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Concerning the development of the cognitive process, most individuals envision memory, intelligence, language, information processing, and attention. The developmental process consists of many degrees of intelligence ranging from mental retardation to the extremely gifted and creative individuals. To examine the gifted individual more closely, an interview was conducted with a woman named Deloris Tamers regarding her daughter Olivia Tamers. Olivia tamers IQ score revealed that she has an IQ of 145. Gifted and creative individuals have their own distinctive features and characteristics.
Santrock (2007), describes gifted individuals as developing high intelligences and IQ’s of 130 and higher. They also demonstrate exceptional abilities that exceed the average individual (p. 313). Children classified as gifted may excel in one specific area or many different areas. Deloris describes Olivia as exhibiting gifted abilities as early as age two. Olivia demonstrated the ability to speak three syllable words and could verbalize in an adult manner. Deloris recalls that Olivia mastered many developmental and cognitive milestones such as walking, crawling, and speaking at an early age.
Additionally, she required minimal instruction from adults to accomplish or master a task. Deloris recalls Olivia being less emotional than the rest of her children. However, Olivia required quite alone time or she would become disruptive and act out. At the age of three she could read numerous words and traced letters in book to teach herself how to write. When Olivia reached elementary school she was tested on her cognitive ability. The results concluded that she could converse and listen simultaneously.
As Olivia approached middle school (nine to ten) she was reading from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and participating in gifted classes. She was overly motivated on subjects she had a particular interest for. Olivia excelled in subjects such as science, math, and sporting activities. However, she required a large amount of motivation to do homework because she would lose interest. She skipped doing numerous assignments because she did not find importance in accomplishing the homework. She frequently manipulated her teachers into not requiring the homework on the day that it was due.
In high school she was also enrolled in the gifted program and took college courses in which she received college credit. Throughout college Olivia was given special circumstances. Many of the courses, in which she was enrolled, did not require her to be in attendance because she knew much of the information through self study. In these courses she was only required to be present for test taking. Currently, she holds a bachelor’s degree in Forensic toxicology. She also speaks three languages fluently. Santrock (2007) affirms that gifted individuals often become experts in areas such as medicine, law, business, and science.
However, they do not make discoveries in these areas that change the domain of the occupation (p. 314). Although Olivia has excelled in many areas throughout her life, she has had struggles in other areas of her life. She has struggled from adolescence to adulthood with time management. She has been consistently late to school, work, appointments, and job interviews. In turn, she has lost jobs, gotten discharged from medical practices, missed important tests, and has not interviewed for jobs in which she was qualified and sought after.
Olivia has also struggled with money management. She has had banking troubles and spent funds in which she did not have. As a result, she is severely in debt with no way to pay the arrears. Deloris is a mother to four children. When asked if any of her other children exhibited gifted abilities, she stated that Olivia’s older brother Joshua showed signs of giftedness. However, his abilities were unsupported because of lack of advanced education. Deloris recalls Joshua demonstrating exceptional mechanical abilities as a child and all through adolescence.
In his first year of college he unknowingly enrolled in a second year course. Although he enrolled in an advanced course, he passed with an excellent grade. Joshua was never officially tested for gifted abilities. Deloris can only speculate that he also was a gifted child. Long standing debates have left the question: nature or nurture? “According to John Locke (and earlier theorists such as Aristotle) individuals are born with minds that are “clean slates (also known as Tabula Rasa)” (Sinclaire, 2009). Many theorized that nurture was crucial to defining an individual’s path.
However, other theorists believe that both nature and nurture contribute to an individual’s personality. It is believed that an individual’s “DNA not only interacts with signals from other genes, but from the environment in which an individual lives” (Sinclaire, 2009). Supporting a creative child’s abilities is crucial to his/her success in the future. “Individuals who are gifted recall that they had signs of high ability in a particular area at a very young age, prior to or at the beginning of formal training. This suggests the importance of innate ability in giftedness.
However, researchers also have found that individuals with world class status in the arts, mathematics, science, and sports all report strong family support and years of training and practice” (Santrock, p. 314). References Santrock, J. W. (2007). ATopical Approch to Life-Span Development (3rd ed. ). New York, NY: Mcgraw-Hill. Sinclair, N. (2009). John Locke & Education. Research Starters Education, (), 1-7. Retrieved from http://web. ebscohost. com. ezproxy. apollolibrary. com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=6&hid=17&sid=f6e9b2f3-ed13-479a-b2ab-b2a28dbd64ed%40sessionmgr12