Note: This article includes additional questions and answers and supplementary resources from the Member Profile interview with Debbie Clelland, RCC, published in the Fall 2021 issue of BCACC’s Insights magazine.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616303324
“When we are talking about someone being intellectual, athletic, emotional, sensory, or any form of giftedness, it comes across as bragging, and it is off-putting and taboo. The word “gifted” is loaded. Because of this gifted disconnect, gifted persons are seen as awkward, misfit, weird, eccentric, and nerdy. Gifted people are highly misunderstood, misidentified, and misdiagnosed. There is a large confusion with elitism, success, and achievement that interferes with understanding giftedness. Because of the array of misunderstandings, gifted persons tend to experience social isolation and exclusion.
A person who is not understood and who lacks visibility because of exclusion can suffer devastating consequences to the brain, body, mind, and psyche. Specifically, social isolation activates the pain centres in the brain as physical pain. Pain, regardless of the source, activates the same brain pathways. Simply put, pain is pain. When individuals are suffering, they not only have challenges, but they also develop maladaptive behaviours and are seen as acting out.”
Working with gifted people and their families is a passion, both professionally and personally, for Debbie Clelland, an RCC since 1997. Her decision to become a counsellor was inspired by seeing the difference her mother, also an RCC, was making in people’s lives.
In 2003, everything changed for Clelland when her children, then ages seven and nine, were assessed as gifted. As is typical for many gifted children, the assessment was recommended by teachers because of behaviourial issues. While assessment meant some individualized education was available for her children, that was it.
“We got to the end of the support road very quickly, but that was definitely not the end of the support we needed as a family,” says Clelland.
Like any parent, she had many questions. What is gifted and where does it come from? Why are the behaviour problems happening and what should I do? Does it sound like we think our children are somehow better than others, which, of course, we don’t? Does it seem like we’re pretending about this? What does it mean for our family?
Fortunately, Clelland found a strong parent organization called the Gifted Children’s Association of BC. She also decided to pursue a PhD in Educational Psychology with her thesis under the supervision of Dr. Lannie Kanevsky, who is known for her gifted education courses for teachers. Since then, Clelland, who teaches at Adler University, has been helping gifted people and their families in her private practice and advocating for better resources and support, including the recognition of giftedness as a neurodiversity.
What is giftedness, and how does it help to have giftedness recognized and understood as a neurodiversity?
My favourite definition of giftedness was developed by the Columbus Group, a group of psychologists, counsellors, and parents. They say:
“Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly vulnerable and requires modifications in parenting, teaching, and counseling in order for them to develop optimally.”
I want to emphasize that giftedness is one form of neurodiversity, and it is not exclusive. Many people have giftedness as one part of their neurodiversity experience, and they may also have other kinds of diagnoses, for example ADHD. In the past, it’s been called being gifted and twice exceptional if you have an additional diagnosis or learning difference (e.g., dyslexia). But we know that life isn’t that simple, and many people have more than two. The more common term these days is “multi-exceptionality.” When I’m talking about gifted, I’m talking about anyone who includes giftedness but may also include other kinds of multi-exceptionalities.
If giftedness can be recognized, it can be accepted as a special need for children, so they hopefully get consistent support in the educational system and their parents are supported as parents of special needs children. Support psychologically with adapting to having a special needs child, and perhaps practically with the education system.
If we actually have giftedness recognized, then maybe the school system and the community systems of mental health would be able to consistently support the needs. And potentially, it may be accepted that you don’t grow out of giftedness as an adult. The asynchronous development levels out to a certain extent over time so it doesn’t seem as extreme, but it doesn’t mean your neurodiversity has changed. It just means that you’ve learned how to live in the world and perhaps pass as a “normal person.” Because being bright or standing out is not really accepted.
Can you give us an example of new research that recognizes giftedness as a neurodiversity?
