Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Giftedness is no prize but a fit problem — the IQ does not decide, whether teaching and environment fit the child does.
Also known as: gifted · high ability · high potential · IQ above 130 · twice exceptional · 2e · underachievement
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Giftedness is usually spoken of from an IQ around 130, that is roughly two percent of children. It sounds like an award, but in daily life it mainly means this: the child does not fit the standard pace. The real problems are under-challenge, boredom, dawdling, refusal, headaches and tummy aches before school, social isolation and a persistent sense of being different. Some children switch off, some disrupt, and others adapt perfectly and go unnoticed for years — girls especially, which is why they are identified systematically later. Central to it is asynchronous development: thinking is often years ahead of the age group, while emotions, frustration tolerance and handwriting are not. An eight-year-old can debate black holes or fairness and cry ten minutes later over a lost game. Both belong together and are not a contradiction. The “twice exceptional” combination is often missed — gifted and at the same time ADHD, autistic or dyslexic. Ability and difficulty then cancel each other out, the child looks average, and neither is recognised although both are needed: enrichment and support. An IQ test alone makes no child happy; it only places them. What really counts is adapting the teaching — depth instead of more of the same, grade skipping where it fits — and contact with like-minded peers who think similarly. In Switzerland assessment runs via the school psychology service, supported by the paediatrician or child psychiatry.
An extra worksheet punishes speed. An own project, a harder question or a different angle carries.
A club, course or group where such questions are normal counters isolation better than most school measures.
Gifted and at the same time ADHD, autistic or dyslexic is more common than assumed — and routinely missed twice.
Skipping a year or taking single subjects higher up helps many — social fit matters as much as the material.
A child praised for cleverness later avoids anything risking looking stupid. Praise effort and detours instead.
An instrument, a sport or a genuine challenge teaches practice, failure and persistence — otherwise sorely missing.
Testing makes sense when concrete adjustments follow — not to have a number in a drawer.
Asking big questions about death, war or justice early does not make a child mature enough to carry them alone.
Being highly gifted is not an illness and needs no drug. What is treated is what can come with it: ADHD, anxiety, depression, sleep problems — and here the important point is that high ability can mask an attention disorder for a long time, because performance is still sufficient. What works in studies is fit: skipping a year, enriching the material, groups of similarly able peers. Being under-challenged often shows as disruption, withdrawal or refusal.
By the usual definition, being highly gifted means an IQ above 130 — about two in a hundred people. The test is informative from about five years and varies strongly in younger children. About one in five highly gifted children performs clearly below their potential. Skipping a year shows good long-term results in reviews, both in learning and socially — the widespread worry about it is not borne out by the data.
The child daydreams, disrupts or takes forever over tasks it mastered long ago — under-challenge often looks like laziness.
Morning tummy aches, headaches before school, “I don’t want to go any more” — a warning sign, not an excuse.
Grown-up conversation and childlike tears in one afternoon: asynchronous development is typical, not contradictory.
They seek older children or adults, find playground talk dull and say nobody gets their topics.
A child who never had to practise experiences the first failure as a disaster and then avoids anything hard.
Under-challenge, unrecognised dyslexia or ADHD can mask each other — the child then simply looks average.
A lack causes exhaustion, problems concentrating, low mood and forgetfulness — and it is one of the few causes that can be found and put right with a single blood draw.
Low values are common with low mood. Whether correcting it lifts the mood is not settled; that it makes sense in winter at our latitudes is.
An empty store causes tiredness, lack of drive and problems concentrating long before any anaemia becomes visible. In women of childbearing age the most common single reason.
A building block of the cell coverings in the brain. The studies on mood are inconsistent; as part of a good diet it belongs there anyway.
Needed for making the messengers in the brain. It runs short with alcohol and under certain medicines — and it is always judged together with B12.
High ability is not an illness and needs no supplement. What nonetheless keeps turning up in consultation: chronic lack of sleep from switching off late, and iron deficiency from one-sided eating. Both look like loss of concentration and both are measurable.
Clearly worthwhile and well supported when deficient — vegan, older adults, certain drugs. No energy boost without a deficiency.
Clearly worthwhile and well studied when deficient; fewer data for the wider uses. Fat-soluble — check blood levels at high doses.
Clearly effective with proven deficiency, useless without. Take only with a documented deficiency — excess is harmful.
Effects on inflammation and triglycerides established; cardiovascular prevention is mixed. Watch quality and freshness.
In pregnancy clearly established against neural-tube defects, otherwise mainly with deficiency. Can mask a B12 deficiency — watch both.
A late body clock and a lower need for sleep are more often described in highly gifted children. That is no diagnosis and no proof — but it explains why the school morning is the hardest part of the day for some.
Being under-challenged for months is strain just as being overwhelmed is — with the same physical signs: stomach ache in the morning, headache, poor sleep. That is rarely read in this direction.
Children who immerse themselves for hours forget hunger and thirst. Fixed times and food within reach prevent late-afternoon irritability — it often has a simple cause.
In children who sink into one thing for hours, movement balances the physical restlessness that builds up. This is not a therapy approach but everyday structure.