their interests, early abilities, and temperaments, and how their parents started the search for the right fit in school.

I look at issues around happiness, contentment, social connections, and other roles in their lives of interest to the subjects that support their overall goals. This can include career, family, and volunteer projects, for example.

During my oral and written interviews with the participants, it became apparent many subjects had positive things to say about these topics. There are many, however, who reported some satisfying aspects of their adult lives while expressing dissatisfaction with other areas. In all cases, I looked for both environmental and personal patterns in their child and adolescent years to provide answers.

How did you decide what’s connected to outcomes?

When background experiences — the time leading up to adulthood — appear to lead to any negative outcomes, I look at and probe what might be behind it. And by negative outcomes, I mean depression, anxiety, low levels of self-confidence or self-esteem, and an inability to have successful social relationships or “success” in preparing for and obtaining the career roles that feel good (i.e., satisfying, fulfilling) to the particular gifted adult. Making lots of money or not making lots of money is not a focus of the study, but I include that information, as well.

In this book which focuses on the school and education part of the subjects, we see how people with similar ability profiles — Levels of Giftedness — diverge from one another as they go through school, family life, a social world, and the typical tasks of becoming and being gifted adults. By the time they reach adulthood, some people are comfortable with their career path, social life, and income. They are not unusually depressed or anxious.

In this study, it is considered a good outcome when people are generally happy with the way their lives are going. Some others, however, are struggling in one or more of the aforementioned areas. That’s not a great outcome.

If a book study subject is struggling in one or more areas, the outcome — at least so far — isn’t as good as we might expect or wish. After all, these are highly intelligent people and most of us expect them to “do well” when they grow up. In my experience, most people assume being smart gives people an advantage in the game of life. Although it isn’t possible to give definitive answers for what causes these differences in book study subjects’ outcomes — because there are too few people and too restricted a range of individuals to draw definitive conclusions — it is still possible to see patterns that precede favorable or less favorable outcomes.

How did you decide which of your former clients to include?

I selected families from the first book for whom I had a lot of information and who said they would participate. I tried to select a similar number for each of the 5 Levels of Gifted, but the highest intelligence Level, Five, has fewer members and more of the women dropped out by the time I did the follow-up. I also knew that most smart people reading the books would be in Levels Two and Three, so I didn’t choose many from Level One. Level One is the average ability range of people in the professions, by the way.

For the second book, I moved many of the now adult gifted to higher Levels as I discovered some of my criteria for their selection depended on parent input (not just test scores) and many parents weren’t looking for — or reporting — the same qualities I now know are more important.

Additionally, the subjects of the 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up book are an unusual group in that their parents were proactive about getting their children evaluated and finding the best fit and opportunities in their schooling. The data compiled here is not from a random sample; it is a convenience sample of children brought to me professionally for advice, guidance, or evaluation. And still, there ended up being vast differences in the school years’ journey outcomes.

What are some of the demographics of your subjects?

The people in this book were raised primarily by American-born Baby Boom and early Gen X parents. The group is mainly white, middle to upper middle class socioeconomically, and shares similar cultural backgrounds in religion, education, and social class.

The individual subjects and their families are a small sliver of the gifted population in that regard because it is common that many gifted children’s families do not seek outside endorsement of their child’s abilities. In the latter cases, some parents trust that the school knows what it’s doing, or they don’t “see” their child’s giftedness, or they can’t afford the money or time to seek help.

As I wrote this book, it became apparent that a family’s socioeconomic, cultural, and personal values background can affect what one’s parents do or don’t do for their very bright child or children. Even among these families, some had fewer options for a variety of reasons. I delve into these issues throughout the books.

All of these adult subjects were aware they were considered “gifted.” Again, it is not always the case that highly intelligent youngsters know they are gifted, nor do many gifted people know or understand they’re gifted by the time they are adults. If some trusted authority figure never came out and told them they were gifted, many thought they weren’t part of that group. This uncertainty or lack of awareness about their giftedness happened especially — as I discovered when doing my case study work for my 1998 doctoral dissertation[ii] — if they weren’t stellar students with excellent grades. Read this sentence again.

Why aren’t more people of color in your book?

Gifted people, be they children or adults, do not come only from middle and high socioeconomic classes. My early life and experiences left me largely unaware of how much America — and many other places around the world — have cultures and systems that have favored and disfavored different groups throughout history.[iii]

At this point, my studies and observations alike show me there are no clearly inherent differences in innate ability and potential between different groups of human beings. Several people — subjects in the book — have the experience of being part of marginalized racial or ethnic groups and it is cited here when they mention it. Differences in outcomes are greatly affected by our different environments, and that, too, is what this book is about.

What was your process?

I endeavored to speak directly with each participant and only contacted the parents of the adult subjects when I had difficulty finding and reaching their children. My goal was to provide a safe and anonymous opportunity for each participant to share what their childhood looked like (their viewpoint), how their schools and parents dealt with them (parenting styles), how their social lives and relationships were then and are now, if they went to college and how that expense was covered, and what they are doing now for their jobs or careers.

I use charts and tables to group participants in various ways to show numerous factors that affect how the participants respond to the interview questions about their lives. Included among those factors that go beyond a good social and academic “fit” are the subjects’ responses to what I refer to as complicators. In other words, what besides “good fit” affects the different subjects who are essentially equally intelligent and capable?

As I analyzed the material from the study subjects, I saw that viewpoints and personalities play an outsized role in how people see themselves and how they perform in school. It became manifestly clear that how people “turn out” is an incredibly complex issue. What works well for one person might be awful for another.

I interviewed, by phone and in person, 50 participants from the original Levels book. I had at least some information about 64 of the original subjects but was unable to personally contact 14 of them. The approximate age range of the participants during the interview period is 20 to 45. I note how old each person is at the time of our interview, and in some cases, the age goes up for several interviews that occurred over several different time frames. I spent 2014 into 2023 to write the book.

Within each section, I explain what I think their views and input mean. I also contacted 12 other people to read and review the manuscript and weigh in with their own interpretations from their own background professions and experiences. The names, credentials, and background of each invited reviewer who gave interpretations are noted throughout the book.

Within this the first book of the series is a close look at the lives of gifted children, now grown — some just starting out and some with families and well into their careers — and how they have turned out so far. It is my hope that readers see their children, friends, relatives, and themselves in these pages. It is my hope, too, that readers discover new insights, approaches, and policies to meet the needs of all the highly intelligent people in not only their lives but in the lives of other intelligent children and adults in the world.

I look forward to the input and opinions of my readers. It gives me new ideas!

[i] The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up is a follow-up book to one I wrote and published in 2005. Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind, my first book, was retitled 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options in 2009. The content didn’t change in the retitled book.

[ii] Ruf, D. L. (1998). Environmental, familial, and personal factors that affect the self-actualization of highly gifted adults: Case Studies. Unpublished dissertation: University of Minnesota.

[iii] See Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Random House.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Why “Good Fit” Matters for Both Gifted Adults and Gifted Children

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 01:27:20 GMT

Every child knows the difference between simply being placed in a classroom and truly feeling at home there.

For gifted children, that difference can shape not only how much they learn, but also whether they feel understood, connected, and free to be themselves. “Good fit” in school and social life means more than appropriate academic challenge; it means belonging. Children who grow up feeling like they don’t belong all-too-often turn into adults who also feel that way.

First, “good fit” in the context of school and social life means that the children feel as though they belong, that they are not outliers, or lonely, or weird compared to the others.^[i]

Why does a good fit matter? The purpose of a longitudinal study is to uncover what—from the subjects’ background experiences—could have impacted how their lives are as adults. Good fit matters for the topic of high intelligence because there is one especially big hurdle in the lives of highly intelligent children and their families that is not a hurdle for children who fit the ways schools are set up.

The ways schools are typically arranged for children does not fit the different Levels of Gifted children well and can have negative, lasting effects if no changes are provided for the needs of such learners during those 12 to 13 long, formative school years.

The customary method of grouping children in schools is by age and within age-grade levels. When a bright or gifted child is not similar to the majority of the other children in learning ability, this is a big problem. Further, within that structure of grade levels by age, schools primarily use heterogeneous (mixed ability) grouping and “whole class” instruction.

Despite considerable evidence that the achievement span among children of the same age can be—and usually is—significant (Lohman, D., 1999), children are typically grouped with others their age. Lohman, co-author of both the Cognitive Abilities Test and the Iowa Tests of basic skills, both widely used by public schools for their elementary school students, states,

“The typical public school first-grade classroom already has 12-grade equivalencies of achievement in it.”^[ii]

Indeed, grouping children by age for instruction makes about as much sense as grouping them by height. In all of world history, this kind of grouping for instruction has only been around for a about 120 years. And yes, through most of history there were no public schools at all and no universal system for educating children.

Research shows typical age-based grouping is an effective approach to teaching children only when the children have been selected to have similar ability levels and learning needs. Research from experts, including Terman (1925), Hollingworth (1931, 1942), and Kell, et al. (2013), shows that, when given the chance, highly intelligent children learn faster—and to a greater depth—than same-aged students with lower intellectual abilities.

Different types of acceleration through the school years often lead to a good fit. Although there is considerable research (Assouline, S., et. al., 2014) that supports the idea that brighter students don’t suffer socially, emotionally, or otherwise, from being allowed to accelerate (i.e., move ahead academically) the context of that faster track is important to making this statement true. When not done with an awareness of context, fast-tracking can be problematic.

As Lohman said, the range of students’ intellectual abilities within each classroom is often vast, just as you would find for weight, height, hair, and eye color. Age grouping for instruction with no consideration of learning readiness and ability is simply awkward. Such grouping creates more problems than it solves, including classroom management difficulties and disruptive behaviors.

Age grouping can work when the participating children are initially evaluated and then grouped by their readiness to learn new material. In the typical age-based school system, however, goals are set for all students to reach the academic average-for-their-age proficiency^[iii] levels. A large range of students’ learning abilities in one classroom almost guarantees that no matter how good the instruction, many children will learn little new while a similar number will continue to struggle because their readiness to learn the material is not at the needed level.

Children need true peers, people who get their jokes and who understand and share many of their interests and ways of being.

The social and emotional needs of gifted children—and not just their academic needs—are at the root of what matters for a good fit for them.

If they are outliers in their classrooms, they will often not only be lonely, but also more likely will have little opportunity to learn and practice the social and effective communication skills needed for when they move into the greater world and interact with others in their intellectual abilities’ range. As therapist Jana Rockne^[iv] noted,

In my 30 plus years of clinical work, I can say with great confidence that a fundamental human need is having a sense of belonging. Having an unconscious awareness, as a lower elementary grade student, of being different due to intellectual ability would likely be internalized simply as different and not belonging.

Not All Gifted Children Are Alike

A considerable problem with many popular approaches to gifted education is that many educators do not consider—or take seriously—that gifted children are not all alike. Even among the most intelligent children, many are uneven in their abilities. Some read at a high level but do not excel at the same high level in other subjects. Few are “omnibus gifted,” a term coined by David Feldman (1986), that means a person gifted at the highest levels in all areas.

The range within the group of children called “gifted” is great, spanning between a beginning level of traits where some children are moderately ahead of others to a scenario where some children are more than five, six, or more years ahead of other children in what they can learn and do by the time they enter first grade.

Plus, to complicate matters (and confuse everyone trying to plan for these children), each school and each group of children going through each school are at least a little different from one another.

The grandfather of one of the people in this book, for example, told his family how, when he was on a nominating committee for selecting the high school’s foreign exchange students, the teachers commented that from year to year, the graduating classes go from being full of great students one year to great athletes the next, and other years filled with artists, musicians, and actors. The school population is always changing because it depends on who is there each year.

In summary, it is not the high IQ or intellectual level that causes personal problems and outcomes for many of our most intellectually gifted people. It is the ongoing presence of a poor environmental “fit” during their childhood. The better the fit, the better the social, emotional, and any other kind of well-being outcome measure, they will have.

^[i] Blending many definitions together, there are two types of “best fit” and the more familiar term “Goodness of Fit”: how a trait or condition interacts, e.g., giftedness or personality, with the environment and how it interacts with the person or other people in that environment. Any trait in and of itself is not a problem; rather, it is the interaction that determines the “acceptability” of that trait.

^[ii] From an in-person conversation with David Lohman in 2003 and re-confirmed by phone in 2015.

^[iii] For more information on this topic, start with this website and move on from there. On NAEP scores, “proficient” does not mean performing at grade level (reachinghighernh.org).

^[iv] Jana L. Rockne, LPC, LMDT, is a therapist who specializes in Marriage and Family Counseling in Traverse City, MI. She is a partner in the GT Psych Associates Center.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Gifted Children and the Limits of Age-Based Schools

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:30:40 GMT

In this post, we look at one common reason behind why gifted children have fairly universal, inevitable problems in the typical kindergarten through 8th grade school setting. In this short post, we consider how most schools are set up and designed.

In almost all cases, schools group and educate children by age rather than ability or level of performance, and this practice makes school time go too slowly and repetitively for bright, gifted children. A clear side-effect is they don’t get to learn nearly as much as they could have been learning from an environment that is a better fit for them. It can also affect the gifted child’s happiness, excitement, behavior, and cooperation.

According to David Lohman (1999)[i], co-author of both the Cognitive Abilities Test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, the achievement range — what students can do, such as reading or math — within a typical public school’s same-aged, mainstreamed (mixed ability) 1st grade classroom (average age 7) is already 12 grade equivalencies!

Age alone is a convenient, yet inefficient, way to group learners. It should be fairly clear that grouping kids by age alone for instruction makes about as much pedagogical sense as grouping them by height.

The “average” intellectual and achievement range is indeed that which comprises the most people.

If there are 25 students in the class, for example, only three or four will be part of the lower learners’ end and another three to four will be in the faster learners’ end of the classroom’s range. Average learners who receive material that is new to them require 7 to 8 repetitions to learn it. The slower learners need more repetitions of material to catch on and learn it. The gifted — or faster — learners need fewer repetitions to learn it. This is because it is common for gifted learners to simply absorb more around them in all their life’s settings than most people, so they arrive not only ahead for school subjects but for many other topics and experiences. Even if the material hasn’t been introduced before, the gifted thinker may have enough experiential background to only need one or two additional repetitions — if any — to master it.