The very exciting thing is that we now have a lot more to rely on to help us all understand that giftedness actually is a real thing. The work I’m mostly referring to is by Nicole Tetreault. She defines herself as a neuroscientist, but she has focused quite a bit on giftedness. She says every single person has a unique brain map — similar to a fingerprint — called neuro-individuality. Gifted individuals are hardwired differently. Tetreault says:
“Their differences encompass brain anatomy, bodily perceiving, sensory processing, levels of intensity, increased sensitivity to bodily sensations, emotional intelligence, and elevated responses to the environment. They have a unique biology from their brain maps to their genetics to their sensory processing to their emotional processing to their bio rhythms. Every individual navigates in his or her own way. In the human population, there’s a vast array of ways to do that.”
Most people think of gifted people as being really smart: what is actually happening?
This is where the myths come from that gifted people will be fine on their own. They do have some potential opportunities for fitting into a super-smart category, but this is why the neurodiversity research as so important. The 30 years of brain studies talk about 11 different domains of brain differences and brain maturity. That means there are different ways the brain is maturing in an asynchronous way, especially during adolescence. Gifted people learn at an accelerated rate. They have more intellectual challenge creating more flow in their brain. They process emotion in a more mature manner compared to same-age peers.
One of the most helpful things I read as a parent was written by another parent who described their child as having been “afflicted with giftedness.” As a parent, that was part of my experience: I had a child with special needs, and I didn’t live in a world that knew about that or could support me in that. It’s not an easy path.
And just like anyone else who has some kind of difference, they often will hide it. The parents hide it. The children hide it, especially preteen and adolescent girls. It is not a well-accepted special need. It’s misunderstood, it’s misdiagnosed, it leads to isolation, and that literally leads to pain perceived as pain in the brain, just like any other pain.
What’s it like for families trying to ensure their child receives suitable education?
One of the impacts on the families as they try to figure out what they need to do to give their children what they need. Some highly stimulated children literally cannot be in a classroom. Many parents rearrange their entire life and sometimes their family’s entire life to meet the educational needs of their children. They might move to Richmond, for example, to attend one of the only gifted-focus schools in the province, which is an independent school. There’s also an incredibly large population of people who are homeschooling their children, because they just cannot get what they need from the educational system.
I’ve talked to quite a few parents who are at a crossroads, where they either have to battle the school system for the entire time that their child is in school, or they have to homeschool them and become a teacher. There are very clear decisions that parents make about that. They decide. It often seems to be related to the resourcing and personality of the parent as to whether or not they’re going to take on the battle with the school system or they’re going to just bring their kids home and homeschool them.
How does being gifted affect adults?
Adults don’t necessarily know that they would have been identified as gifted. Perhaps they were in school years ago. They don’t often know that their own upbringing may have been affected by that or that they might be experiencing similar kinds of impacts as an adult. What I’ve found over and over again at presentations I’ve participated in and/or given myself is that a lot of people in the audience can relate and even cry when they hear the list of gifted characteristics. Then they have to figure out how their peer relationships have been impacted by this and how they can help their children.”
Something I think is really important to understand is that most of the people who work with gifted adults don’t actually use the word “gifted,” because gifted adults have a very difficult time identifying themselves or being okay about using the word “gifted.” My favourite resource for people who are looking at giftedness as adults is by Paula Prober. She’s got a blog called Your Rainforest Mind and a book called Journey into Your Rainforest Mind: A Field Guide for Gifted Adults and Teens, Book Lovers, Overthinkers, Geeks, Sensitives, Brainiacs, Intuitives, Procrastinators, and Perfectionists. She coined the rainforest mind analogy and I just love it.
The rainforest mind analogy is a way to describe the type of giftedness. If people are compared to ecosystems, then people as meadows, deserts, and oceans are all valuable and beautiful. One is not better than another. It’s just that the rainforest ecosystem is the most complex and is being destroyed every day. We might compare this to our gifted individuals who are suffering when we misunderstand and misdiagnose them.
Like the rainforests, are you intense, multi-layered, colorful, creative, highly sensitive, overwhelming, complex, idealistic and influential? Like the rainforest, are you misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and mysterious? Like the rain forest, have you met too many chainsaws? If you answered yes to these questions, you may have a rainforest mind.
