Defining giftedness has proved to be a great problem for educators and researchers worldwide. Given the different levels of intelligence possessed by people, there are difficulties using a general definition to encompass everything. There are many terms used in literature in the area. A brief description of each of these is listed below.

Precocious

This refers to the ability to do something at an age earlier than expected, e.g. early reading or mathematical ability. Precociousness in children is usually an indicator of high ability or giftedness. (It should be noted that early reading is not necessarily an indicator of high ability, because reading is a learned skill).

Prodigy

This is someone who has extraordinary levels of achievement in one area, much higher than one might expect for that age. Mozart is a well known example of a musical prodigy who lived up to his early promise. Interestingly, not all those who achieve prodigiously as adults were prodigies as children.

Genius

This refers to a person who has demonstrated enormous achievement in an important field, e.g. Einstein or Freud. Historically this term was used widely to describe gifted individuals and has led to much confusion in the identification of giftedness.

Talent

Talent is usually associated with giftedness in the arts or music. A talent is often an ability that has become a highly developed skill through practice. It is not usually recognised as gifted in an Irish context where there is more of a focus on academic giftedness. In the UK the whole area of high ability focuses on the gifted and talented.

Advancement

This refers to achievement ahead of what is expected. Rapid learner falls into this category and is often used to describe gifted children.

Superior

This term is mostly used in testing. It is a psychometric term and means 1.5 standard deviations above the mean. Very superior would measure two standard deviations above the mean. Superior in itself begs comparisons to other people as there is a classification that the student is superior to someone or something.

At CTY Ireland, we prefer to use the term “high (or exceptional) academic ability”