Understanding “Giftedness” as Neurodivergence

November 2, 2022 Kathryn Soraya Khamsi

A More Nuanced Understanding of Giftedness is Needed

A distinguishing characteristic of neurodivergence is intensity, and giftedness is best understood as a particular type of intensity. Polish Psychiatrist Kazimierz Dabrowski referred to giftedness as overexcitability. In his Theory of Positive Disintegration, he observed a heightened sensitivity or awareness, as well as responsiveness, to sensory stimuli among “gifted” individuals. He identified five areas of overexcitability, each with its benefits and challenges (as summarized below):

Intellectual
Emotional
Sensual (sensorial)
Psychomotor
Imaginational

Dabrowski’s framework provides a more dynamic understanding of giftedness and one that goes beyond social tropes and high IQ, broadening into other facets. Being gifted is often misunderstood, and it’s not an easy gift. Gifted children are often:

misdiagnosed or undiagnosed,
understimulated,
out of step with their peers, leading to feelings of loneliness or being an outsider,
yearning for a different level of connection and friendship than most peers can provide,
pressured to conform or perform, and/or
struggling with perfectionism.

Giftedness (or overexcitablity) may coexist with other neurodivergent conditions, adding additional complexities, as with Twice Exceptional (2E) profiles.

In the following overview of Dabrowski’s areas of overexcitability, I hope readers will come to a greater appreciation of the breadth and nuances of being gifted. This framework is not a diagnostic tool but serves to identify areas of strength and challenge. Children may manifest overexcitability in one or several categories.

Overview of Dabrowski’s Five Areas of Overexcitability

Intellectual Overexcitability is marked by an intense and accelerated need for mental activity, problem solving, and reflection. These children demonstrate a high level of curiosity, deep concentration, and capacity for sustained intellectual effort. They ask deep, probing questions and consider moral issues beyond what is typical of their age and experience. It is not the same as IQ, academic achievement, or practical intelligence, though they may show competency in those ways, too. These children thirst for intellectual stimulation making them voracious readers, asking constant questions that are hard to answer with astounding connections at a higher level of thinking.

Example: A three-year-old asks his grandmother about her age. She cheekily responds, “Sixty, but I’m getting younger each year now.” The child replies, “So what happens when you hit zero? Do you go into negative numbers? Does that mean you die or are unborn?”

Benefits:

Capacity to focus
Incredible problem solving and strategic skills
Great synthesizing of information, with an aptitude for organizing and planning
Independent thinking

Challenges:

Under-stimulation, as school curricula may not provide enough intellectual rigor
Impatience and a tendency to be critical of others and self
Trouble falling asleep at night with stimulating thoughts and considerations

Tips:

Encourage broad and deep interests.
Facilitate opportunities for interaction with intellectual peers, not necessarily same-age peers.
Encourage mind-body integration practices so that they can balance their physical and emotional landscapes while they live in their brain.

Emotional Overexcitability is marked by a remarkable capacity for emotional depth and feelings beyond developmental age or experiences. Feelings and emotions are intense, and these children may absorb the fuller nuances of emotions around them. They develop strong attachments to people, creatures, places, and things. Their ability to empathize is profound and keen.

Example: A four-year-old child who tears up at the dinner table when they look at the cooked salmon served for dinner: They imagine the fish's life and feel its pain in how it was sacrificed just for a dinner. They immediately announce their resolve to go vegetarian.

Benefits:

Sensing and perceive things others may miss or can't even imagine
Forming deep connections with others and being sought out for their help and advice
Well-differentiated feelings toward self — an inner dialogue

Challenges:

Emotional intensity—often accused of overreacting or being melodramatic, yet the emotions they feel are genuine and can tend toward self-judgment
Unsatisfied with superficial connections, and seek depth in relationships around them
Affective expressions—substantial mood shifts, feelings of guilt, fears, and anxieties
Somatic expressions —tense stomachs, flushed faces, sweaty palms

Tips:

Listen to their feelings and avoid being dismissive or diminishing them.
Help them recognize signs of when they are starting to feel intense emotions and coach them through better coping strategies for these fierce emotions, especially when they are a sponge for external emotions around them.