How is giftedness perceived in mental health?
Giftedness is less understood in the mental health field because it’s considered a special need within the school system but not a disorder in the DSM. There are pluses and minuses to that. On the one hand, it’s a label and it can be incredibly confining for people. But it also opens doors, because when you have that diagnosis, depending on the type of neurodiversity or disorders, you get funding, or you have programs that you can go to. That’s the two-edged sword of the disorder conversation.
When we look at counselling needs, I draw a reference from the Encyclopedia of Adolescence written by Jean Peterson, a school counsellor who has been working with gifted children her whole career. Just like working with any other complex minority culture, giftedness needs to be respected and seen as an exceptional ability that is affecting all aspects of life. When counsellors are working with gifted children and families, they need to communicate respect for both the cognitive and affective aspects of giftedness, not necessarily just that intellectual part.
Tell us about the needs assessment you did for your PhD thesis?
In 2009, I surveyed 525 parents in four provinces and asked them about their concerns and the kinds of information they need. In 2019, I asked a panel of experts how applicable these topics are currently. They reported 29 of the 30 top issues are still relevant today. This means we have made very little progress over the last 10 years.
Some examples of the information parents need include help for their children in the school system and outside school, how to teach children to advocate for themselves, and how to teach teachers what giftedness is and what their child needs. At home, parents need help figuring out emotional development and how to determine their child’s strengths and challenges. Concerns include feeling like their child’s success depends on advocating in the school system and incredible pressure to support their child’s talent development.
Parents reported that their children were lacking academic challenges, were bored, sometimes had poor social skills, were disorganized or forgetful, and were troubled by perfectionism.
Other issues include underachievement, disordered eating or other self-injury, misuse of substances, stress, trauma, bullying, isolation, anxiety, depression, disruptive behaviour, sexual orientation, unhealthy perfectionism, and thoughts of violence. There are studies to backup each of these as presenting concerns.
It sounds like, “Oh, that’s my normal list of who I would talk to in my counselling practice, maybe except unhealthy perfectionism and underachievement.” But what happens here is that these characteristics associated with giftedness intensify how these different things are experienced.
For more information on the survey, see Clelland’s work listed under Resources.
How is giftedness supported — or not supported — in BC?
Here in BC, we have a very underserved gifted population. It’s a perpetual cycle. where educators don’t know about giftedness or get consistent training and support to meet educational needs. Parents don’t know what giftedness is, so they don’t know what they’re looking for at home. We look to the schools to do the identification, but the schools aren’t doing identification. That has gotten dramatically worse over the years. In BC, in 2002, they stopped providing specific funding for what they call high-incidence special needs, including giftedness. Between 2002 and the 2018-2019 school year, identification of gifted students decreased by 69 per cent.
The other thing happening in BC is a trend towards inclusive education. For example, the Vancouver School Board recently cut all honours programs, because they’re perceived as being more exclusive for wealthy families. Well, inclusive education in general is about bringing all children into the same classroom, which works fine if you actually have small classrooms with trained teachers and allocated resources for differentiated learning needs. But that’s not what we have. We have the same old classrooms and inconsistent opportunities for differentiation in the way students need it. We don’t have required courses for any special needs for teachers. Counsellors don’t know what giftedness is. BC is actually doing worse than other provinces as far as publicly funded programs and schooling. For example, Alberta has publicly funded charter schools specifically for gifted students. Nova Scotia has a major school-wide enrichment model for differentiation and enrichment in the inclusive classroom. But we don’t have that here.
What makes this work rewarding for you?
Many different types of diversity are incredibly important, but what I found is that giftedness is one of the most under-resourced and misunderstood types of diversity. It gets very little attention or recognition as something that needs support. Helping parents of gifted children and gifted adults understand some of the experiences they have that just may not have made sense. Helping them figure out what’s going on and how can they weather the storms and make choices that are right for their particular circumstances. I’m still working full time at Adler University, but I’ve also opened a small coaching practice and that’s the focus of my practice and my volunteer work. Being able to support these folks who just really have very few people to turn to — that’s very rewarding.
