Gifted and AT RISK!!

 From Clark, "Growing Up Gifted" Seventh Edition

Economically disadvantaged or low socioeconomic-status (SES) gifted students. 

• Low SES alone can be the most debilitating factor in the circumstances of a child, and 

where it exists enormous amounts of potential can be lost.   

• If the circumstances of poverty are added to cultural differences, the growing child risks 

alienation and very limited intellectual development. 

• Some children of low-socioeconomic status are also ethnically or racially diverse; 

however, many are not, and yet both groups are culturally diverse. 

• Economically disadvantaged (low-SES) students are being reared by poor, low-SES 

parents out of the economic (rather than ethnic or racial) mainstream. 

• The family’s role in the success of low-SES gifted learners is most important. They must 

encourage and monitor progress, communicate high expectations and standards for 

academic achievement, and view socioeconomic circumstances as motivators to succeed. 

• Many low SES families are characterized by the values and attitudes of poverty, which 

include a victim orientation, survival thinking, short-term planning, and dependency. 

• Children who withstand difficult circumstances and succeed despite the problems they 

encounter; they are known as resilient children. 

Identifying and providing for low-SES gifted individuals. 

• The most serious deficiencies for low-SES children are reported to be in cognitive 

functioning (e.g., the inability to observe and state sequences of events, to perceive 

cause-and-effect relationships, and to categorize); language skills (e.g., limited 

vocabularies and nonstandard grammar); and reading. 

• A major problem encountered in identifying and providing for gifted students among the 

low-SES population is the attitude, shared by teachers and parents alike, that giftedness 

cannot exist in this population.  

• By including the strengths and special needs of low-SES gifted learners in the curricular 

planning, these children have a better chance to develop their giftedness.