Sensual Overexcitability is marked by heightened sensory awareness and a need for aesthetic pleasure. These children know what they like and dislike—be it food, sounds, scents, or how clothing feels on their bodies. This profile can be confused with or sometimes overlap with sensory processing differences. They can come across as both precocious and finicky. In contrast with intellectual overexcitability, this is an area most do not equate with giftedness.

Example: A child who at a young age is attracted to complex music, such as opera, and delights in listening to their favorites. This child seems to have adult-like preferences.

Benefits:

An intuitive sense of high aesthetics
Strong likes and preferences, as well as dislikes
Enhanced sensory profile attracted to beauty and balance in words, music, visual art forms, food, and scents
Experiential and sensory immersive learners

Challenges:

A need for these elements in their environment
Impulsivity and attention seeking
Very picky and discerning tastes

Tips:

Craft environments that limit offensive sensory stimuli and provide soothing sensory stimuli
Create avenues for appropriate recognition and expression of their sensitivities and opportunities to explore these avenues, e.g., create an opportunities to receive recognition for their demonstration of visual, auditory, olfactory, or gustatory sensitivities
Time to dwell and immerse themselves in the sensual, e.g., opportunities to savor complex flavors in a meal, enjoy a bath with scents, and listen to and feel a piece of music or other creative performance

Psychomotor Overexcitability is marked by incredible stores of energy and movement. It might manifest as fidgety behavior, rapid or excessive talking, or overactive physical behavior. It presents like ADHD and might easily be misidentified as such. This profile is often correlated with intellectual overexcitability, so a lack of stimulation can be problematic as these children are likely to appear disruptive instead of understimulated.

Example: A child who never seems to tire out is most focused and joyful when moving and using their hands. Sitting still is genuinely hard. They might grab a screwdriver to dismantle something and either rebuild it or repurpose it.

Strengths:

Initiators who spring into action
Enjoy intense activity, including sports and dance

Challenges:

Rapid speech and marked competitiveness
Nervous habits like nail biting and tics
Impulsiveness, and tend to be workaholics

Tips:

Give them opportunities to move, as they are kinesthetic learners
Recognize their enthusiasm for putting their whole bodies into something
Help them learn how to relax and notice when they need to wind down

Imaginational Overexcitability is marked by creativity. This child delights in stories, drawings, fictional worlds, and vivid daydreams. For this child, what is real or fantastic may be hard to differentiate, with imaginary friends or the creation of entire worlds with incredible details. May excel in dramatic play.

Examples: A child watching a cartoon seems to have literally stepped into that world, living in it for a long time, adding additional flourishes. Alternatively, while watching a cartoon, they may be petrified at the sight of a witch on a broom. They can’t suspend their imagination, and vividly feel what it would be like in reality. Frightened, they refuse to watch the rest of the movie, leaving everyone confused by their response. Conversely, the child may have created their own complex, multi-book storybook series.

Strengths:

Power of imagination—a facility for detailed visualization, poetic and dramatic perception, and metaphor or imaginational thinking
Ability to put the mundane together in a creative way

Challenges:

Lives in their imaginary landscape with elaborate dreams and can mistake truth and fiction
Prone to catastrophizing as they imagine the consequences of a situation
Deep fear of the unknown

Tips:

Find opportunities for expression and productive outlets for their imagination in design, drawing, acting, and so on.
Offer open-ended activities and invite their imagination to solve problems and visualize scenarios.
Help them to build skills in contextualizing their imagination with reality.

A Curated Booklist and Online Resources on Giftedness

Books

A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children by James T. Webb

Parenting Gifted Kids: Tips for Raising Happy and Successful Gifted Children by James Delisle, Ph.D.

Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary “Executive Skills” Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare

The Survival Guide for Gifted Kids: For Ages 10 and Under by Judy Galbraith

One Mind at a Time: America’s Top Learning Expert Shows How Every Child Can Succeed by Mel Levine, M.D.

The Power of Different: The Link Between Disorder and Genius by Dr. Gail Saltz

The Power of Self-Advocacy for Gifted Learners: Teaching the 4 Essential Steps for Success by Deb Douglas

Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined by Scott Barry Kaufman

Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman

Twice Exceptional: Supporting and Educating Bright and Creative Students with Learning Difficulties by Scott Barry Kaufman