Counseling Gifted and Talented Children

Book excerpt: There is a gap between the enormous need for counseling services and research about the counseling needs of gifted individuals, on the one hand, and the limited availability of such services and knowledge on the other. This book is designed to give counselors, classroom teachers, gifted education specialists, and parents an understanding of the academic and social-personal needs of gifted and talented students, awareness of ways that they themselves may help these children, and an introduction to the available guidance strategies and materials. This book highlights the role of regular classroom teachers and teachers of the gifted in counseling; provides teachers, counselors, and parents with information about the wide variety of approaches to enrichment and/or acceleration; emphasizes the major role of parents in the development of their gifted children; stresses career education and guidance. Four chapters are devoted to important topics that have received very little attention to date-gifted girls, preschool gifted, disadvantaged gifted, and learning-disabled gifted. Finally, a unique feature of the book is a chapter in which fictional portraits of gifted and creative children are presented and analyzed.