What is your message to other RCCs?
In the needs-assessment survey I conducted for my PhD thesis, participants named “turning to counsellors and mental health professionals” as being incredibly important. It was second on the list after “written materials for gaining information.” It was in the top three for “dealing with concerns” along with talking with a partner and parent support groups. Results also indicated a need for experts to help them understand what’s going on and how to navigate all of it. RCCs are so important in helping families deal with giftedness. But if RCCs don’t know about giftedness, then they won’t understand that it’s a real thing — a neurodiversity we all need to be tuned into and have information about to be effective.
The other part that’s really important that I really, really want counsellors to know about is that a way to make this inclusive is to identify and serve more gifted students. The National Association of Gifted Children in the US recommends that we consider 10 per cent of the population to be gifted. If we do that, then we’re going to be capturing a lot more of the students who come from diverse backgrounds or have multiple kinds of exceptionalities and biases and, perhaps, marginalization, and that will allow them to also be included as people who are gifted and need to be understood and have supportive educational and mental health resources.
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Debbie Clelland has been learning about giftedness personally and professionally since 2003. She teaches in the Counselling Psychology Masters Programs at Adler University and has a part-time private practice supporting giftedness with parents and adults: www.DebbieClelland.com.
Resources
Karpinski, R.I., Kolb, A.M., Tetreault, N.A., & Borowski, T.B. (2018). High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities. Intelligence, 66, 8-23. [MENSA study] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616303324
Tetreault, N.A. (2020). Insight into a bright mind: A neuroscientist’s personal stories of unique thinking. Gifted Unlimited LLC.
Downloadable resources on the Gifted Research & Outreach (GRO) website: https://www.gro-gifted.org/resource-library/ and specific relevant article “The gifted brain” at https://www.gro-gifted.org/portfolio-items/the-gifted-brain/
Definition of Giftedness: On NAGC website (group of counsellors, psychologists and parents, apparently “coined” term “asynchronous development” (Gifted parenting support, 2013, November 11, The Columbus group conference, https://giftedparentingsupport.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-columbus-group-conference.html)
Funding cuts: BCTF, 2019, March. Inclusive education and special needs in British Columbia. Education Facts. https://bctf.ca/publications.aspx?id=49000 )
Lannie Kanevsky’s Possibilities for Learning website, including brilliant behaviours checklist and educational options: http://possibilitiesforlearning.com/brilliant-behaviors/
Understanding the overexcitabilities and how to support/manage them at home and in the classroom: Lind, S. (2011, Sept 13) Overexcitability and the gifted. Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG). https://www.sengifted.org/post/overexcitability-and-the-gifted
Debbie Clellend’s PhD thesis/BCACC presentation: Clelland, D.A. (2009). Needs for information and concerns of parents of gifted children in four Canadian provinces. Simon Fraser University. http://summit.sfu.ca/item/9753
2019 BCACC conference at https://bcacc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/DebbieClelland.pdf
Resources for counsellors to learn about giftedness & info on prevalence and presenting concerns:
Jean Peterson’s Encyclopedia of Adolescence (2018) resource: Peterson, J. S. (2018). Giftedness: Asset and vulnerability. In R. J. R. Levesque, Encyclopedia of adolescence (2nd ed.). Springer Science+Business Media.
Handbook for counselors serving students with gifts and talents: Cross, T.L., & Cross, J.R. (2012). Handbook for counselors serving students with gifts and talents: Development, relationships, school issues, and counseling needs/interventions. Prufrock Press.
2015, Volume 93, Issue 2: special section of the Journal of Counseling and Development. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15566676/2015/93/2
Paula Prober’s work with gifted adults: Prober, P. (2019). Journey into your rainforest mind: A field guide for gifted adults and teens, book lovers, overthinkers, geeks, sensitives, brainiacs, intuitives, procrastinators, and perfectionists. Luminaire Press.
Also link to her blog and quiz: https://rainforestmind.wordpress.com/
Local support for children and families: Gifted Children’s Association of BC: https://giftedchildrenbc.org