And, because we tend to form friendships with people who are like us — children with similar learning levels often find the same things funny or interesting — the children at both the lower and higher ends of the ability spectrum are quite likely to feel very lonely in such a system.

But this system affects more than just peer relationships, friendship formations, and social-emotional experiences, it also means that some children who are initially the slow learners (and often qualify for special education support) arrive at school not yet having the simplest reading or number awareness and skills. So, what the gifted child might already know and get to practice in a nurturing environment at home or preschool by the time they are 2 to 3 to 4 years old, the slower learners [ii] might not reach that point until 2nd, 3rd or 4th grade.

Some profoundly gifted children (Level Five) can read with great fluency and comprehension at a nearly adult level by the time they are 5 or 6 years old.
Basic Level One, “normal gifted” I like to say, bright children, have usually already absorbed pre-reading skills before they start school and are reading quite well no later than 2nd grade.

Teachers teach to the top of the bottom third of the students in their classrooms. Since most students already pass proficiency tests — or are close to doing so — before they enter the grade, it is only the bottom third of the students that the teacher generally addresses and plans for when designing continued learning. The following conversation illustrates what I mean:

I spoke to a second grade teacher who was awarded “Teacher of the Year” for her upper middle class public school district full of well-educated parents with high performing children. By most standards, she is truly a master teacher. She was part of a team that developed a reading assessment designed for children in grades one to three and now she now trains other teachers how to use it.

When I asked her if the lengthy, detailed evaluation went past the third grade level for those children whose reading achievement level was higher than that, she said no; there was no need for that.

I then asked how many of her students each year hit the top of the assessment and could read with full comprehension to the end of the third grade level by early in their second grade year. She said that about a third of her students could read that well.

I probed further: “Would those students be instructed at a higher level now that they had mastered reading nearly two years above grade level?”

She said, no, they’d all be just fine, and that this just gave her more time to work with those children who were most “at risk” for not learning to grade level. She added that although young children may be able to read well, and beyond grade level, they couldn’t possibly actually grasp high-level material because they still didn’t have enough “life experience.” In her opinion, it was far more important that advanced children gain appropriate life experiences with age mates than for them to move forward academically.

Ugh.

I tried to point out that some children actually can read with high levels of comprehension when that young. I got nowhere on that one. I pointed out that some children would become restless and misbehave if they were made to do repetitive lessons when they already completely grasped the material. She went back to her viewpoint that social-emotional learning was still taking place, and they needed to learn how to get along with others and be patient, understanding, and so forth. My viewpoint is that social-emotional learning is important, but not necessarily in reading or math classes where a gifted child is an outlier for grade-level material.

It’s the same with numerical ability. Some children seem to be born with a sense of how to create the rubrics needed to solve numerical problems. Again, among the gifted, there is a range even among them, but generally all of them are at least past their average classmate in academic understanding by the time they start kindergarten! So, yes, Lohman’s observation is supported by what’s going on in our schools, especially the early grades.

In other posts, I delve into some history and the practice of ability grouping, tracking, grade skipping and retention. All of these have been common — and effective and useful — in the past and none of them is much in use now (not since the late 1970s in most cases). I discuss Gifted Programs in other posts and books, as well. They—gifted programs—vary considerably from one place to another and in the types that they are.

In the meantime, keep this in mind: the best place to be is not at the top of the class but at the top of the middle third. That place is different in each school, and I address that, too, in posts that mention “the relativity of giftedness.” Your child is most likely a chip off the parental block as far as intelligence level. If you feel comfortable when you are walking around the school, meeting other parents and watching your child interact with the other students in the same grade, you will likely have the “right” school for learning something new most days and for finding people who might become friends.

Some children are more flexible and able to conform to school expectations whether the parental and educator expectations fit them well or not, and posts that discuss personality types in gifted children can be very helpful in knowing which child benefits from something different than the school set-up had in mind. Just be aware that schools are not set up for every learner no matter what they try to tell you.

[i] Lohman, D. F. (1999). Minding our p’s and q’s: On finding relationships between learning and intelligence. In P. L. Ackerman, P. C. Kyllonen, & R. D. Roberts (Eds.), Learning and individual differences: Process, trait, and content determinants (pp. 55–76. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

[ii] I say “initially” because some children aren’t actually slow learners as much as they haven’t yet been introduced to the support and nurturance some more fortunate children have had. Being behind isn’t the same as proof that they will always be slow learners. They may just be “behind” learners.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

More About IQ Scores

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 01:19:21 GMT

I previously wrote about what an IQ score can and can’t tell you and I followed that up with a bit more background on ability testing. Here is another step to help you understand your own and your children’s testing on standardized tests over the years.

Different ability tests have different scales or ranges of scores. The ones you can take free online generally have a higher top score than the tests you can take individually with an assessment specialist or in a school. You may have noticed that the test results tell you your score but they don’t necessarily put the score in context for you, and they don’t explain how the number of people that did better or less well than you can help you see how the score relates to your real life. That’s not very helpful or satisfying.

The original Binet scales intelligence tests created in the early 1900s utilized a ratio IQ score rather than today’s standardized ‘forced bell-curve’ scores. It was called an intelligence quotient. Modern tests, most of the tests created since then, don’t use the quotient.

In those early years of intelligence testing, IQ was calculated by dividing the mental age by the chronological age and multiplying by 100 to produce a ratio IQ. Your mental age is the raw score you got on the test compared with the actual age of the others who took the same test. If your mental age is higher than your actual age, you will have an IQ above the average of 100. For example, if you scored like the average 10 year old when you were only 6, your score would be 10/6 x 100=166.7.

Scores on those tests were unstable across age ranges, and there was no ability to estimate the frequency of a particular intellectual level in the general population. A forced bell curve, otherwise known as a standard curve, used rankings instead and “smoothed the curve” so it could also use standard deviations and percentiles, something the earlier tests did not have or use. And by rankings, I mean the results from the norming sample and how many people scored higher or lower than you did.

My Background in Test and Measurement and Administering Tests

I administered the Stanford-Binet 5 for more than 12 years, and I was part of the normative sampling team for the gifted population in 2001–2002.

I later participated in norming for the Wechsler ability tests (WPPSI-IV and WISC-V) for gifted samples of children. The scores are much lower — at least initially — than each of these instruments earlier versions as well as the scores from the SB5. This is because the older versions had 12 to 15 years of a steady score rise, the Flynn Effect, and the newer versions simply arrange the final scores by who is taking the tests now. So, the children haven’t really changed overall, but for schools and organizations that have score cut-offs for inclusion, say for Mensa or a school gifted program, children who would score as gifted on an earlier version of any of these tests, may not on the newly, freshly normed tests. This is another reason I don’t like cut-offs for admission to programs that might support learners.

A Little Historical Context on IQ Tests

Over the years, such assessment techniques have proven to be quite reliable, but the effects of a gradual increase in scores, as noted by James Flynn of the Flynn Effect (about .3 points a year) makes it important that we always look at the big picture when trying to determine a child’s real “fit” compared with others of the same age or in the same classroom.

Generally, one simply cannot compare a Full Scale Score of 145 in 2013 to that of a 145 on a different same-aged child from a different peer group in 2002. Flynn and others have shown, too, that some subtests are far more sensitive to rising scores than others are, but this sensitivity affects the final score, nonetheless. I recommend Flynn’s work highly, for those who are interested, especially Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century (2012).

Current tests only go as high as about 150 for the very smartest people, and generally, only very young children have been able to get scores over 150. Both the WISC and the SB5 created those extended scores. To my knowledge, the majority of us assessment professionals has not yet scored anyone over 160 on this test nationwide, even though the test designers created an “extended score range.”

It was on the old ratio IQ tests that one could earn scores in the 170’s, 180’s and higher. Some clinicians mistakenly attributed percentile estimates to the old ratio scores, but that was technically incorrect. The authors and publishers of the old tests never actually did norm samples for the distribution of scores; they simply normed individual questions by age. As a result, there is much popular confusion over the relative meaning of different IQ scores.

What does “freshly normed” mean?

It means that because there has been a steady rise in IQ scores over time, the age cohort that helped to norm a test isn’t the same one to whom you are being compared if you take the same test many years later. If the seven-year-olds who were part of the normative sampling in 1950, for example, and no children at that time had access to television or computers, their “test savvy” would be very different from seven-year-olds taking the same test 30 or 40 or 50 years later. Their experience, their interpretation, and the culture in which they find themselves would very much affect how they approached and reacted to test items. Plus, parents and teachers tend to “prepare” children for better testing after they get their hands on the newer tests as they trickle out and into test practice workbooks.

As a society modernizes, more and more of the children experience puzzles and matrix patterns and activities that require them to figure out what’s missing, what’s wrong, what goes with what in a matching exercise, and so on. Have they actually gotten smarter?

Certain kinds of test items that include vocabulary, analogies, and general information haven’t shown the same kind of score increase, though.

Some core pieces of intelligence have not changed as significantly as others over time.

Most notably, matrix pattern reasoning continues to show a rapid increase in populations that move from a concrete, literal way of living (say nomadic or agrarian) to one that is more complex and science-based, as with urban living and dealing with symbol systems such as money, laws, and written rules and information.

Because pretty much everyone on the scale moves up - gets older - during this time, the differences in learning ability between groups of people the same age remains fairly stable. That means that a child’s relative position in the group may still be the same. Let me give you an example. As the tests age, more children “hit the ceiling” on some of the subtests. This means that more of the children score in a range that was previously known as exceptionally or profoundly gifted, but their actual abilities aren’t in that range compared with those who earned those very high scores when the test was new.

A similar thing happens with scores at the low end of the continuum of ability. Children who need services due to low ability will score too high on the newer tests and appear to be ineligible for extra support in school. I know this is confusing, but the main point here is that you can’t very easily compare scores over time, tests, or testing occasion. And it is often counter-productive to do so!

Many tests correlate with other tests. This means that if you have a high IQ, you’re likely to be good at matrix patterns or vocabulary, too, for instance. But, a test that doesn’t include any vocabulary, such as the Naglieri Nonverbal Aptitude Test, the NNAT, misses the discovery of a very important ability: language acquisition and use.

Some very smart children who take the Naglieri Nonverbal Aptitude Test, seen by many as being more culture-free and fair than the tests that include both verbal and nonverbal assessment, don’t score as high on a strictly nonverbal test. Yet, verbal ability and vocabulary are more highly correlated with the general intelligence factor, or g. Children who are lower on their verbal abilities are more likely to have academic difficulties than children who are high on verbal abilities. They need a different kind and quality of academic support.

People have different abilities profiles , too. There really are some people who are much, much better at quantitative reasoning — math thinking, knowing how to set up the problem that needs to be solved — than others. Yes, you can teach people to be better than they naturally were, but it won’t make them the same level of “naturals” as those who had the ability and intuition for math from the get-go. You can still be a genius, though, even if math isn’t your strong suit. So, the more of a balance with different abilities an IQ test is, the more likely someone with an uneven ability profile will end up with a full scale score that understates their strengths.

Incidentally, for you high verbal people, I have always recommended the Miller Analogies Test for people who know they’re smart but don’t score high across the board and need to figure out “where they really are” compared to others, what their strengths are. Unfortunately, the company that owned it ended its publication at the end of 2023. If you think you’re more math-strong, take the Raven’s Progressive Matrices.

Different parts of the world go through periods of views about what’s important in the field of education, and tests for general intelligence, g, like the Miller Analogies Test, don’t specifically predict who is going to be a good engineer or tradesman. I’m just thinking out loud here when I present Three of my major viewpoints around intelligence and testing:

· All children are gifted.

o Testing isn’t fair, etc.

o All students need a good, i.e., (same) education.

o The need for intelligence testing is unnecessary; it’s how we teach that makes the difference.

· Not everyone needs the same kind of education.

o Women

o People of color

o People whose past education and experiences already show us who’s smart and who isn’t.

· Educational institutions at all levels need to prove their ROI, meaning Return On Investment.

o If a person takes all the right courses to be an engineer, for example, the time and money used h

as to make the student job ready.

o There is little way we can prove a ROI with fluffy courses in the arts and humanities.

All of these are short-sighted, of course, and yet we go back and forth, round and round, without ever really developing educational systems that work. We are not all the same in our likes, our goals, our different strengths and weaknesses and yet we keep setting up systems that assume that kindergarten through 12th grade is the right way to educate people. People grow and change throughout their lives, and we need systems them allow people to be lifelong learners.

As I wrote my follow-up book The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023) that was based on the 18-20 years longitudinal case study results from 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009), I had some early readers tell me I should stick to acceptable score ranges for moderately gifted, highly gifted, exceptionally gifted and profoundly gifted. I won’t do that because that is more than inaccurate. It neglects to address the complexity of intelligence, personalities, behaviors, and environmental effects. And although being precise appeals to many parents, individuals, and educators, such precision vastly undermines the goal of finding the best support systems for those who are unusually gifted. I do continue to write on the topic of clear-cut labels for score ranges, just to help out those who really count it.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Is It Dysgraphia—or Just a Reluctant Young Writer?

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:07:25 GMT

A parent told me her son’s teacher suggested she look into dysgraphia because he avoided handwriting. Additionally, she wrote this:

My son’s teacher has raised challenges with poor handwriting and creative writing (idea development and planning) so we are thinking of ways to provide positive support especially in light of him being younger [than current classmates due to a grade skip]. Possibly exploring dysgraphia.

It’s true there are ways to support children who struggle with writing. But let me say a little something about the idea of “dysgraphia.” It’s not that I don’t think it sometimes exists, and I’ve given you information at the end of this post about dyslexia, it is not a “2e issue” (twice exceptional with being gifted and having a disability). In fact, it’s quite common for almost any boy, even gifted boys. More boys than girls do not enjoy writing, especially when they are young. First, they do not, as a group, have the same early dexterity as girls have but that difference usually dissipates with physical maturing.

