Gifted - Professional Attitudes Toward Giftedness

Professional Attitudes Toward Giftedness

Grobman discusses how some exceptionally and profoundly gifted individuals may unconsciously create deficits as a way of closing the asynchrony gap. Certain researchers, such as Stephanie Tolan, postulate that the attribution of controversial disorders such as "ADHD" — which other authors have argued has not been proven to exist by any means other than subjective behavioral analysis — to gifted individuals arises from a misguided tendency to pathologize that which we don't understand. Tolan also discusses that identifying as attention deficient has become fashionable in young adults. Although the diagnosis of ADHD is controversial, it is considered legitimate by organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association. Diagnostic criteria for ADHD have been established by the World Health Organization (in the ICD-10) and the American Psychiatric Association (in the DSM-IV).