Exceptional Children

For many years I have felt that the major difficulty faced by the child who differs markedly from others of his age and sex is not so much the fact of difference as it is the feeling of difference for which the objective facts are but partially responsible. Equally and in many cases more important for the child's general adjustment and happiness is the manner in which others react to his exceptional characteristics. Too much admiration and praise may cause the bright child to regard...
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For many years I have felt that the major difficulty faced by the child who differs markedly from others of his age and sex is not so much the fact of difference as it is the feeling of difference for which the objective facts are but partially responsible. Equally and in many cases more important for the child's general adjustment and happiness is the manner in which others react to his exceptional characteristics. Too much admiration and praise may cause the bright child to regard himself as so superior to his mates that he looks upon them with covert or openly expressed scorn. He withdraws from their companionship as they from his. Thus his briUiance becomes more and more closely confined to the narrow range of abstract inteUigence; it does not extend into the areas of social and emotional behavior. He does not become more tactful, more sympathetic, more self-controlled, or even more honest and trustworthy. Yet under other conditions, his superior abiHty might have been brought to bear upon all these and other desirable areas of conduct as well as upon academic matters.