In many cases, boys do have enough dexterity and they prove it with their Legos, right? They may be stopped by not knowing what to write. Many reluctant writers eventually learn the power of the pen for persuasion and the necessity of “showing their work” as they grow older and in more advanced instructional environments.

If you’re worried about his writing at this young age, I suggest you have him copy one small sentence every day to make sure he’s training his eyes and hands to write. But do that for sure!

Keyboarding is a second option but don’t excuse him from the one handwritten sentence a day. It can be a different sentence every day, by the way, and keep it to 10 words or less for at least the next year. Allow him to work ahead if he asks about that, too. Make enough sentences for him to copy that he does ask to work ahead just to be done with it! It’s great fodder for showing him he really can do it. If he works ahead, he’ll gain more time for Legos and video games, right?

A common question youngsters have is “What should I write about?”

Or, if you give them the open-ended option of creating whatever they want, it is pure torture for you both! I was always at a loss when the assignment wasn’t specific in my younger years.

When I taught middle school students, I required a daily writing assignment and gave the students a pile of “story starters” to give them ideas. I rarely did “whole class” instruction. I’d assign a task to the entire group, explain it (when it was new to them), and then I remained available to work one-on-one with them.

What is a story starter?

It’s something tangible to look at, a photo or something cut from a magazine. Or you can print out a photo from the internet to use as the story starter. Some children will simply write a few sentences to describe what they see. If they can’t even do that, don’t worry. They’re looking for guidance. Ask them what they see in the story starter page and have them tell you about it. Here’s an example:

This is a young child outside.

You see that and the student or your child can see that. Before you give any hints, though, ask the child what he sees. He may simply start with the obvious: “There’s a kid walking around the yard.”

Tell him to write that down, as in “I see a kid walking around.”

Then ask something like this, “Do we know why the child is walking around?” or “Is there anyone else there?” This is when the typical struggling writer will say, “I don’t know!”

And this is what you can say in response, “So, you can make something up. That’s what a story is. Let’s make something up.” Each time the child gives any answer, have him write it down. Try to create about 5 sentences together. Short is fine. In this way, the child sees you’re not expecting a book! You are just trying to get them to write a little bit, and maybe, someday, write a little more.

My expectations varied with what I sensed or saw was appropriate for each child. My classrooms were full of a wide range of learners, so what I did was an example of diversifying instruction. Both parents and teachers can do this, too. I slowly, incrementally, ramped up the expectations as children progressed in their procedures and outcomes.

At least half of the class would have no idea what to write about!

This is not mass dysgraphia. This is children who are trying to figure out what the parent or teacher wants. Many of us “turn off” our creative side when the adults around us have what seems like a hidden agenda for what the child’s product should look like.

In other words, I think it is simply a normal response for most boys, and some girls, too, to give us, and it’s simply not that hard to come up with ways to support a youngster with some writing issues. I’ve provided several good links here to get you started in making your own determinations about what to tell the teacher and what both you and the teacher can do. My bottom line is that the last thing you should do is let them off the hook. We all need to develop some writing skills and over time, keyboarding or typing our responses is fine.

A Sampling of Resources

Emily Finn, MS, OTR/L (August 18, 2020). Dysgraphia 101- Introduction And Strategies For Understanding Dysgraphia in Children. https://www.occupationaltherapy.com/articles/dysgraphia-101-introduction-and-strategies-5327#:~:text=The%20five%20different%20types%20are,phonological%20dysgraphia%2C%20and%20lexical%20dysgraphia.

This is a downloadable PDF: “The boys’ handwriting is never as good as the girls’, is it? https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/teachingandlearning/resactivities/subjects/literacy/handwriting/outputs/english_4-11_paper.doc

Men and women differ in the neural basis of handwriting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7294055/

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

IQ Test Scores Aren’t All You Need to Know

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 01:51:13 GMT

During my years as a consultant with families, I administered individual IQ tests to people, mostly to children, who showed signs of being intellectually gifted. I also interpreted for parents what the results mean and what the results indicate about the learning needs of their children.

This job was, for me, difficult for a variety of reasons, the foremost reason being that IQ scores aren’t precise. And I know that. Having focused on Test & Measurement for my PhD program at the University of Minnesota (once called the empiricism dustbowl for being a leader in psychological testing and analysis: see “Meehl, Paul Everett.” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com. (August 26, 2022). https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/meehl-paul-everett), I have a different background in testing than many others who administer ability tests. In my opinion, this article on Meehl is a very fun read!

IQ tests generally indicate what a person is capable of learning, not how successful or cooperative at learning — and using what’s learned — the test-taker will be.

What? IQ tests aren’t precise? Does this mean that the IQ I have for myself or my child might be wrong?

Wrong? Well, not exactly. You see, an IQ is just one sample of the range that is your “true score.” A true score is the hypothetical average of a thousand parallel testings of someone’s intellectual abilities. You can score higher or lower on any given occasion, but if you take the tests enough, the scores will find their center, the most likely place that it’s reflecting your true score or your average ability (ability to learn new things) profile and level.

Think of this: if, as in the olden days, when you stick a thermometer in your mouth to get your temperature to see if you have a fever, the results vary according to which part of your mouth you stick it in, whether you’ve just had ice water or hot tea to drink, and whether you keep trying to talk while it’s in there. Because we know there’s a healthy human temperature average, we can pretty much guess if we’re doing it wrong or if the thermometer isn’t functioning correctly. (I still use this kind of thermometer and think I should get a modern one, but you get my point here).

But with IQ tests, having a good or bad day when you take the test isn’t all that can make the difference in your score. Which test you take, what the test’s possible score range is, what the scale is of your test compared to someone else’s test, what elements are actually assessed, how new or old the test was (when was it last normed or updated?), and all these factors can determine whether or not you have a score that represents your abilities very well.

Try not to get too hung up on an actual score. It’s more important to know as much as possible about what you are capable of, what lights your own fire of ambition or passion, and in what circumstances you are most blissfully happy with the people and activities around you. Getting your score results — or your child’s — should be to help you understand yourself — or your child — better. Because then it becomes possible to have more control and say over your life!

For IQ test results to have meaning, we need to know who the “peer group” was for the particular test you took.

Think of this: when we were in grade school and took those tests we had to take, we may have gotten mostly 99th percentile scores, or at least above the 90th percentile. I’m guessing that is true for you because you wouldn’t have chosen to read this article if you weren’t that kind of person.

Most Standardized Tests are Intelligence Tests that Focus on Different Topics

Depending on where in that range of the other students we were way back in elementary school, many of us see our percentile results drop when we take tests such as the PSAT, the SAT, the Explore Test, and the ACT. Even more of us are likely to see our percentiles drop when we take the GREs or other graduate or professional school tests. When that happened for me in some cases, I used to think the problem was that I’d simply become too much of a social butterfly during my teen years and “lost” my focus. (There was some truth to that; I also never prepared for those tests at all).

It turns out that, in many cases, we were simply being compared to a different group of people as we got older. If you were a “smart kid,” your early scores compared you to all of the children your age in school at the time. If you or your children took the Explore Test (which is no longer available at this time), the one that helps you plan your high school coursework, the one that gives smarter students a chance to take a test that has higher ceilings than the grade level tests, unless you are the most supremely intelligent kid around, you are not as likely to get any 99th percentile scores on the Explore Test.

In a nationally normed sample of students, kids of all abilities, your score would still be 99th percentile, but not if you’re being compared to your true peers.

Okay, what are true peers? They are people who are in your intellectual range, people who share your interests and sense of humor. They may or may not be in your age group. They have intellectual abilities that are very much like yours. When you take the SAT or ACT, both tests that help universities and individuals “sort” prospective students for their ability to succeed in college-level courses, most of the students who struggled with academics for the preceding 8 or 9 years will have opted out of university-level preparation by then. Fewer of them are still in the sample pool who takes the ACT and SAT. Within this new group of test-takers, the average IQ or academic ability level goes up. There are fewer people “below” you. Your percentiles might go down because you’re competing against others who have a good chance of “beating” you.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Giftedness Across Borders

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:49:15 GMT

First, why am I writing about this?

I’ve addressed the topic of the “relativity of giftedness” in my blog posts and two of my published books (the ones from 2023 and 2024). I also cover the reality that not all gifted — even the profoundly gifted — get good grades in school. And yet, most people think grades are tightly connected to being smart, e.g. gifted.

Immigration and what’s true and not true about it has been a big deal issue on and off throughout our history. I want to help people see some things that might affect the way they currently see some groups of refugees and immigrants as “better” for the country than other groups. Why do I want to do this? Because every single group has either already advantaged and educated gifted people in it or gifted people who never had a chance for — or access to — education in their countries of origin and they need a chance to find a better life for themselves and their children. It’s possible that an equal portion of those groups have a similar number of gifted people within them, and we know that because people from all walks of life around the globe strive for better education and a chance at financial success. Those success stories are everywhere.

I attended Ohio Wesleyan University from September 1967 to early June 1971. For years I told myself it wasn’t the best place for me, but now I know it was. I make annual contributions and I took the time to read the latest Summer 2026 OWU Magazine. Ohio Wesleyan participates in a program called I Know I Can (IKIC), a nationally recognized nonprofit that empowers—in this case—Columbus, OH, “students to explore and pursue college and career opportunities through individualized advising, innovative programs, scholarships, and grants.” https://www.owu.edu/alumni-family-friends/owu-magazine/summer-2026/

See Teaching Moment for Seeing the Frame. To whet your curiosity, I’ll give you a brief summary.

The subject for the get-together is how we see the world—and how the world is shown to us.

To bring the concept to life, they turned to a familiar figure: Muhammad Ali. Students examined newspaper headlines, radio clips, and media portrayals of Ali across different moments. Some depictions celebrated him as a hero and champion. Others cast him as controversial, even divisive.

“What changed? One student asked.”

“Not always Ali,” a professor replied. “Often it was the frame.”

The lesson centered on the idea of framing—a concept from media and communication studies that explains how information is presented. A frame highlights certain aspects of a story while downplaying or ignoring others. It acts as a mental shortcut, shaping how audiences interpret people, events, and ideas. The media, the class discussed, doesn’t just report reality—it helps construct it.”

I encourage you to read the rest of the one page article.

What Are the Different Kinds of Immigration and Migration?

[This list is from the APSU Writing Center at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN.]

Emigrate: the act of leaving a country to live in another

Emigrate is used when permanently relocating from a home country to a new country.

Example: My parents emigrated from India about 10 years ago.

Example: We are emigrating from Honduras.

Immigrate: the act of entering a country to live

Immigrate means to arrive in a new country after leaving another.

The step after emigration that focuses on where you are going, not where you left.

Example: Our whole family immigrated to Japan for my mother’s job opportunity.

Example: To be closer to his family, he immigrated to Canada.

Hint: You immigrate “into” places. You emigrate “from” places.

Migrate: to temporarily travel to a different place

Migrate is often temporary and often refers to animals that move to different climates when the seasons change.

Example: My grandparents migrate to Florida once the weather gets cold in the Northeast.

Example: After migrating south to Mexico, monarch butterflies hibernate until spring.

Why Do People Come to the United States?

According to the latest statistics, people immigrate to the US to work, reunite with family, study, or seek personal safety. And among those who come for study, they are usually only looking for American universities and sometimes both undergraduate or graduate degrees. We have a much broader range of post-high-school institutions than many other parts of the world. Many educational institutions welcome the usually well-heeled applicants who pay full fare tuitions. Take a look at each of these links about why people come here and what the different classes of immigrant groups are.

https://usafacts.org/articles/why-do-people-immigrate-us/

https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/lawful-permanent-residents/immigrant-classes-admission

As part of my adding political and historical perspective to more of my posts — my doctoral degree (Doctor of Philosophy) is officially called The Psychological Foundations of Education — I embark on adding that context to my writings about giftedness. I believe in not only an informed electorate, I believe in grassroots advocacy and involvement that has found some guidance for their actions and proposals. Our educational systems through the PK-12 grade years are “all over the place” in how they deliver education. In many cases, poor showings in state and national achievement statistic are related to lack of access in some areas and some states more than in other areas.

I will also try to draw the connection between this “lack of access to what is needed” for different students to find their “good fit” in school, and the concomitant damage to the mental and emotional health of the gifted children as they grow into adults. Anger, anxiety, hopelessness, etc. shouldn’t be the outcome, but all too often, it is.

Ours is a large and amazing country. In some ways, it isn’t as simple for us as it is for smaller countries whose size and populations are only as big as some of our states. Top-down mandates are easier to defend and operationalize. Yes, it’s complex. But that doesn’t mean we should give up. Trite though it may sound, “Our children are our future.” So much to do, right? Thanks for reading.

References for APSU Writing Center at Austin Peay State University

Betts, J. (2022, May 26). Emigrate vs. Immigrate: A Subtle But Important Difference.

YourDictionary.com. https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/emigrate-immigrate-difference

Writing Explained. (2023). Emigrate vs. Immigrate: What’s the Difference? Writing Explained.

https://writingexplained.org/immigrate-vs-emigrate-what-are-the-differences-between- immigration-and-emigrationBooks and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Gifted Teens, Real Relationships

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:46:13 GMT

Many exceptionally and profoundly gifted adolescents and young adults need considerable help and support in finding and maintaining friendship and romantic connections. Many highly intelligent adolescents, while craving friendships, often resist activities and opportunities that would increase their chances of finding true friends and soul mates. Additionally, evidence exists that adults may attribute more maturity, wisdom, and even practicality on the part of the highly intelligent adolescent. This is concerning, too, when dating and romance issues are the case, because such parental beliefs an leave the exceptionally gifted teenager emotionally and logistically unsupported by adult guidance.

It is on this final teens and romance topic that all of the variables come into play. I highly recommend the Free Spirit Books website for help in many of these areas. The SENG (Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted) website is a treasure trove of recommendations and ideas, too. This might be affected, too, by youngsters who are searching for answers about non-binary feelings. Parents need to learn more about it and be supportive of their feelings whether you agree with each other or not.

It is important to realize that being unusually gifted does not alter the path to finding soul mates and lovers as much as one would think. Hormones and natural human tendencies affect exceptionally gifted people the same ways that they affect more typical people. We all want to be loved; we all want partners and friends to turn to when we are stressed, hurt, lonely, confused, or excited. Becoming a parent is just as satisfying, maybe even more so, for many exceptionally gifted people. And there is some qualitative research that supports the idea that the most successful geniuses have been people who found soul mates or who married their best friend.

It is not embarrassing or unusual or a waste of intellectual gifts to be a boy-crazy girl or an obsessive boy wondering if any girls like him.

First of all, if the exceptionally gifted young person is shy, introverted, very different in interests, looks, or abilities than most others the same age, it will help if the family can find a comfortable environment and allow the child to stay there for many years. Frequent environmental changes, unless part of an attempt to find a suitable environment for learning and friendship formation, can leave the exceptionally gifted child or adolescent very lonely.

A somewhat unusual but effective example is of a young man who was born with facial deformities. He was exceptionally gifted, came from very attractive parents and family wealth, and was and continued to be, the shortest boy in his class. The youngster made a number of very good male friends over the years, and his parents made the wise decision not to move him to another state when the father got a promotion. In fact, they arranged for the parents and children to do a fair amount of commuting for several years just so their son could maintain the connections that worked well for him. He and they knew that the boy’s friends were truly friends and not choosing him for his wealth or status.

Most elementary school classes are set up with a heterogeneous bell curve configuration, so that exceptionally gifted children are almost always left as the only one like them in their class each year. If the parents have removed the exceptionally or profoundly gifted child from school for academic or social/emotional reasons (such as making a change into a full-time home school situation), their child also experiences a degree of social isolation.

What can be done? First, keep in mind that not all activities appropriate for gifted children are labeled “gifted.” There are many opportunities in most communities that families can tap into in order to facilitate social interactions for their children. Libraries, museums, mentorships, and volunteer opportunities are all wonderful ways to get such adolescents into environments with a spread of ages and backgrounds of people. I’ve found that the ages of the others in such settings matter less because they are all there for the reason that they share an interest.

In schools, it is genuinely necessary for a part of each day, at least, to involve either an adult or other highly gifted individuals of a variety of ages for the exceptionally and profoundly gifted children to interact with and perhaps become friends. Music, acting, coordinating complex projects, sports; any of these things can provide social opportunities that increase the chances the child will connect emotionally with someone.

My own children became involved in making radio and television commercials; and we found that the adults appreciated their talent and behavior enough to treat them as wonderful individuals rather than as odd children.

Romance?

Take them seriously when they want to talk to you about who they like and who likes them. Talks about sex, sexual behaviors and drives, male and female differences, birth control, marriage, safety issues, emotions … all should begin way before adolescence. Some adults are wonderfully comfortable with these topics while others are not. I recommend finding a friend or relative who is comfortable and who will mentor or guide your young person on these subjects if you can’t do it. Good books are available on most of these subjects and can be the impetus for parent-child discussion, too.

How Can I Get My Adolescent to Talk to Me?

Adults need to tap into their own experiences in order to help their exceptionally gifted children cope with the fears, anxieties, joys, and disappointments of personal relationships. How do you get your adolescent to talk to you? Start in the early years and continue throughout their lives. Don’t lecture or make it all about you, though. Just share something to get you started and then ask them a question or two to get them talking about what they think and feel.

Bedtime is when most children open up and want to talk. As children turn into teens, it gets trickier. That’s when I resorted to car trips.

Although it may appear to be a stalling technique, it’s more than that. Move the bedtime a bit earlier to allow for that talking and sharing time. No subject or discussion should be taboo between you so long as you observe safe parent-child boundaries. You can stick to the facts about biology and human emotions without going into detail about your own past, for example. A licensed therapist or a specialist trained in family emotional health may be able to help with this. Browse the books on parenting at the library or online to find other resources. Many towns and communities have classes for parents that are nearby and affordable, too.

Another good talking time is in the car. Turn off any radio, video, or social media for short errand trips so that conversation can flow. Arrange for errands that give each parent one-on-one time with each child. Invite questions often.

School counselors and teachers need to accept the fact that their exceptionally gifted students may benefit more from school day opportunities to mingle and work on fun projects and goals together than on getting their assignments done.

A sensitive adult should observe the interactions and allow for private opportunities for the young people to talk to a caring adult about how to act, how to interpret others’ behaviors, and how not to feel that this awkwardness is unusual or bad.

Extremely gifted youngsters are not used to or comfortable with being inept, after all, and they need a great deal of support and reassurance that their learning curve on relationships is right on track.

Parents who start the sex and relationship talks before adolescence will have an easier time than parents who wait until the teens, but that doesn’t mean it is too late. Have confidence that there is no one who can have a more meaningful conversation with your child than you can. You might start by saying,

“I’m no expert on women, but I have figured out a few things along the way. Did you know that for most smart girls, a guy’s sense of humor and intelligence are more important to her than his looks?”

Young men want to know what women want and what they are like and what the different things they say or do really mean. They need to know that women doubt themselves, too, and that all of us grow and change and make mistakes along the way. Young women need to know that young men are wired differently than they are and may be more easily sexually aroused than the average young woman is.

Any and all of these topics should be discussed positively, making it clear that although males and females have differences, they are all good people who are looking for acceptance, love, security, and fulfillment and purpose in their lives.

Finally, never assume that the exceptionally gifted high school or college student has all the answers or knows how to behave at a party or on a date just because they understand quantum theory or write incredibly sophisticated poetry.

Bring up the issues of respect, safety, abstinence, birth control, substance abuse, and anything else that you may be secretly hoping they will or will not do. If you are not the parent but a professional who works with the adolescent in question, you may ask the parent if you have permission to discuss some of the more intimate topics with their child. Many parents will gladly accept your offer.

Summary

Being exceptionally or profoundly gifted makes finding friends, soul mates and lovers somewhat more difficult simply because there are not as many compatible people from which to choose. But the problem is even more difficult if the adults in the adolescent’s life trivialize the importance of such connections to the brilliant young person. Just as other sensitivities increase with intellectual level, perhaps sensitivity to heartache and loneliness are more profound as well. Allowing adolescents to find their own path, develop a sense of personal power, and establish meaningful and rewarding relationships is something that parents and teachers must support and guide.

Helpful Resources

Gurian, Michael. https://www.michaelgurian.com/

Kerr, Barbara. https://epsy.ku.edu/people/barbara-alane-kerr

Free Spirit Books. See https://www.freespirit.com/

SENG (Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted). See https://www.sengifted.org/

An earlier version of this story was published in Douglas Eby’s Talent Development, another rich trove of information for all things gifted and talented. https://medium.com/@douglaseby

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

When Federal Agencies are Closed and Services Are Left to the States …

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:03:16 GMT

What is The Federal Department of Health and Human Services?

It is the sprawling agency responsible for administering millions of Americans’ health insurance, approving drugs and medical supplies, regulating food and responding to infectious-disease outbreaks.

At this point in my life and career, I am in favor of centralized programs, information, and research that can be disseminated to the states from federal departments run by those trained in the fields they study and cover. That’s why it is better and more efficient — not wasteful or over-priced “paper-pushers” as too many seem to claim — because the best and the brightest in both their training and their uncanny intelligence to think outside the box and follow scientific protocol centers that such people form an effective network. The issue at this time, though, is that we are dropping rapidly into an autocracy and many states are making sure the science behind medicine is still available. The states that keep people from getting good medical care haven’t been in favor of minority groups and many poor people getting coverage and help for a long time. It will get worse before it gets better.

“Americans who relied most on Trump for COVID-19 news among least likely to be vaccinated,” said the Pew Research Center. Trump changed his mind—for a while—after his first term and even sat for ads encouraging people to get vaccinated. https://pewrsr.ch/3ELu76N. And this is important. We should all be able to change our minds when we receive information that makes us think and make different choices.

Here is the difference in political persuasion for covid vaccine usage: https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/the-red-blue-divide-in-covid-19-vaccination-rates-continues-an-update/. People need the clearest, most trustworthy information when it involves their health and survival.

Here is one look at the state-by-state covid death rate (The number of deaths per 100,000 total population):

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/covid19_mortality_final/COVID19.htm

My point is that leaving some choices and options to each state has a very large outcome difference for its citizens. It’s not the citizens; it’s their state governments who end up making the decisions. Additionally, while Trump was getting the best medical care, he made fun of anyone who got vaccinated. And many of those people died. What didn’t make sense to many at the time makes sense now.

I feel the same way about the federal Department of Education.

How does this apply to meeting the needs of the gifted, you ask?

I don’t know if I’ve shared this in any posts or not, but over the years I’ve become aware that my deep study of Levels of Gifted and “finding the right fit” has become weird for me since I also discovered over time that some groups have been deliberately kept from getting a good education or any “best fit” opportunities. We simply can’t quantify how many people are super intelligent at this point. And once everyone has free and supportive access to what will make them thrive, within their families, communities, and also in their educational settings, there might be far more people who are intellectually and creatively amazing! I believe there will always be differences between and among us … but I now believe that any remaining differences are part of how we decide what we want to do, where our interests are. We don’t need to be competing with everyone for the same job, for instance.

Behind my concerns are the tremendous disparity of outcomes in the different states. The low or high achievement scores reported by the fifty states each year are fairly consistent. It isn’t because the people who live there are so inherently different, though. It’s because of the different access and treatments that hip-hop across one zip code to another as well as the leaders at the top of their state’s governments and what they choose to fund and not fund. The value of your house determines how much tax you have to pay for the local schools in your area. That’s nuts and unfair. We can and should make changes. I’ll talk more about that. I need time to mull it over because although it is peripheral to my work, it hasn’t been at the center of my work. I want to be accurate when I do share.

I am still in favor of federal and state support of public schools for all children, but I am also in favor of school choice until we get the system of schooling brought up and away from a reliance on taxing home and business owners to pay the public school costs. I don’t mean nonpublic or religious schools, though, because we have laws about the separation of church and state. Our public schools should be so good that very few people need to go to private schools anyway.

Again, it probably made sense to have only local control way long ago during the days of small towns and assorted villages coming together for educating the children in consolidated school districts. I’m not so sure, though, that total local control has been as assiduous at giving good education access to all families and students. And this affects low income or marginalized groups’ gifted children, as well.

I have thought for a long time that medical issues are not the responsibility of public schools funding. I agree with the current administration is not totally wrong with that concept. I will be looking out for any attempts to marginalize students with disabilities, though. The costs for serving children with disabilities should fall on the medical community. This is a difficult topic to discuss in a blog, so all I ask at this time is for you to consider what you really think how schools can effectively serve all students as I bring this up.

I specialize in giftedness and the outcome of any “wrong” services, understanding, a good fit, and academic support for such children. Gifted is not part of IDEA, https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/individuals-disabilities/idea#:~:text=The%20Individuals%20with%20Disabilities%20Education,for%20infants%20and%20toddlers%20and. IDEA provides this:

“The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law that makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children, supports early intervention services for infants and toddlers and their families, and awards competitive discretionary grants.”

At this time, giftedness is not seen as a disability, although — in many ways — it is a disability for their learning in most schools and yet there is no “right” to ask for more. Families still have the legal option in most parts of the US to homeschool (at their own expense, loss of one parent’s paid livelihood, for example) or to switch to a district that fits them better, or a specialized private school for the gifted, a Montessori School they will have to pay for, etc. It’s a mess at this time and we need all the options we can get.

I am not going after the importance of taking care of disabilities. It is vital that we as a nation at all levels support the families whose children have needs that would bankrupt a family.

I do not believe, though, that IDEA initiatives should be part of the public school budget and local taxing, however. It might belong under Health and Human Services and the delivery system for services will remain in the education realm. Here is a short article that explains what’s going on. For those of you who read it, you will be better prepared to discuss other aspects of how complex this whole IDEA situation has become as parents scramble to meet the needs of their children during their school years. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-special-education-funding-actually-works/2023/04

For those of you who are curious about this, here are a couple examples of funding and how it is handled state by state:

For Gifted and Talented:

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://funded.edbuild.org/reports/issue/gifted

For children with different disabilities (this one is from 2008, but things haven’t gotten easier):

https://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/78/10/7810.pdf

and a more recent one for my state, Minnesota: https://education.mn.gov/mdeprod/groups/educ/documents/hiddencontent/cm9k/mdu4/~edisp/prod058299.pdf

Summary

Health and Education are really intimately connected for children and families. What they are called and the labels put on them as far as department names are not as important as how we effectively support our children. Our children grow into adults, so what kinds of adults we have depends strongly on what we do for them during their childhoods.

Very few people are aware of what’s going on with these funding issues. School systems might still be the best place to meet the needs of different students, but it is my opinion that the funding for the major costs of multiple or severe disabilities should be elsewhere fully funded, like maybe the health department. And I believe that the disparity in states’ education and achievement results is a clear indication that “where you live” shouldn’t be as responsible as it currently is for whether or not each of us gets the services and support we need.

I would love to see my readers do their own looking and searching to see what they think both about this topic and about good solutions. Let’s work together.

Keep in mind that we have a strong wish in this country that all babies be born. But if it is a societal wish — rather than a choice left to the individual mother or family, must she or her family then also bear the lifelong brunt of taking care of a disabled child or otherwise extremely exceptional child with no societal help? I absolutely don’t want to get rid of IDEA. I want it fully funded but I am not yet sure where else that funding should rightly and fairly come from. What do you think? It’s been weighing on me.

Thanks for reading. Anyone can respond.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

How Parents Can Cope With and Support Healthy Outcomes for Their Smart Teenagers

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 02:01:08 GMT

In this post, we touch upon some ways parents, school personnel, and counselors can appropriately guide adolescents toward emotionally healthy friendships, romance, and independence.

First of all, your super smart children are still children. They still need your guidance and open conversations between you and them. They simply don’t know what’s right or good for them at this point. So no finger pointing or name calling when they inevitably make some poor choices or mistakes.

Specific, and normal, control issues come up between adults and budding adolescents.

Control Issues

Specific control issues contribute to adolescent depression, hostility, or rebellion among the exceptionally gifted. Control is often in the hands of others, not the growing child. This can lead to depression and anger. Here are a couple examples:

· One form that may happen is when inappropriate for this particular youngster school expectations during middle and high school are also accepted as necessary by the child’s parents. Such expectations can lead to depression or rebellion on the part of the child.

· Another issue is about parents who wait too long to begin their child’s path toward independent decision-making and activity. This can lead the emerging adolescent to interpret parental rules and safeguards as too restrictive and an indication that the parents do not trust the maturing young individual. A lot of the rules don’t seem to make sense!

Boys and girls tend to react differently to situations that may appear similar. Also, the child’s level of intelligence coupled with the appropriate or inappropriate environment contributes to when the problems begin for different youngsters.

Parenting Styles

There are three often-cited main types of parenting that fall on a continuum. (See Baumrind). Either extreme is bad for growing children.

Many exceptionally and profoundly gifted children are never identified as being unusually smart because they have problems in — or with — the school!

Nonetheless, there should be no concession to the general requirements of good parenting except that highly intelligent children generally need a more cognitive approach with more talking and more collaboration. Extremely gifted children need to be able to trust and respect those who are in charge of them.

This does not mean that they will blindly comply or obey. A thumbnail definition of depression that I like to use is this: depression is obligation without power. Depression comes from our anger at those who can control us even though they are fools or have fools’ expectations. Some adolescents act out their anger externally while others act it out internally via depression or other self-harming activities.

Three main types of parenting

The three main types of parenting are permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. Neglectful (Neglectfulness) is another type and definitely causes a lot of confusion and “rudderlessness” in adolescents. It’s often interpreted as “they don’t care what I do, therefore, they don’t care that much about me.”

Briefly,

· permissive provides too little structure or guidance and it often leaves the child feeling abandoned and angry;

· authoritarian is too strict and too rule-oriented and can make the child angry, hostile, and over-bearing as an adult (the affect differs between boys and girls);

· and authoritative is generally seen as the best for both boys and girls throughout childhood. The middle approach takes the time to explain, to listen, and to get the child to understand the ‘why’ of any rules and requirements.

What Can a Parent Do?

I tell parents to think about any expectation they have for their child and ask themselves why they believe it is important. If they cannot think of a good reason, or if the reason includes “That’s what people are supposed to do” or “I’m afraid people will think I’m not a good parent if you don’t do this,” then perhaps it is time to rethink the expectation.

Parents have to recognize that they themselves are still in the process of growing and maturing. As the children become adolescents, the parents are reaching their own new developmental stages of life. Parents need to admit that they are not perfect and are still learning and figuring things out themselves. They also need to have the confidence that their experience and hindsight is valuable and can be useful to their children. No matter how brilliant, an adolescent does not yet have adult perspective or wisdom.

So, what are some of these inappropriate school and home expectations? I’ll name just a few to get readers started:

· bedtime,

· homework,

· and curfews.

As children reach their teens, they can understand the medical research on sleep. Adolescents need more sleep than younger children. People have different biological clocks. Discuss these facts and then let your children experiment with how to set up their own schedules.

How much sleep you need changes as you age. Teenagers still need 8–10 hours a night.

I tell teenagers that if they find themselves having difficulty getting up in the morning, are cranky with people around them, or get too many colds, then they need to adjust their bedtime to ensure they are getting enough sleep.

You and they can set rules for a mutual comfort: no noise or phone calls after 9:00 p.m., for example.

Also, it’s not the parents’ responsibility to wake the teenager up in the morning or drive them to school if they miss the bus. It should be fairly obvious that a parent needs an extensive bag of tricks and motivators to ensure that the child still goes to school under these circumstances, but this all fits into a number of other issues, as you will see.

If an adolescent is not finishing homework or is trying to skip classes, why might that be? If the adolescent is exceptionally or profoundly gifted, what kinds of classes and assignments is the youth expected to do? If they are in general education classes that have other students and assignments far below the child’s own ability or achievement level, then the first very important change to make is to remove the youngster from the inappropriate environment.

When we try to force an extremely gifted young person to comply with rules and expectations that they have correctly perceived are completely wrong for them, can we be surprised when they express their power in the only ways remaining to them?

What About Motivating Your Adolescent Child?

Parents often ask how to motivate their children. Children are naturally motivated. The better question is:

How do I motivate an adolescent to do what I want even though it is — or they see it as — totally wrong for them?

Good question, right? I encourage parents to consider that motivation follows when the youngster is allowed and freed up to do what is interesting. Obviously some school subjects are not inherently interesting to everyone, but if the content and pace are appropriate, and the others in the class are capable of keeping up and discussing it at a similar level, it can become more palatable.

Also, teenagers respond very well to discussions about “not burning your bridges’ and keeping options open for the future by what we study today.

Seriously, Not Have a Curfew?

I heard a talk at my children’s school when they were still pre-adolescents where the speaker suggested that parents should loosen up the curfew until it was totally up to the young person by senior year in high school. The speaker was not invited back to the school, but I took what she suggested and expanded upon it for my own children. When giving the maturing adolescent more freedom and more decision making power, the parent must clearly inform the youth about dangers, risks, reputations, time management, responsibilities, and any fears the parent might have.

Realistically, it makes no sense to expect the youth to go from total parental control to total freedom as a college freshman. It is better to ease them into personal responsibility while you are still there to counsel and guide them.

One of my sons told me as he saw how sheltered too many of his classmates were, that girls, in particular, were “sitting ducks” when they went to college. Food for thought, people.

Further Resources

Baumrind, Diana. (1967, 1991). Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 75(1), 43–88, and The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. Journal of Early Adolescence, 11(1), 56–95.

CDC on sleep needs: https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/how_much_sleep.html

Free Spirit Books. See https://www.freespirit.com/

SENG (Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted). See https://www.sengifted.org/

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

How Giftedness, Personality, and Dabrowski Fit Together

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:56:00 GMT

Giftedness, Personality, and Dabrowski Podcast Interview

The photo here is one I took in 1993 at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, of one of the first Dabrowski conferences of this nature. It was an enjoyable event and I was fortunate to be able to attend. Click on this link to find the podcast and transcript. I’m still inept when it comes to embedding items, so more than one link will take you to the Positive Disintegration Substack.

Positive Disintegration

Giftedness and Personality

In episode 50, Chris and Emma talked with Dr. Deborah Ruf, author of the award-winning book 5 Levels of Gifted. In 2023, she released a follow-up book called The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us. Our conversation highlights her expertise in studying giftedness and personality across the lifespan…

Listen now

Dr. Wells provides a complete Transcript of our talk so you either read it or listen to it. The rest of this post was written by Dr. Wells and they gave full permission to post it here.

“In episode 50, Chris and Emma talked with Dr. Deborah Ruf, author of the award-winning book 5 Levels of Gifted. In 2023, she released a follow-up book called The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us. Our conversation highlights her expertise in studying giftedness and personality across the lifespan.

We started the episode by asking Deborah to share her journey and learned how she was first introduced to Dąbrowski’s theory in the early 1990s. Her dissertation study included the theory of positive disintegration, which she has worked with for many years. We discussed how she incorporated the theory into her work while exploring the complexities of giftedness, including its intersection with personality types and life circumstances.

Our personalities have a profound impact on our relationships with others as well as with our own self-understanding. Chris shared a few quotes from The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up during our discussion, including this one about the importance of the environment on development:

“It is not the high IQ or intellectual level that causes personal problems for many of our most intellectually gifted people. It is the ongoing presence of a poor environmental “fit” during their childhood. The better the fit, the better the social, emotional, and any other kind of well-being outcome measure, they will have.” (Ruf, 2023)

Overall, this episode underscores the multifaceted nature of intelligence and personality, shaping our interactions, self-perception, and adaptation to various environments. Embracing and understanding ourselves can lead to personal growth and improved relationships with others. We highlight the importance of adopting multiple lenses and frameworks to reach a fuller understanding. As complex individuals with diverse backgrounds, strengths, and environments, we require various perspectives to deepen our understanding, heal from past experiences, and develop.

Deborah emphasized that personality tests are not fixed and can change as we evolve. Personality tests offer insights into our current state, and by taking them multiple times, we can observe our growth and understand how different factors and periods in our lives impact our moods and responses.”

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

What About Dating and Adolescent relationships?

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 01:02:29 GMT

Adolescence is a difficult time for many people, and social and emotional issues are sometimes additionally exacerbated in the exceptionally or profoundly gifted adolescent when navigating friendship connections, romance, and greater independence in school and home.

Many extremely intelligent young people have difficulty with making friends, feeling attractive to — and understanding — the opposite sex, and also dealing with the powerful adults in their lives. Same-sex friendships and romance have their own aspects of learning and discovery and I hope readers can sort out the overlaps and make use of the information here, too.

As we look at some of the issues of friendship and romance among extremely gifted adolescents and young adults, we touch upon some ways parents, school personnel, and counselors can appropriately guide adolescents toward emotionally healthy friendships, romance, and independence.

Extremely Gifted People Differ in Many Ways

As background, it is essential to discuss some of the ways in which exceptionally and profoundly gifted children and adolescents vary from one another. Due to these variances, solutions for how to help and guide them also vary. And, of course, extremely gifted adolescents still have much in common with everyone else, too. Significant intra-personal (between people) differences can occur in the following areas:

Male/female differences
Personality type differences
Levels of giftedness
Evenness/unevenness of intellectual gifts
Talent differences
Physical appearance differences

Briefly, each of the above categories is real and makes a difference. It is foolish to think or behave in a way that denies that we see or feel differences. In most cases, however, many differences are less and less important as people get to know and feel close to each other.

As you read, keep in mind that one quality adolescents are looking for in adult authority figures is honesty. Adolescents are trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into the world’s big and small pictures. When we are not honest with them about how they differ from others, we complicate their own journey. We also undermine their trust and respect for any opinions or information we might give them.

Male/female differences

There is ample research, writing, and opinion on the ways males and females are different. Some of it is brain-based, some of it is hormonal, some of it is societal, and some of it is simply individual differences among people.

Michael Gurian, a therapist and writer, has specialized in gender issues and I highly recommend his books. See articles and research by Camilla Benbow, David Lubinski, Barbara Kerr, and Sally M. Reis to get you started on seeing the male-female issues combined with high intelligence.

There are significant shifts in expectations for women and girls, however, in countries where women’s rights have made it clear that some “supposed differences” between the ways women and men are and should behave have turned out to be more due to societal pressures and restrictions than true differences.

In general, males and females may have different sex drives and interests, and as with the above-mentioned differences, not all are generated by societal expectations or stereotyping. Additionally, boys and girls have a different developmental task as they grow through their adolescences: boys have to differentiate themselves emotionally from their mothers in order to become independent men. While girls need to separate themselves from their mothers, as well, they do not need to learn how to become different to the degree that boys do.

In my book The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (Ruf, D., 2023), Chapter 11 includes a section on gender identity. In some cases, the continuum of gender identity includes what Gurian has labeled “bridge brains,” and I encourage readers to read the reference to him on this topic to get a fuller explanation.

Personality type differences

Our personality types, learning preferences, and interests all vary. When someone is extremely gifted and placed in a school environment that does not fit them well because they are an outlier, too different from everyone else in intellect, it places extra burdens on social skills development.

Extremely gifted young people, needless to say, are very cerebral; they tend to ponder everything. They need information from the adults in their lives and guidance toward other sources of accurate information.

An extroverted child may find it easier to socialize with agemates but may have sadness over not ever feeling really connected to anyone despite all their efforts.

Introverted adolescents may be less likely to struggle to fit in because they enjoy more solitary activities and a few chums who will join them in a video game. But such a person, too, needs friendship, maybe a soul mate, and has few natural resources for finding any. Numerous websites and books, (do an online search or read my 2023 book) exist for helping families determine their personality styles and preferences. There are many personality sources and companies, but I find what matters is that what you look at makes sense to you. For personality information, my favorite is www.personalitypage.com. The low-cost assessments are also quite accurate and include descriptive information as part of the fee.

Adolescents can learn a great deal about themselves when they consider personality differences, including ways they can view others differently while changing some of their own expectations for themselves and others. Parents can also benefit when they learn how their teenager may be completely differently motivated than they, their parents, are.

Levels of Giftedness

The level of giftedness has a profound effect on how comfortable in different situations the young person will be, too. If the youth is part of a group, as in an advanced placement class, finding pals and receiving positive social feedback from classmates is more likely than if the young person is forced to sit through general education classes with students who are on a completely different intellectual — and interest — plane than they are. Intellectual level, per se, does not contribute to poor social skills. Too much time with people who are nothing like us can warp how we solve the intricate problems of learning how to get along with others.

Evenness/unevenness of intellectual gifts

Sometimes people are exceptionally or profoundly gifted in just one or two domains, and the one that stands out most often is math. Camilla Benbow participated first with Julian Stanley, and then with David Lubinski, to show that people who are more gifted in the nonverbal/mathematical domain than in the verbal domain are the most likely to go into careers in hard sciences than people who are either evenly gifted in both or stronger in verbal. In the context of this article, “hard” simply means facts and figures more than qualitative opinions and methods that cannot be as precise as the hard sciences. Why is that? Because when dealing with issues about living things, for example, there are far more caveats to any research results.

Furthermore, an unevenness of intellectual gifts can lead to a youngster not being identified as gifted because their IQ ability test results might give only one score — the final blend of the abilities, and the very high one might not be enough to push them into the gifted range for school programs. As a result, the youngster may never be placed in appropriately challenging learning environments with similarly minded potential friends. Talent differences can help or hinder a person’s connection with friends and romantic partners, as well.

Although it may sound funny to suggest it, I’ve made the intuitive leap to the observation that a number of social groups that are set up by high IQ or commonly-viewed-as-nerdy interests tend to have a high percentage of the unevenly gifted who are stronger on the mathematical sides of their brains. Such individuals can be introverts or extroverts. They can also be talkative and not talkative, but the one thing they tend to have in common is a difficulty with the kind of social conversation that helps people to make new friends easily.

Talent Differences

Some people who are good at sports have an easier time fitting in. Adolescents who sing or act or who are good at art also draw positive attention to themselves, which can help them over some of the initially awkward social meetings. At the same time, too much attention or dependence on one’s talent can attract negative consequences from those who are jealous or resentful. Some inexperienced, poorly guided, and talented young people may develop attitudes and behaviors that undermine any social advantages their talents bring, too.

Physical appearance differences

Finally, physical appearances make a big difference in what an adolescent’s social options are. The smallest boy in the class is almost always the target of ridicule and bullying; such treatment affects the developing self-concept. A beautiful girl has to learn social coping skills that are entirely different for her than her less attractive classmate, too. While a beautiful girl has more chances to find a boyfriend, she may be overwhelmed by how to treat all her suitors kindly while trying to study and plan for her own intellectual future. The less attractive girl may have more time for study, but how do her parents give her hope that she, too, is attractive and will find love and acceptance? Blithe reassurances that ignore some realities are not generally helpful.

There are also extremely gifted adolescents who are odd - or unusual — looking for one reason or another. This is true for all people! Parents who deny this when encouraging their children may undermine their own credibility.

Resources and References

1) Gurian, Michael. https://www.michaelgurian.com/

2) Benbow, Camilla. https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/camilla-benbow

3) Lubinski, David. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/bio/david-lubinski

4) Kerr, Barbara. https://epsy.ku.edu/people/barbara-alane-kerr

5) Reis, Sally M. https://education.uconn.edu/person/sally-reis/

6) See https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH

Additional resources:

Free Spirit Books. See https://www.freespirit.com/

SENG (Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted). See https://www.sengifted.org/

An earlier version of “Independence and Relationship Issues in Intellectually Gifted Adolescents” was published with Douglas Eby on his Talentdevelopment.com site. He is now on Medium here: https://medium.com/creative-mind-resources

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

What’s a Parent to Do If Their Child Talks Too Much?

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:50:05 GMT

Most parents are delighted and proud when their child shows advanced language skills. After all, that means the child is probably very bright, right?

But what if the child turns into such a talker that they interrupt others, demand more attention than you or their teacher can possibly give, gets in trouble in school for talking too much, or always seeks out adults instead of age-mate pals? These are certainly the problematic sides of what seemed like such a good thing when they were two!

Author aside: I apologize for the photo not being totally aligned with the topic. Showing off is a form of talking too much. I scoured photo sources for a young boy who monopolizes conversations, but almost everything that came up kept reverting to girl photos and people on the phone. Aside from being personally offended, I was simply shocked that photographers and AI developers appear to want to blame this “talks too much” issue on females.

Some Reasons Why Some Children Talk Too Much

It’s who your child is

The child craves attention

The child connects with others through talking

The child is simply excited to share everything that’s on their mind!

It’s Who They Are: For some children, talking is simply a part of who they are. They are verbally gifted, perhaps also extroverted, which means that they enjoy interacting with others through conversation. They find great satisfaction in conversation, just as some children will prefer more solitary play or reading when they are given free choice for how to spend their time.

Looking for Attention: Some children feel lonely or as though they are playing “second fiddle” to classmates or siblings. If they can get and keep your attention through conversation, they feel valued and important. For children who need attention, it can be painful every time they are told to be quiet or wait. It may confirm in their own minds that they do not matter.

Connecting with Others: Very bright children, particularly girls, make emotional connections by talking with other people. Very bright boys need an audience that “gets” what they are talking about. If the child is unusually smart, it may be hard for them to find others who are on their “wavelength,” people who get their jokes or can discuss the same interests. This is the child who follows the teacher around and who seems to seek out older children and adults to talk to. Of course, it isn’t always gender specific.

They Have So Much on Their Minds: When a child’s interests and abilities center around telling people what’s on their minds, what they did today, and what they know or learned, they truly need someone to listen and respond to them.

Provide Times to Talk

Sometimes children talk so much — and need to talk so much — that we don’t have enough time or interest to be their conversational pal as much as they’d like.

How can parents help these children to learn patience and good manners about when to talk and when to wait or listen?

We need to put more talking opportunities into their lives.

You can teach children how to find the best times for talking by showing them what those times are. You can arrange good times for talking when your children are young, and they will learn how to do it for themselves as they get older.

As a parent, grandparent, teacher, or baby-sitter, you can teach them to “delay gratification” — wait until a better time — when you remind them that sometimes they need to be quiet or wait their turn before talking, but that they have a “talking time” coming up soon with Aunt Janice, you, or “friend time” in their classroom. Many talkers learn to control their talking as they mature, but they also feel less inner pressure to talk at the wrong times when they eventually — and reliably — have enough opportunities to share their thoughts with others.

Times to Enjoy the Strength Area: Moms and Dads are busy people and sometimes you need others to provide time and attention to your little ones. In these cases, it is good to employ whatever additional help you can find to give your children suitable talking opportunities and outlets.

Start with relatives, baby-sitters, neighbors and other trusted individuals. If your child has other interests and talents, you can find tutors or mentors who can work one-on-one with your talkative, interesting child, too. Casual classes for groups of children often allow for free-flowing conversations among the children, too, and it doesn’t cause the same kinds of interruptions and problems as talking to friends in school during class time.

Times for Special Attention: Parents can do a lot to make their children feel special if they plan at least one overnight driving trip a year with each of their children — just one parent and one child at a time. Even an only child needs time alone with each parent, too. Kids can help choose the destination and the things you will do along the way and once you both get there. Try to arrange as many driving alone errands as possible and being home alone with only one child at a time, too, and turn off all media in the car when doing errands. Conversations will flow and that needed special talking time will come naturally. And it’s okay to allow for quiet, contemplative time, as well.

Times for Connecting with Others: Very bright, talkative children may have trouble finding age-mates who talk as well as they do or who share interests and humor. Spending time with older children or adults does not harm a child’s social skill development. In fact, all children learn social skills from people who have social skills, and that is usually older people! So, as you find special alone time with each of your children, don’t forget to ask as many others as you can to share the joy of getting to know — and talk with and listen to— your bright, talkative child.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Yes, You Can Actually Estimate How Smart Your Child Is!

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 01:08:09 GMT

I have found that the single most important factor for achieving academic—as well as social and emotional success—is whether or not the child fits their schooling environment.

Many parents wonder how their children compare to other children. They worry about how to select the best school for their young children and wonder if they will not only learn up to their potential but be happy in their school environment. But, before parents can make good choices about where their children go to school, they need to learn how their children compare to the other children who will go to that school they’re considering. The single most important factor for achieving academic as well as social and emotional success, I have found, is whether or not the child fits the school.

So, you need to find out how smart they are compared to the other students likely to become classmates. You may have very good reasons to suspect your children are above average, maybe even gifted (for example, your five-year-old is adding pupils and eyelashes to drawings of people or your three-year-old can read an “Exit” sign), but you’re not sure if this is advanced, normal, or means anything in particular at all. Knowing how smart your child is can be critical, because it helps parents to provide appropriate opportunities for their children’s increased growth, enjoyment, and success in areas of interest.

There are certain childhood behaviors — milestones — that can tell us when children are ahead of or behind others their age. Most of the charts on childhood development show the typical range of behaviors for each age group. If your child is ahead of those tables, that doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is on the fast track or slated to become the next Einstein. Levels of Giftedness range from those who are simply bright to those who are intellectually astonishing.

Here’s an overview of the various levels of giftedness and milestones that are common — but not necessary — to each Level. Here, also, are the numbers at each Level of Giftedness that you are likely to find in an average elementary classroom of 28 (or so) children. It is the overall “feel” of where the child fits that tells you the Level.

How rapidly could the child progress through the academics of grades K-6 lessons and objectives?

Level One (moderately gifted) ~ 4 years (or about 2/3 of the standard time)

Level Two (highly gifted) ~ about 3 years (or about ½ the standard time)

Level Three (exceptionally gifted) ~ 2 years (or about 1/3 the standard time)

Level 4 (exceptionally to profoundly gifted) ~ 1–2 years or less (or about 1/6 the standard time) particularly in their strength areas

Level Five (profoundly gifted) ~ less than 1 year

Level One — bright to moderately gifted

These children show interest in many things before they are even two years old — like colors, saying the numbers in order, and playing simple puzzles.
Most of them are good talkers by age three, and by four, many print letters and numbers, recognize simple signs, their name, and know most of alphabet.
By the time they are six years old, many read beginner books and type at the computer, and most read chapter books by age seven.
It is not unusual to find six to eight Level One children in an average classroom, children who are nearly always a few steps ahead of what the teacher is teaching the whole class.

Level Two — gifted to highly gifted

These bright children love looking at books and being read to, even turning pages without ripping them, by 15 months. Some shout out the name of familiar stores as you drive past.
Many of these children know lots of letters by 18 months and colors by 20 months, and between ages three and four, they count small groups of objects, print some letters and numbers, and they very likely drive their parents crazy with all their questions.
They’ll sit for what seems like hours as you read advanced level books, especially fiction and fantasy, to them, but they require a bit less of your time by age six, because most of them read for pleasure and information on their own by then.
Level Two children can find only one or two others in their classroom who are as advanced as they are, which starts to make it hard to find good friends.

Level Three-highly to exceptionally gifted

They’re born wide-eyed and alert, looking around the room, reacting to noises, voices, faces.
They know what adults are telling or asking them by the time they are six months. You say a toy, pet, or another person, and they will look for it.
Everything Level Two children do by 15 months, these kids do by 10 to 12 months, and such children can get family members to do what they want before they are actually talking.
By two years, many like 35+ piece puzzles, memorize favorite books, and know the entire alphabet — in or out of order!
By three years old, they talk constantly, and skip count, count backwards, and do simple adding and subtracting because they like to. They love to print letters and numbers, too.
They ask you to start easy readers before five years, and many figure out how to multiply, divide, and do some fractions by six years.
Most of these children are a full two to five years beyond grade level by age six and find school too slow.
There are one or two Level Three children in every 100 in the average school. They are rarely in the same elementary class and can feel very, very lonely.

Level Four-exceptionally to profoundly gifted (especially in at least one area)

Level Four babies love books, someone to read them, and they pay attention within a few months of their birth.
They are ahead of Level Three children by another 2 to 5 months while less than two years old.
They have extensive, complex speaking by two years, and their vocabularies are huge!
Most of them read easy readers by 3½ to 4½ years and then read for information and pleasure by age five, with comprehension for youth and adult level books at about 6–6½ years.
There are about one per 200 children in the average school. Without special arrangements, they can feel very different from their typical classmates.

Level Five-profoundly gifted across most domains

· Level Fives have talents in every possible area. Everything is sooner and more intense than other Levels.

· They have favorite shows before 6–8 months, pick out letters and numbers by 10–14 months, and enjoy shape sorters before 11 months.

· They print letters, numbers, words, and their names between 16–24 months and often use anything that is available to form these shapes and figures.

· They show ability with 35+ piece puzzles by less than 15 months and interest in complex mazes before they are three.

· Musical, dramatic, and artistic aptitudes usually start showing by 18 months.

· Most speak with adult-level complexity by age two.

· At two and three-years-old they ask about how things work, and science — particularly biological and life and death questions — emerge.

· They understand math concepts and basic math functions before age four.

· They can play card and board games ages 12 and up by age 3½ to 4.

· They have high interest in pure facts, almanacs, and dictionaries by age 3½.

· Most read any level of book by 4¼ to five years.

· They read six or more years beyond grade level with comprehension by six years and usually hit 12th grade level by age 7 or 8.

· We know they occur more often than once in a million and regular grade school does not work for them. Levels Three through Five score similarly on ability tests — very high. Tests can’t quite capture it.

Once you have a sense of your children’s abilities, you can provide them with more activities and experiences that build on these strengths and take advantage of their talents. Once you have a good estimate of how smart or advanced your children are, you can begin your search for appropriate environments. Choosing the right school for your children might be the most important decision you ever make for their healthy intellectual and emotional growth.

Author’s note: Deborah Ruf, Ph.D., Minneapolis, retired as a private consultant and specialist in gifted assessment, test interpretation, and guidance for the gifted. She now devotes her professional time to writing. She developed the Ruf Estimates of Levels of Gifted, which is delineated in her book, 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options, 2009. Her follow-up book, The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us, 2023, is a complete 20-year longitudinal study of the adult children and their outcomes. See www.fivelevelsofgifted.com for more information.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Cutting Science Funding Affects Everyone

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 11:26:29 GMT

As someone who works with incredibly able, intelligent people, many of them are one form of scientist or another. First, funding cuts would devastate some current work while crippling some research programs that will remain but not in their original state. This also affects who gets an education in their chosen field. Many smart people are looking to make a difference, to better the world, and getting wealthy isn’t on their agenda. The “soft sciences,” those fields that are qualitative more than they are quantitative, would be the first to go.

Examples of “soft sciences”:

Soft sciences are often referred to as social or behavioral sciences that focus on studying human behavior, societies, and relationships. This is the kind of work that I do. I have always been independent and that is partially because I have been fortunate enough to work out ways to fund myself.

Common examples of soft sciences include:

Psychology
Sociology
Anthropology
Economics:
Political Science
Linguistics

Examples of the “hard sciences” include:

· Physics & Astronomy

· Chemistry

· Earth & Planetary Sciences

· Biology

· Computer Science & Mathematics

Please listen and then do what you can. One deadline to make a difference and to Save Science is July 13, 2026: if you have any comments, please submit a comment to the site shown inside this Substack story.

If you click on the link, you’ll be able to follow more links. Free, no ads. Important.

Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg

Stop Vought. Save Science - A Call To Action With Dr. Colette Delawalla

Greetings all. Sending along the conversation I had today with Dr. Colette Delawalla, the Founder and CEO of Stand Up For Science. This is Colette’s third visit to Hopium land, and today I asked her to come by to talk about their urgent new campaign…

Listen now

3 months ago · 360 likes · 31 comments · Simon Rosenberg, Colette Delawalla, and Science Fight Club

This is a 30 minute presentation from the person who founded Saved Science a year ago. What’ coming down the pike now is awful.

_____________________________

By Simon Rosenberg on Substack June 8, 2026

From their new action page:

Russell Vought is trying to destroy American science & federally funded research as we know it.

OMB’s latest proposed rule, “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,” would require all scientific grants to be approved by political appointees, stealing approval power from career experts in their fields. Funding would be required to align with “Administration policies and priorities.”

Political appointees selecting or approving research proposals destroys the scientific process, which is exactly what this Administration wants.

This a direct threat to scientific independence, public health, and evidence-based decision-making.

Please join with Stand Up for Science to demand Congress stop this attack on science with direct and intense pressure on Trump and even legislation if that’s what it takes.

To learn more:

View the full OMB-2026-0034 Proposed Rule
View the SUFS Overview of the Rule Proposal
Read Dr. Elizabeth Ginexi’s Overview on the Rule Proposal
View the SUFS Guide to Leaving Public Comments
Learn How To Talk to Anyone About the New OMB Rule

Today Hopium is formally endorsing this campaign and encouraging everyone in our community to take an action - contact your Senators and Rep and please use this page to leave a public comment on the new OMB rule:

Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop this attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.

Any member of the public can submit comments on these regulations and comments can be as short or as long as you’d like. There is not a limit on comments, however 100 of the same comment count as one comment. Please note, the comment should be PERSONALIZED by you in order to be counted.

This action is CRITICAL as these comments provide groundwork for legal action should OMB ignore our commentary. Further, this information helps Congress understand why the proposed regulations are harmful to our nation.

A “well-commented” public call has hundreds of comments. We are aiming for THOUSANDS; ten thousand comments, to be precise. If everyone who has received federal funding in their career submitted a comment...we would blow past our goal.

This is an all hands on deck for our future, for our kids and grandkids, and for this great country. Please join this campaign to Stop Vought and Save Science. Encourage others to join you, and let’s work together to block one of the most reckless, dangerous, and illiberal things the Trump regime has yet attempted.

Excited to bring this timely conversation with a really important and dynamic new leader of our pro-democracy movement, hit like so more will see it, and share it with others. We have a month to kill this thing and failure is not an option!

Thanks all - Simon

OMG OMB! - A Brief Overview of OMB-2026-0034

Appointees Take the Wheel: Federal grants would now be approved by political appointees. The expert consideration that had been provided by peer review panels is now just one item in a list of potential considerations. Some government agencies have already made this change in response to an earlier executive order. The Stand Up for Science Foundation has learned that political appointees in those agencies have already contacted universities and other institutions and asked them to change the nature of their work in order to more closely align with the President’s agenda.
Makes funding subject to culture-war politics: The regulation includes extensive new requirements, including demands that awards “demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.” This includes prohibiting “denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic” in addition to “initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.”
The government may terminate and suspend grants at any time, for any reason: Agencies would now be able to terminate grants at any time if they no longer align with “agency priorities” or current administration policy. Previously, grants could only be canceled due to significant issues like fraud or mismanagement. This is significant when combined with OMB’s proposal to discourage awards that give recipients more flexibility, while pushing to lock them into multi-year commitments. The combination allows the government to lock-in projects that are aligned with agency priorities while retaining a way to terminate them if political priorities change.
Unscientific Requirements: The document seems to suggest that only studies that can be replicated would qualify for federal grants. Certain scientific activities, like observations of astronomical or weather events, are inherently not replicable. There is also language prohibiting acknowledgement of sex non-binaries that is incompatible with studying human development (see Chimerism, Sweyer Syndrome, etc.)
No Political Viewpoint Discrimination - Except for Prohibited Political Viewpoints: While the regulation prohibits viewpoint discrimination or discrimination based on political views, it also singles out specific topics, like disparate impact liability, as prohibited from receiving federal awards. It also expressly removes language that federal awards should support the public welfare and the environment.
OMB’s rules are now a requirement: Previously, the OMB gave agencies guidance to assist them in independently running and managing their own programs. This is no longer the case. Under the revised text, all instances of “guidance” have been replaced with language like “regulation” and “requirement.”
English Only, Foreign Collaboration Discouraged: The revised regulation severely restricts the extent to which foreign organizations may be funded by the U.S. government, adopting what it calls a “domestic first framework”. This is in addition to restrictions on cooperation with “covered entities” like institutions supported by the People’s Republic of China. The language, which is designed to extend limitations placed on NASA to the rest of the government, appears to conflict with carve-outs for science in the CHIPS and Science Act, which expressly permitted research projects that involve reciprocal exchanges of information.

The overview text of the document also suggests that awardees should not work with organizations that also work with foreign adversaries, which would generally prevent cooperation with almost all of America’s allies and major international organizations like the World Meteorological Organization (aka the folks who coordinate global weather forecasting) and CERN (where US scientists collaborate on the world’s largest particle collider).
Explicit ban on funding directed towards research on women, people of color, LGBTQ+ communities, and religious minorities: The proposed rule takes aim at DEI, defining it broadly as ‘unlawful discrimination’. This weaponizes civil rights language against the very communities who have been subject to discrimination. The practical implication for science is huge. Research focused on racial equity, health disparities, climate justice— or any projects that incorporate social dimensions or “broader impacts” —will face severe scrutiny or outright elimination. Science funding will be steered towards areas the administration deems aligned with “Gold Standard Science” or national priorities.
More time spent doing administrative tasks: Despite the Trump Administration’s promise to reduce administrative burden on scientists, the elimination of fixed amount awards and subawards removes tools that make it easier for the government to fund science projects, especially for large collaborations. This change significantly increases the amount of accounting and paperwork done by universities, research hospitals, and their partners. It creates significant extra workload for federal staff, who are now expected to micromanage awards.
OMB is bracing for lawsuits: One of the most revealing aspects of this 400-page documents is the extraordinary length of the legal justifications around two sections, the broad ban on DEI and gender ideology programs and the expanded power to terminate grants at any moment. This signals that the agency is anticipating strong legal challenges and that its proposed rules are on shaky ground.

Bio - Dr. Colette Delawalla, Stand Up For Science Founder & CEO

Colette Delawalla, PhD, is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Stand Up for Science. Under her leadership, the organization has mobilized thousands of scientists worldwide, supported whistleblowers across federal agencies including the NIH, EPA, NASA, and FEMA, advocated against cuts to federally funded research, launched a campaign calling for the impeachment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and is actively working to secure a pro-science congressional majority in 2026. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Emory University.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Many School Behaviors are Related to a Child’s Sex and Personality

Deborah Ruf — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 01:14:44 GMT

Over 35 years of working with and studying children and adults, especially those in the high end range of capability, I’ve learned that differing personality types between family members and school settings create significant issues for many people. And these issues often color their entire lives and self-concept.

On top of this, extroversion, being male, and having a sister are a triple whammy for most boys during their school years! Especially for gifted boys who don’t cooperate with parent or teacher goals for them. This piece will help you to see why that is.

I do longitudinal and case study research and writing. Here are some samples from my clientele and some of my “study subjects.”

From his and his parents’ reports, Donald always chose to be with his friends rather than change classes or develop goals that were not part of his own friendship group’s goals. When still in early elementary school, Donald was given an IQ test. He scored in the gifted range. He scored higher than his sister. But he floundered throughout his school years while his sister soared!

What’s up?

It all starts when the boy begins his elementary school years. All too often that happy, active, engaging boy starts to lose the joy that was such a noticeable part of him.

Extroverted people tend to prefer working with others

Donald was an extrovert as a child. So, how do extroversion and introversion compare to each other and how does it affect school behaviors?

E stands for extroversion. Extroverted people are energized by being with people and interacting with others. This does not necessarily mean talkative; an E can be quiet, even shy.

I stands for introversion. Introverted people gain energy by being alone. “Down time” generally means “alone time.” Introverts can be talkative and good in groups, but they need “alone time” to recharge.

How do the behaviors of extroverted school boys (and sometimes girls) compare to those of introverted gifted boys?

Common School Issues for Extroverts

Extroverted gifted children: Want to work with and do what others are doing. Resist individualized plans, subject acceleration (where friends are left behind), or working beyond what classmates are doing. Fewer E’s than I’s spend lots of time reading and instead prefer to discuss and pick each other’s brains.

Parental and Educator Viewpoint of Extroverted Children

Because they often defy the gifted stereotype of being a loner, they are seen as “not trying” rather than as extroverted gifted. If ongoing ability grouping is not provided, this child resists going to a pull-out gifted or accelerated program, won’t follow through on an IEP, gets restless doing independent study or online learning and the child, rather than the environmental expectations of his school and family, is blamed.

Common School Issues for Introverts

Most introverts dislike “group work” (working in groups), and they have a more difficult time making friends in mixed ability classes than an extrovert because they prefer one or two good friends, or a soul mate, or would rather read a good book.

Parental and Educator Viewpoint of Introverted Gifted Children

Parents and teachers are often concerned if the child doesn’t have a lot of friends or is a loner; adults often manipulate the situation to get the student more involved with classmates and learn to get along with “peers,” although this usually means “agemates,” not true peers.

As a result of his extroverted personality, combined with his high intellect, Donald wanted to fit in with his classmates. This means he wanted to belong and be liked by his classmates. If an extroverted boys’ coursework and pacing are lower — less interesting and challenging — than he could have handled, he can become impatient and restless and make different behavioral choices of whether to bother with the assignments or spend time clowning around or playing with his buddies. If the school offers a gifted program that meets once a week or so, or even for an hour each day, if his buddies aren’t in the program, he likely will not want to go.

There is very little ability grouping in the elementary through middle school years, so even when the high school offers higher level classes for the most intelligent and advanced students, many extroverted gifted boys will refuse to leave their buddies behind. It’s especially worrisome when the extroverted gifted boy is capable of a professional career and education but most of the families in his school are not headed for post-secondary schooling. Again, he is unlikely to see himself as college material. Plus, there can be a certain amount of “who do you think you are?” that reaches the boy. Do you think you’re better than us?

Schools Tend to Fit Girls Better Than They Fit Boys

At this point, I probably do not need to point out that Donald’s sister is a girl, and schools almost always work better for girls. Both boys and girls need a “good fit,” but what works best for most girls’ school behaviors may not work best for most boys. Also, school settings tend to fit the activity and learning modes of girls (more verbal and less physically active than what most boys need, thus the overdiagnosis of ADHD), a well-behaved, good grade-getting sister simply makes her brother look bad by comparison.

Donald reported, “My sister Arlene is always organized and hard-working, and my parents are clearly satisfied with her.”

The above situation leaves the boy, the girl, the teachers, and the parents all misconstruing what’s going on.

What is a “good fit” in school?

First, “good fit” and “best fit” pretty much mean the same thing. Some even call it a “maximal fit.” In the context of school and social life it means that the children feel as though they belong, that they are not outliers, or lonely, or weird compared to the others.

Blending many definitions together, there are two types of “best fit” and the more familiar term “Goodness of Fit”: how a trait or condition interacts, e.g., giftedness or personality, with the environment and how it interacts with the person or other people in that environment. Any trait in and of itself is not a problem; rather, it is the interaction that determines the “acceptability” of that trait.

It is not the same to say that because schools work better for girls, gifted girls experience a “good fit.” In fact, the fit is still inadequate for gifted girls especially if their intellectual abilities are in Levels Two through Five. Their agreeableness and adaptability can leave them severely under-achieving for their capabilities. Many gifted young women are later surprised that they could have been much farther along in their knowledge gathering had their fit been appropriate for them. Plus, good grades may have opened educational doors, but the good grades still didn’t tell them much about what to do with their lives or how to find work they love.

What Do We Mean by School Behaviors?

This is also where the type of school, who else is there and what the average ability level is in their classrooms, can have lifelong repercussions if students continue to accept, or be compliant with, what is offered. It can also deny them the opportunity to find true peers, both female and male, and pathways to the post-secondary institutions and careers where they ultimately would find their “best fit.” The changes in girls’ learning environments must start when they are in early grade school or most of them will not see that they are under-challenged and should seek more. Girls are usually more adept, too, at fitting in, and they often pride themselves on how well they get along with others. Of course that’s important, but it can cloud their ability to see the “getting along well” is often from her to them and not the other way around.

Had Donald’s school environment included lots of families and students who were as smart as Donald — and the schools he attended throughout his grade school years did not have that — Donald’s friends would have more likely set the expectation and pace as a group, as Harris points out in The Nurture Assumption (1998, p. 259), for working toward fulfilling and motivating careers. Extroverted gifted children, especially boys, are unlikely to choose to be the only ones who take on a more challenging learning opportunity. Either they all do it or none of them do.

Because Donald’s primary learning modes were not the same as his sister’s, he needed “moving around time” and hands-on activities. As an adult, almost all his work tasks are hands-on because he had the freedom to choose what he likes to do. Sadly, many boys like Donald end up feeling there is something wrong with them and they let other people down. Even sadder is that family and others often blame the gifted extroverted boy for failing and not living up to his potential.

What Can We Do to Fix This?

The best, most direct way to address this mis-fit issue for an extroverted gifted boy is to make sure the schools are set up to allow ability grouping in the strength areas of a group of learners, e.g., not just an independent learning plan. Until more schools do this — create ability grouping that was once the norm (it stopped in the 1980s because it was seen as unfair), or changing schools and having school choice, adults cannot expect this boy to get through it without emotional, mental health, and long-term academic and career damage. When a gifted boy is surrounded by true peers, he will fit, belong, and do what all the other kids are doing … because the curriculum and pacing fit them all! Please note that homeschooling, tutoring, or online learning rarely work well for extroverted boys.

Some key resources for parents and educators

The Minds of Boys and Girls - an Online Course for Parents - GURIAN INSTITUTE
This online course is divided into 7 Units and 27 sessions of video clips. The clips are between approximately 7 and 20…gurianinstitute.com

Boy V. Girl?: How Gender Shapes Who We Are, What We Want, and How We Get Along
Boy V. Girl?: How Gender Shapes Who We Are, What We Want, and How We Get Along [Marjorie Lisovskis, Abrahams, George…www.amazon.com

Why Gender Matters, Second Edition (2017)
Twelve years ago, Why Gender Matters broke ground in illuminating the differences between boys and girls-how they…www.leonardsax.com

Selected Bibliography

Gurian, M. (2003). What could he be thinking: How a man’s mind really works. St. Martin’s Press.

Gurian, M. (2011). Boys and girls learn differently: A guide for teachers and parents, 2nd edition. Jossey-Bass.

Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do. Touchstone.

Ruf, D. L. (2009). 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options. (Formerly titled Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind, 2005). Gifted Unlimited, LLC.

Ruf, D. L. (July 2023). The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us. 5LoG Press.

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf

Understanding Early Signs of Giftedness

Deborah Ruf — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:04:41 GMT

Gifted programming generally isn’t available for the youngest gifted children. But that doesn’t mean that the classroom teacher or parents can’t provide appropriate instruction and social interactions for students who are ahead of agemates before school, preschool, kindergarten, and the earliest grade levels of school. The material shared with you here comes from my being a classroom teacher, a parent, a researcher and consultant. That background includes my earning a PhD in Psychological Foundations of Education, Test & Measurement.

Generally speaking, both screening and individualizing for advanced young children can be managed fairly easily and informally. For the children who have started school already, all students in the classroom benefit from an approach that identifies and addresses different learning and social needs. There are many good reasons why it helps students enjoy and do better in school when readiness screening is done routinely. For parents who have very young children and need a way to do their own informal screening, this is also for you.

Key Takeaways

Students who are “gainfully employed” in active learning:

* are less likely to develop habits of inattention

* are less likely to grow restless and exhibit distracting or inappropriate behaviors

* are more likely to enjoy school

* are more likely to feel they are learning in school

* are more likely to actually be learning in school!

When you screen for giftedness, it is important to remember that there are levels and profiles of giftedness and — rather than cut-offs and test scores — you are looking for the relativity of a child’s abilities compared to the majority of the children in the classroom or among other children in the same age range.

During whole-class instruction and lesson planning, good teachers naturally teach to a level that is slightly below the average of what the majority of children can manage. This way, the children who may be seeing the material for the first time or who may need a somewhat slower and more repetitive pace, can benefit both from the instruction and they can all keep up. Most well-trained, experienced teachers already know how to differentiate their instruction to allow for more in-depth learning and investigation for children who can handle more.

The information I’ve included here is to help teachers (and parents and other caretakers) learn as quickly as possible who needs those deeper learning opportunities. Although copywritten, you only need to give author acknowledgement to others with whom you share.

A Brief List of Levels of Giftedness Behaviors

The following lists help parents and teachers to figure out what children are already ready to do and learn during the school day. These lists are derived from my own continuing study of bright and gifted children during more than 20 years of working directly with them and their parents. As you read through the milestones, keep in mind that the point of it is to find out where the majority of your students already are in their skills and interests and where that smaller group of advanced and rapid learners already is in their readiness for more during their school days. You will use this list to “score” the Parent Questionnaire that follows it.

Level One (Moderately Gifted)

• These children show interest in many things before they are even two years old — like colors, saying the numbers in order, and playing simple puzzles.
• Most of them are good talkers by age three, and by four, many print letters and numbers, recognize simple signs, their name, and know most of alphabet.
• By the time they are six years old, many read beginner books and type at the computer, and most read chapter books by age seven.
• It is not unusual to find six to eight Level One children in an average classroom, children who are nearly always a few steps ahead of what the teacher is teaching the whole class.

Level Two (Highly Gifted)

• These bright children love looking at books and being read to, even turning pages without ripping them, by 15 months. Some shout out the name of familiar stores as you drive past.
• Many of these children know lots of letters by 18 months and colors by 20 months, and between ages three and four, they count small groups of objects, print some letters and numbers, and they very likely drive their parents crazy with all their questions.
• They’ll sit for what seems like hours as you read advanced level books, especially fiction and fantasy, to them, but they require a bit less of your time by age six, because most of them read for pleasure and information on their own by then.
• Level Two children can find only one or two others in their classroom who are as advanced as they are, which starts to make it hard to find good friends.

Level Three (Exceptionally Gifted)

• They’re born wide-eyed and alert, looking around the room, reacting to noises, voices, faces.
• They know what adults are telling or asking them by six months. You say a toy, pet, or another person, and they will look for it.
• Everything Level Two children do by 15 months, these kids do by 10 to 12 months, and they can get family members to do what they want before they are actually talking.
• By two years, many like 35+ piece puzzles, memorize favorite books, and know the entire alphabet — in or out of order!
• By three years old, they talk constantly and skip count, count backwards, and do simple adding and subtracting because they like to. They love to print letters and numbers, too.
• They ask you to start easy readers before five years, and many figure out how to multiply, divide, and do some fractions by six years.
• Most of these children are a full two to five years beyond grade level by age six and find school too slow.
• There are one or two Level Three children in every 100 in the average school. They are rarely in the same elementary class and can feel very, very lonely.

Level Four (Exceptionally to Profoundly Gifted)

• Level Four babies love books, someone to read them, and pay attention within a few months of their birth.
• They are ahead of Level Three children by another 2 to 5 months while less than two years old.
• They have extensive, complex speaking by two years, and their vocabularies are huge!
• Most of them read easy readers by 3½ to 4½ years and then read for information and pleasure by age five, with comprehension for youth and adult level books at about 6–6½ years.
• There are about one per 200 children in the average school. Without special arrangements, they can feel very different from their typical classmates.

Level Five (Profoundly Gifted in All Areas)

• Level Fives have talents in every possible area. Everything is sooner and more intense than others Levels.
• They have favorite TV shows before 6–8 months, pick out letters and numbers by 10–14 months, and enjoy shape sorters before 11 months.
• They print letters, numbers, words, and their names between 16–24 months, and often use anything that is available to form these shapes and figures.
• They show ability with 35+ piece puzzles by less than 15 months and interest in complex mazes before they are three.
• Musical, dramatic, and artistic aptitudes usually start showing by 18 months.
• Most speak with adult-level complexity by age two.
• At two and three-years-old they ask about how things work, and high interests in science — particularly biological and life and death questions — emerge.
• They understand math concepts and basic math functions before age four.
• They can play card and board games ages 12 and up by age 3½ to 4.
• They have high interest in pure facts, almanacs, and dictionaries by age 3½.
• Most read any level of book by 4¼ to five years.
• They read six or more years beyond grade level with comprehension by six years and usually hit 12th grade level by age 7 or 8.
• We know they occur more often than once in a million and “regular” grade school does not work for them. Levels Three through Five score similarly on ability tests — very high.

Parent Report Form

Here is the Parent Report Form that I developed, but you can modify it to meet your particular needs. It’s easiest to send it via email so that parents can fill it out on-line. The form will expand according to how much they write, and you will get it back to save and review. After the parents fill it out and return it, read and note which “Level” the parent is describing so that you can discover who is ready for which topics and learning activities and which students are also able to work well together (be on the “same page”) in small-group learning activities. You are free to use it, copy and paste, or give it to a teacher.

Whether the teacher provides the screening inventory to parents of their students or parents bring the information to the teacher, it is the parents who complete the inventory.

________________________

Deborah Ruf, PhD Parent Early Childhood Report Form

Today’s Date __________________

Please complete this form as thoroughly as possible as it will help me to meet your child’s learning, social and emotional needs better in school when I know him or her better. The form expands as you write in your answers, so please do it online and return it to me by email, if possible.

Child’s Full Name: Birthdate:

Name of person(s) completing this form:

Does your child have any particular social or emotional issues you’d like me to know about? Please tell me if you already know that your child has any behavior or learning issues such as being very active, shy, anxious, or sensitive. Include, too, any concerns wishes, or hopes you have for this school year regarding these issues:

Does your child have any reading abilities yet? If so, please describe these in the items below.

1. About how old was your child when they started to recognize and also name letters?

2. How old when they knew the whole alphabet, could sing or say?

3. How old when they could identify any letter, upper or lower case, and also knew how many of them sounded?

4. About how old was your child when they started to recognize or read store, street signs, or words in books or the paper?

5. If your child reads beginner books, how old were they when this started?

6. Does your child read to themself?

7. Does your child like to read out loud and what is the quality of that reading?

8. Name or describe the most recent books or types of reading that your child has read in the last few weeks.

9. How did your child learn to read?

10. If you have anything else you wish to include about your child’s reading abilities, please give a description of his or her earliest reading progress, interests, and habits concerning reading (try to give ages at which these things happened, too):

Does your child show any math abilities yet?

1. When did your child start to use numbers? Describe what you mean, give examples.

2. How old when recognized numbers on signs, in books, etc.?

3. How old was your child when they could count to 20? Can your child count to 100 yet?

4. If you give your child 10 objects, can they count how many are there?

5. If you give your child 8 objects and ask them to give you five, can he or she do it yet?

6. Can your child sort objects into groups yet? How old were they when this started?

7. If your child can easily sort objects by number, as when there are a dozen pieces of candy and your child could put them in two, three, or four even groupings of candy, when did they first show an ability to do this?

8. Put an X for each thing your child can do already. Can your child count by twos? Threes? Fours? Fives?

9. Has your child shown any “intuitive” math abilities such as any of the following:

a. Adds small numbers in head, such as, “If we already have 2 apples at home and we buy 2 more, we’ll have 4 altogether.”

b. Adds bigger numbers in head, such as, “If we already have 6 apples at home and we buy 8 more, we’ll have 14 altogether.”

c. Figures out a subtraction problem in their head such as “If we have five pieces and we only eat two, there will be three left for later.”

d. Figures out a subtraction problem in their head such as “If we have 12 pieces and we only eat 4, there will be 8 left for later.”

e. Figures out a multiplication problem in head, such as, “If 6 kids are coming to my birthday party and I want each kid to have 2 mini-cupcakes, that means we’ll need to make 12 of them.”

f. Figures out a division problem in head, such as, “If 6 kids are coming to the party and we make 12 mini-cupcakes, that means each kid will be able to have 2 of them.”

10. What else, if anything, can your child currently do mathematically, in their head, in a computer program, or on paper?

11. Can your child be the scorekeeper or banker when playing different games yet? When did this start?

12. Tell me anything else that indicates advanced natural math abilities for your child.

Does your child have any handwriting abilities yet? If so, describe these abilities next.

1. At about what age did your child show an interest in writing letters and numbers down?

2. How much skill does your child appear to have in working with pencils, pens, paint brushes, etc. at this time? Put an X by each item that is true for your child.

a. My child loves to write. My child loves to paint. My child seeks out writing opportunities. My child seeks out painting or coloring opportunities.

b. My child is a fluent writer already and enjoys the activity. My child draws or paints within the lines quite well. My child really doesn’t enjoy any of these activities at this point. Add anything else you believe might be helpful to understanding your child’s small muscle control and dexterity (not including puzzles, building materials or LEGOS).

Does your child enjoy jigsaw puzzles, LEGOS, or mazes? If your child has enjoyed — and still enjoys — either of these activities, describe your child’s interest in, ability with, and ages at which these started for both puzzles and mazes. Ideas to cover include:

1. Age at which your child could do a 12 piece jigsaw puzzle with some help and guidance.

2. Age at which your child could do 35 piece jigsaw puzzles with help and guidance.

3. Does your child do 12 piece, 35 piece, or what size puzzles for fun now without help? If so, tell more about that here.

4. Age at which your child showed interest and some ability at doing mazes. Describe your child’s interest and ability at ages 4, 5 and 6, too. (If no particular interest, just skip this).

5. Does your child have interest and ability in working with LEGOS or other building types of toys? If so, when did this start? If so, is your child still interested in this activity?

6. If your child likes playing with LEGOS, is he or she more likely to follow the directions or create their own creative, free-form design? Describe.

Tell me anything else you think would be helpful for me knowing your child better and making this school year a great experience for him or her and your entire family:

Do you have any special interests or skills you’d like to share or use in a volunteer role from time to time in our classroom?

_________________

On top of asking parents to give you information about their children, do your own additional, informal screenings. First, set up play and activity centers. Observe and record different children’s interests, any dexterity issues, who the children choose as playmates (people, including kids, have an inherent ability to gravitate toward “true” peers, people who are in their ability range), and their overall general development. Second, screen your students one at a time for reading and math knowledge and abilities. In reading, try them out with letters, letter sounds, words, and actual reading. For math, go through recognizing numbers, counting, grouping, skip counting, etc., much like the milestones items listed earlier. Finally, check pencil grip and the child’s ability — and willingness — to write anything, copy the examples you give him or her, and note how much resistance you get from the child. That information helps you to learn just how much each child is currently capable of working independently.

Meeting Their Needs

As both an experienced classroom teacher and the parent of three grown gifted children, I recommend that you allow children to read whatever they want to read (and don’t feel guilty if that’s sometimes all you can manage for their “differentiation”), invite parents to loan or contribute materials for your classroom use, use small groups so you can provide different assignments and activities based on readiness (this also sets up a nice social situation for the kids in the group), use volunteers (parents, grandparents — talk to your principal about how to arrange this), work on dexterity issues by making sure you have several short, regular times a day when kids write or copy using a pencil and paper, and finally, consider “sharing” students across classrooms and grade levels when you find you have one or two students who are so different from the rest of the class that the only way they can work with “true peers” is to have some of their instructional time with kids from other classrooms or grade levels.

About handwriting: See Van der Weel FRR, Van der Meer ALH. Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom. Front Psychol. 2024 Jan 26;14:1219945. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945. PMID: 38343894; PMCID: PMC10853352. Free PDF: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:bbaa041d-617b-4a22-b418-88f8f2747ab5

Books and Writings by Deborah Ruf, PhD

Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf