Theory of Mind and Giftedness: New Connections

5IFPSZPG.JOEBOE(JGUFEOFTT /FX$POOFDUJPOT Cheryl L. Walker and Bruce M. Shore McGill University The social and cognitive phenomena associated with theory of mind (ToM) and research on the social and cognitive qualities of giftedness have not been sufficiently connected. The common focus areas for ToM researchers (e.g., false-belief understanding, deception, and autism) should be of interest to gifted education research because these are interesting conceptualizations that could be helpful in better understanding gifted children’s social interactions and friendships, and provide some guidance in classroom grouping. Except in a few studies, for example of perspective taking, ToM research has not studied identified gifted children. Perhaps this is because giftedness is usually formally assessed after the developmental periods at which it is typically studied. Including gifted children (academically, creatively, or otherwise) might help broaden the understanding of ToM variables and ensure that the key tasks do not have ceiling effects.

Among children with exceptionalities, theory of mind (ToM) is most often studied among children with autism. ToM addresses social and cognitive phenomena, viewed separately or together, that involve interpreting other people’s states of mind (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, motivations, and intentions). Understanding mental states is a component of predicting and explaining other people’s behavior (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). ToM also encompasses the ability to reason about the reciprocal connections among our experiences and our thoughts. Over the course of the first 3 to 5 years of life, this social and cognitive skill set usually shows considerable development (Taylor, 1996; Vasta, Haith, & Miller, 1999). Very few studies have linked ToM research to giftedness, or viceversa, but links can be drawn from other studies in which these connections were not explicit. The purpose of this review is to examine Cheryl L. Walker is a Ph.D. student in the school/applied child psychology program at McGill University. Bruce M. Shore is Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology of the Faculty of Education at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. Vol. 34, No. 4, 2011, pp. 644–668. Copyright ©2011 Prufrock Press Inc., http://www.prufrock.com

Theory of Mind and Giftedness

several ways in which the concept of ToM may be valuable to understanding giftedness and, reciprocally, how the study of ToM may benefit from including research on gifted children. We begin with an examination of the most common research methods used to study ToM, namely, false-belief tasks. Second, in order to illuminate both social and cognitive variables, we then address a frequently studied subpopulation of children in ToM studies, children with autism. Third, we introduce perspective taking as a bridging construct between ToM and both the social and cognitive qualities of giftedness. Fourth, we propose a synthesis of the links between ToM and giftedness. Fifth, and finally, we conclude by highlighting reciprocal contributions between ToM and giftedness as theoretical constructs and areas of practice. 5IFPSZPG.JOEBOE'BMTF#FMJFG6OEFSTUBOEJOH Research on the broad construct of ToM extensively uses falsebelief understanding as part of the methodology. False-belief understanding refers to the realization that beliefs do not always match reality and thus can be false. Wimmer and Perner (1983) were the first to examine the concept of false-belief understanding in a developmental context. They presented children between the ages of 3 and 6 years with a story about a character named Maxi. In this story, Maxi places chocolate in a blue cupboard and leaves the room. During his absence, his mother removes the chocolate from the blue cupboard and places it in a green cupboard. When Maxi returns, children are asked to indicate in which cupboard Maxi will search for the chocolate. This task is commonly referred to as a change in location task. If children correctly choose the blue cupboard, then this indicates that they understand that Maxi has a false belief. Wimmer and Perner discovered that none of the 3-year-olds indicated the correct cupboard and therefore concluded that the ability to understand that one can hold a false belief seems to emerge between the ages of 4 and 6. Wellman, Cross, and Watson (2001) conducted a meta-analysis on the ToM literature and determined that, across studies, there is evidence for rapid development of ToM skills during the preschool years. More specifically, between the ages of 2 ½ and 5, a considerable conceptual

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change occurs in children’s cognitive development and this overall developmental trajectory is consistent across cultures, although slight variations do exist. Furthermore, overall performance on false-belief tasks does not relate to task variations. Although false-belief tasks are a reliable measure of ToM development, caution is recommended in that they only measure one aspect of social-cognitive development and the speed at which children develop these common skills. %FDFQUJPO False-belief understanding has also been examined within other contexts. Hala and Chandler (1996) determined that 3-year-old children demonstrated false-belief understanding if they were actively involved in planning a deceitful act, as long as the planning process was strategic and directly related to the beliefs of the person with whom the deception was aimed. Furthermore, Talwar and Lee (2002) examined lie-telling behavior among children between the ages of 3 and 7 with the temptation-resistance paradigm. In this paradigm, children were tempted to peek at a toy when an experimenter left a room. Upon the experimenter’s return, children were asked if they had peeked at the toy while the experimenter was gone. The first question that the children were asked was, “Did you peek to see who it was?” In order to lie to this question, children must have successfully represented a belief that was different from the reality of the situation, also known as first-order false-belief understanding. The next question that the children were asked was, “What do you think the toy is?” Lying to this question becomes more difficult as it not only requires imagining oneself not having peeked, but also necessitates imagining what belief is required based on the false belief of not having peeked. This requires an understanding of second-order false beliefs, and children experienced more difficulty maintaining their lie when asked this question. Similarly, Talwar, Gordon, and Lee (2007) examined older children’s understanding of lie-telling and second-order false belief with the temptation-resistance paradigm and discovered that the majority of children lied to the experimenter about peeking at the toy. Furthermore, with age, children become progressively more capable of controlling semantic leakage, a person’s ability to maintain a lie upon


follow-up questioning. This concept is highly related to an individual’s perspective-taking abilities, which is directly linked to ToM. Thus, if children are capable of taking another’s perspective and demonstrate good ToM acquisition, then they should present more plausible reasons for knowing the qualities of the toy. In contrast, younger children do not display this ability to control semantic leakage. Thus, when asked follow-up questions about a toy soccer ball (e.g., “How do you know it is a ball?”), children may respond, “Because it is black and white.” By failing to take the other’s perspective, children do not consider their admission of guilt within the sentence (Talwar et al., 2007). 3FDJQSPDBM$POOFDUJPOT#FUXFFO 'BMTF#FMJFGBOE(JGUFEOFTT Any review of giftedness in relation to another variable faces the dilemma of multiple definitions of giftedness in the various studies (Sternberg & Davidson, 2005). Given the limited number of studies addressing false belief and giftedness, we did not limit the definition of giftedness; however, the majority of definitions assume some form of precocity. Other definitions, such as response to novelty, will be identified as they occur. Language skills are important to being able to detect false belief in young children; early language development is a correlate of falsebelief understanding (Astington & Jenkins, 1999). Giftedness is rarely assessed before school age, so we do not yet know if children under age 3 who are gifted demonstrate false-belief understanding earlier or better than other children; however, because early language communication skills are a prime characteristic of many gifted toddlers (Davis & Rimm, 1998), research on the early development of false-belief might benefit from examining this phenomenon in young gifted children, and identifying the conditions under which it is experienced. It might then be possible to extend standard false-belief measures to younger age groups, and to move beyond inferring from infants’ and toddlers’ gaze, for example, used in research on rudimentary emergence of ToM (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005; Poulin-Dubois, Sodian, Metz, Tilden, & Schöppner, 2004; Sodian, Thoermer, & Metz, 2007). Very little is known about false-belief understanding among gifted children. Having a firm understanding of ToM enables “white


lies,” essentially deceptive abilities, which can sometimes be useful; deceiving a friend in the form of prosocial lying, in an appropriate situation, can help maintain a friendship and do no harm. For example, if a child asks her friend if she likes the new scarf she just received, and the friend replies that she does like the scarf even though she does not, telling the truth is not as supportive within the boundaries of friendship. Porath (2000) drew attention to gifted children’s “unusually rich responses to developmental tasks” (p. 199), which could be valuable to studying ToM tasks such as false belief or deception. There is renewed interest in the social characteristics of giftedness (most attention has been on the cognitive, notably in definitions), and topics related to ToM deserve to be more widely studied. *OTJHIUT"CPVU5IFPSZPG.JOE'SPNUIF4UVEZPG"VUJTN Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith (1985) examined the interplay between ToM abilities and social competence among children with autism. They recognized that some children with autism have an IQ within the normal range of functioning, although they demonstrate social difficulties, and conversely, some children with Down’s syndrome who have low IQs function in a socially competent manner, highlighting the need to examine cognitive constructs independent of IQ. They hypothesized that children with autism lack a ToM, more specifically second-order false-belief representations. The standard Sally Anne false-belief task was administered (similar in nature to the Maxi change-in-location false-belief task previously described, except that a marble replaces the chocolate bar and a basket and box replace the green and blue cupboards), and it was concluded that these children struggled with representing mental states, which partially explains their difficulty with predicting the behavior of other people. Furthermore, poor ToM skills were not linked to levels of mental retardation. Baron-Cohen and colleagues also made an important distinction in the previous research literature between measuring conceptual perspective-taking skills, such as in the standard Sally Anne false-belief task, versus perceptual perspective taking, which does not involve attributing any beliefs to others (e.g., Piagetian threemountain perspective-taking tasks as addressed below). Conceptual


perspective-taking tasks are more useful for the measurement of ToM because they directly assess false-belief understanding not required of classic perceptual perspective-taking tasks. Other studies have also verified the difficulties that children with autism face in terms of understanding ToM and false belief (Mason & Macrae, 2008; Perner, Frith, Leslie, & Leekam, 1989). Despite recognizing the difficulties that children with autism face in terms of understanding the constructs associated with ToM, more recent studies have discovered methodological limitations. Lind and Bowler (2009) observed that some children do pass these standard false-belief tasks despite severe impairments within the social and communicative domains. They confirmed their hypothesis that this is a result of relying on complement syntax, which affects performance on false-belief tasks. Complement syntax refers to a process in which certain verbs (namely, communication and mental-state verbs such as “to think”) allow for a proposition to be embedded within the sentence. Lind and Bowler presented the following example from de Villiers’s (1995) research; “Sally thought the marble was in the box, but it was really in the basket.” The proposition (represented in italics) can be true or false without affecting the overall truth of the statement. Understanding this complement sentence structure supports understanding of false belief. More specifically, Lind and Bowler determined that in the standard Sally Anne false-belief task, the correlation between false-belief performance and complementsyntax task scores was higher for the children with autism compared to comparison groups of children with learning disabilities and typically developing children. In other words, children with autism may succeed by analyzing and remembering the different structures of the sentences within the questions, as opposed to having an actual understanding of others’ false beliefs. This was only confirmed for the Sally Anne task, suggesting that this reliance on complement syntax may only be successful with certain tasks in which the format of the task contains cues that unintentionally enable particular kinds of replies. Also, the correlational nature of this research does not allow for causation to be determined. Similarly, Kaland, Callesen, Moller-Nielsen, Mortensen, and Smith (2008) also recalled Bowler’s (1992) research demonstrating that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can often

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understand mental states but are much slower in terms of responding, giving the impression that they are deficient in terms of ToM, although this may not be the case. Kaland et al. observed that many standard false-belief tasks reach a mental-age ceiling between the ages of 4 and 8. To reach beyond this limited age range, their own research compared the performance of individuals with ASD to matched controls of typically developing children and adolescents on three advanced ToM tasks. The Eyes Task is a social-perceptual task and both child and adult versions were administered. Within this task, a series of photographs of eyes expressing different mental states were presented, and participants were asked to choose the correct word expressing the mental state from a list including three foil words with similar emotions. The final two tasks were social-cognitive tasks as opposed to social-perceptual. In the Strange Stories Task, participants were presented with mentalistic stories and were asked a test question regarding the underlying intention of one of the characters. The Stories From Everyday Life Task was similar but involved more contextually demanding information. The participants with ASD performed more poorly than the typically developing children across tasks, although when matching a smaller subgroup, differences on the Eyes Task were no longer statistically significant. Therefore, the participants with ASD may experience greater difficulty interpreting stories as opposed to static pictures and may be interpreting content through a different developmental pathway compared to typically developing children. Furthermore, a potentially stronger link between false-belief performance, IQ, and language was identified for individuals with ASD. Limitations of this study included the static nature of the Eyes Task, which may not tap the actual ability to detect emotions, as well as inclusion of a control group of only typically developing children with no range of developmental disorders. It would also be particularly interesting to conduct this study with gifted individuals to determine any apparent differences in task performance. $POOFDUJPOT"NPOH"VUJTN 5IFPSZ PG.JOE BOE(JGUFEOFTT Meadows (2006) conducted an extensive review of the ToM literature and also drew attention to the literature examining the


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difficulties that autistic children face in terms of higher order knowledge attribution and how this, in turn, has implications for understanding interpersonal relationships. Metacognition also contributes to success within social relationships. In reference to Perner and his colleagues (Perner, 1991; Hogrefe, Wimmer, & Perner, 1986), Meadows outlined a cycle of three stages depicting the process of ToM development, more specifically, that of perspective taking. In Stage 1, children are quite egocentric in their thinking and do not understand that others have beliefs. Within Stage 2, typically developing children recognize the presence of others’ beliefs but have trouble differentiating between their own beliefs and others’. In Stage 3, these cognitive skills are much more developed and the ability to understand others’ beliefs emerges and becomes crucial for the development of interpersonal relationships. This three-stage progression is important, because it provides a useful framework for determining more precisely where and when difficulties emerge. This framework can be applied to better understand the development of perspective taking, not only in individuals with autism, but also in individuals who are gifted. Autism provides a springboard to resolving the apparent anomaly in that two groups so different in ToM skills appear to experience limitations within their interpersonal relationships (regarding the gifted, see Edmunds & Edmunds, 2005; Freeman, 2005; Janos, 1990; regarding those with autism, see Stone & Caro-Martinez, 1990; Travis & Sigman, 1998). Some of these answers can be explored within the research on twiceexceptional children, or the co-occurrence of giftedness with other disorders. Assouline, Foley Nicpon, and Doobay (2009) conducted a psychometric case study comparison of a girl with high cognitive ability and behaviors indicative of social-emotional difficulty, and a girl with high cognitive ability but severe social impairments. The latter girl experienced difficulties in conversation, was socially awkward, did not have many friends, and met the diagnosis for ASD. This suggested that even though children who are gifted may have high cognitive capabilities, they can still evidence severe social difficulties, potentially indicative of another disability and not an environment-based social deficit. This underscores the potential for missed diagnoses or misdiagnosis. Perhaps there is a closer link between the disorders of giftedness and autism that is currently unclear. Additional research on

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ToM within the gifted population could help us explore and understand the nature of reported interpersonal challenges, and the possibility that there is some other mediating variable influencing the connection between ToM and giftedness in the social domain. 5IFPSZPG.JOEBOE1FSTQFDUJWF5BLJOH $PHOJUJWF1FSTQFDUJWF5BLJOH Moll and Tomasello (2006) differentiated between Level 1 perspective taking and Level 2 perspective taking. Level 1 perspective taking involves understanding that what one sees can differ from what another sees, when both are in the same situation. This relates specifically to the content of the situation. On the other hand, Level 2 perspective taking involves understanding that it is possible to see the same thing as another person but from a different perspective and therefore does not relate to the content specifically, but to how this content is seen. Moll and Tomasello determined that 24-month-olds could demonstrate Level 1 perspective taking, an important component to understanding both ToM and deception. Eighteen-month-old children, on the other hand, were not successful at this task. Other research has examined perspective-taking differences between adult and childhood egocentrism. For example, Epley, Morewedge, and Keysar (2004) tracked eye movements during a perspective-taking task; although adults and children did not differ in their ability to interpret instructions in an egocentric fashion, children were slower and less effective in correcting incorrect interpretations. This research provides important insight into the role of perspective taking and has implications for the social-cognitive research domain. Furthermore, perspective-taking research has expanded to include examinations of how active perspective taking within a business negotiation leads to improved outcomes (Galinsky, Maddux, Gilin, & White, 2008). Barfurth (Barfurth & Shore, 2008) examined perspective taking within inquiry classrooms and provided evidence against the assumption that disagreements amongst peers during collaboration


is unproductive. Closer observation of transcripts among collaborative groups of students demonstrated two different categories of discourse. Social moves were categorized as discourse among individuals and comprised the primary components of disagreements, whereas cognitive moves referred to discourse in which an individual made a decision based on what another person in the group suggested. The social moves were often oppositional, although this opposition tended to be elaborate and constructive, often leading to a resolution of the disagreement. Cognitive moves, on the other hand, demonstrated an active process of resolution in which new information was added, integrated, and modified. Therefore, although from a social viewpoint these children appeared to be struggling within their collaborative activity, cognitively, these children were productive in the process of understanding the material. The cognitive moves of fourth-grade children were, in fact, more flexible than those of the fifth graders. An examination of both social and cognitive moves within gifted children would provide an interesting extension of this research. 4PDJBM1FSTQFDUJWF5BLJOH Although the cognitive and social aspects of perspective taking are often linked, as noted above, several studies have directly examined the social aspects of perspective taking. Chandler (1973) defined egocentric thought as “the relative inability to recognize or take into account the privileged character of one’s own private thoughts and feelings” (p. 1). His study compared the developmental trajectory of perspective taking in 15 delinquent and nondelinquent boys, aged 11 to 13, and developed and evaluated an intervention based on improving deficient role-taking skills. The delinquent boys were developmentally behind their same-age nondelinquent peers in terms of role taking, however, the role-taking training intervention significantly reduced the delinquent boys’ high levels of social egocentrism. Limitations included the inability to infer causality from the correlation between social egocentrism and antisocial behavior. Also, this sample of delinquent youth may have differed from other delinquent youth, because these particular youth were unsuccessful at remaining undetected and had several court and police contacts.


Vasta et al. (1999) also discussed the reciprocal links between ToM or social perspective taking and interpersonal relationships. More specifically, a better understanding of thoughts, beliefs, and intentions can improve interactions between others due to the learning process that occurs within these interactions. In addition, a better understanding of one’s mental world can help improve interactions with others. This directly relates to the body of literature surrounding the development of perspective taking and sibling interactions. The number of siblings positively correlates with false-belief understanding (several studies were cited by Vasta et al., 1999); older siblings, assumed to have more developed ToM skills, facilitate the younger child’s cognitive development in this domain. Recent studies on perspective taking have examined these constructs in terms of associated brain regions and neural substrates. Using fMRI technology, researchers are attempting to determine exactly how person-related information and, more broadly, areas involved in ToM tasks are represented in the brain (Gallagher & Frith, 2003; Gallagher et al., 2000; Mason, Banfield, & Macrae, 2004; Shallice, 2001; Siegal & Varley, 2002; Vogeley et al., 2001). $POOFDUJPOT#FUXFFO1FSTQFDUJWF5BLJOHBOE(JGUFEOFTT Although perspective taking has often been examined in varied contexts, including business and deception, there has been very little research regarding exceptional populations, particularly the gifted. For example, this information would allow for the development of a more comprehensive picture of the interplay between ToM and social aspects of behavior. Brain imaging, for example, might provide a clearer picture of brain functioning pertaining to differing ToM skills across ability levels. 5IFPSZPG.JOEBOE(JGUFEOFTT Davis and Rimm (1998) provided a comprehensive summary chart of widely regarded positive and negative characteristics of gifted individuals. Some of these characteristics link to aspects of ToM soon to be discussed. The positive characteristics, including greater


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metacognitive skills, high alertness and attention, emotional sensitivity, high-level moral thinking, and self-awareness, to name a few, can all be considered important aspects of ToM to differing degrees. Furthermore, one of the more negative characteristics identified included interpersonal difficulties due to cognitive differences, which indirectly links the domains of ToM and giftedness, although little research has examined this directly. There are, however, emerging suggestions that gifted children are not necessarily loners in academic contexts (French & Shore, 2009) and that their friendship patterns may be different but not dysfunctional, but we need to know more about the role ToM might play in understanding these relationships. Gifted individuals have the ability to manage novelty, whether it is a novel task or a novel situation, and also have superior insight skills (Sternberg, 1985). Sternberg (1985) also proposed that giftedness involves the advanced ability to translate practiced tasks into automatic tasks, which frees intellectual resources to deal with novelty. These children may be quite skilled at adapting to an environment in which they demonstrate their exceptionality, although these skills of adaptation may not readily transfer to other environments, which can have social implications. 5IFPSZPG.JOEBOE$PHOJUJWF2VBMJUJFTPG(JGUFEOFTT Veenman, Wilhelm, and Beishuizen (2004) investigated the relation between metacognition and intelligence levels. They administered four inductive computer-based learning tasks to four different age groups ranging from fourth-grade to university-level students. Five independent variables were presented on the computer screen with either two or three levels, and their impact on the dependent variables was explored. Participants were asked to determine how the independent variables differentially affected the dependent variable. Metacognitive skills increased with age but, more interestingly, metacognition operated independently from intelligence. Martini, Wall, and Shore (2004) also examined metacognition but in terms of psychomotor abilities as opposed to intellectual abilities. Highly skilled Little League baseball players from both the Minor and Major leagues were recruited along with averageskilled children. They were asked to complete a motor task and then

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immediately afterwards were asked to describe what they were thinking about during the task. The highly skilled baseball players made more general statements and expressed fewer planning concepts compared to the comparison group. Therefore, these individuals may not have required as much planning for the execution of the motor task due to increased experience or knowledge of the task. This provided a potential point of extrapolation to understanding the relation between gifted children’s enhanced metacognitive skills and advanced intellectual abilities. For example, Martini and Shore (2008) highlighted the abundance of research examining metacognition among children with differing abilities in the context of academics. By drawing parallels between learning involved with academics and learning involved with psychomotor tasks, Martini and Shore concluded that skills in metacognition not only can be applied to intellectual tasks but potentially to psychomotor tasks as well. Several other studies have also examined metacognition in the context of intelligence (Alexander, Carr, & Schwanenflugel, 1995; Cheng, 1993; Shore & Dover, 1987; Shore & Kanevsky, 1993). Attempting to further understand the thinking processes of highly skilled individuals, particularly within the intellectual domain, will generate more detailed information, potentially applicable to understanding the thinking processes of typical children. 5IFPSZPG.JOEBOE4PDJBM2VBMJUJFTPG(JGUFEOFTT Some interesting links can be identified through a closer examination of the overlap between specific ToM constructs and the social qualities of giftedness. In a study examining the cognitive and social domains, Moss (1990) asked if parents of preschool gifted children would be more likely than parents of typical children to model metacognitive strategies and, if so, would this be due to increased metacognitive awareness on the part of the child. Verbal exchanges were recorded between mothers and their children within a semistructured play session. The gifted children in this sample had advanced language, which aided the development of mental processes, and it was concluded that mothers likely modified their interactions with their children based on the metacognitive cues from their child’s performance. Furthermore, these metacognitive differences between the


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gifted and nongifted group are further enhanced as a result of social exchanges, which, in turn, act as a tool to aid in the organization of mental representations. An additional specific and related area of giftedness that has been researched extensively is sensitivity. Mendaglio (1995) proposed a multifaceted approach to conceptualize sensitivity among children identified as gifted. Sensitivity is an awareness of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors of oneself or others, and is comprised of four dimensions including cognitive, affective, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Gifted children are often considered to be more sensitive than their same-age peers, experience more intense emotional reactions, and often have a better understanding of communicative nuances or subtleties. As a result, these children are often more vulnerable to criticism. This again links to the notion of perspective taking, which is referred to in this case as interpersonal cognitive sensitivity. Gifted children tend to infer others’ mental states more accurately due to their enhanced ability to make better use of self-collected observational data, providing them with a more comprehensive base of information from which to draw these inferences. In other words, these children are more sensitive to incoming information. There is a complex and intertwined relationship between the cognitive and affective domains in regard to gifted individuals (Mendaglio, 1995). Empathy is closely linked to sensitivity. Davis and Rimm (1998) summarized that individuals who are gifted tend to not only demonstrate better empathy in the form of increased sensitivity to human values and morality, but are also more sensitive to others’ feelings. As a result, these individuals are much less likely to steal from their peers and exhibit unfair behavior. With enhanced sensitivity to the mental states of others, or increased skills in empathy (and sympathy), one might assume that gifted children experience more fruitful social relationships as a result. This is sometimes not the case. Enhanced understanding of the social domain does not always translate into overt behavior (Edmunds & Edmunds, 2005). Also related is the gifted literature on overexcitabilities. Piechowski (1979, 1999) defined overexcitability as a special kind of excitability characterized by an innate response of heightened intensity and sensitivity to stimuli. These stimuli primarily include intellectual and emotional stimuli, and the intense reactions to these are

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manifested within five different dimensions including psychomotor, sensual, imaginational, intellectual, and emotional. Within the emotional dimension, identification with others’ feelings are intensified, consistent with the sensitivity literature. Within the psychomotor domain, characteristics of impulsivity, and acting out, as well as compulsive talking, are quite common (Piechowski, 1979, 1999). Therefore, although these children may exhibit strong emotions and may be extremely sensitive to others, their psychomotor overexcitabilities may present problems within their social relationships. In a study more specific to perspective taking, Tucker and Hafenstein (2001) conducted qualitative interviews with 4- and 5-year-old gifted children to determine if they developed perspectivetaking abilities earlier than their same-age peers. An existing model of five perspective-taking levels served as a representation for the research. In this model, children between the ages of 3 and 6 are proposed to be in Stage 1 of egocentric role-taking; children between the ages of 6 and 8 are in Stage 2 of subjective or differentiated perspective taking; children between the ages of 8 and 10 are within Stage 3, the self-reflective role taking stage; children between 10 and 12 are in Stage 4, mutual role-taking; and finally, children from 12 to 15 are within Stage 5, the societal and in-depth role-taking stage (Selman, Jaquette, & Bruss-Saunders, 1979). Tucker and Hafenstein concluded that the perspective-taking abilities of the gifted children were at levels above their age, with several children scoring at Level 1 as opposed to Level 0, and a few scoring at Level 2 as opposed to Level 0. Moss and Strayer (1990) also reported aspects of perspective taking in the context of a gifted as well as a nongifted population of children. An observational study involving the interaction of children and their mothers was completed during a series of three different problem-solving activities. These activities included the completion of a puzzle, a peg game, and free block play. The mothers of the gifted children were significantly more likely to encourage their children to think about the consequences of their actions before completing the actions as well as allowing children to complete more of the problem before interfering, which was found to improve children’s problemsolving abilities. Mothers of the gifted group also verbally encouraged children to think about the interrelated nature of different components of the problem (Moss & Strayer, 1990). This provided additional


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evidence for the idea that there is interesting and important information to be learned from an examination of ToM concepts within the gifted population. Tarshis and Shore (1991) also conducted a study that directly assessed the interaction between perspective taking and giftedness in children between the ages of 44 and 63 months. In this study, an adaptation of Piaget’s three-mountain perspective-taking task was presented to a group of children found to have a high IQ according to the Stanford-Binet IQ test and one group with an above-average IQ. The group with the higher IQ made fewer egocentric errors than the above-average IQ group and was more accurate when asked to identify different views. Superior perspective-taking abilities on spatial tasks such as Tarshis and Shore’s may prove to be an indicator of children with high abilities and furthermore provide an opportunity to examine the intricate relationship between social interactions and related perspective-taking abilities. Additional research regarding perspective taking among gifted children has often been conceptualized within a group setting. For example, Orbell and Dawes (1981) introduced the terms free rider and sucker. A free rider refers to an individual who, when working towards a collective goal, considers taking advantage of the efforts of others to minimize his or her own personal effort but still maximize the benefits of the outcome. A sucker on the other hand, refers to an individual who contributes considerable effort, if not all of the effort towards attaining the goal, due to the presence of free riders. This is directly applicable to the vast literature regarding heterogeneous and homogeneous groupings of gifted students. Much of the research in this area generated mixed findings, both in favor of homogeneous grouping (Baer, 2003; Feldhusen & Moon, 1992) and against homogeneous grouping (Stout, 1993). French, Walker, and Shore (in press) examined the learning preferences of 111 school-identified gifted students, 44 high-achieving students, and 92 nonidentified students through collection of survey data. Gifted students evidenced a preference for working alone compared to the comparison groups but only some of the time. For example, perceived support was directly related to the preference to work alone. More specifically, the gifted students who did not feel supported in their learning environment were more likely to choose

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independent learning activities. In addition, there was an increased preference to work alone, postulated to be a result of increasing awareness of the evaluation of academic performance. Therefore, the preference for working alone is affected by the social and the learning environment of students, particularly in regard to perceptions of support. The links to perspective taking are that the differing learning preferences of the gifted students indicated different impressions of their social and learning environment, perhaps as a result of greater perceptual abilities. Attempting to understand how perspective-taking abilities differ based on ability also has implications for the development of educational policy. Similarly, Janos (1990) interviewed 20 uncommonly bright children about their perceptions regarding several dimensions of the learning environment. These children were either three or more grade levels ahead of their same-age peers or were four standard deviations above the mean in terms of IQ. These children had high expectations in the school environment at an early age and also experienced social isolation at an early age as a result of their superior abilities. Interestingly, these children were assumed to have inaccurate self-perceptions. Perspective taking relates not only to the learning preferences of gifted children, but is also extremely important in terms of friendships. This links back to the social perspective-taking literature discussed within autism. Masden (2004) examined the correlation between academic ability, social-perspective coordination, and the quality of friendships among grade 7 and grade 8 students. Although several definitions of social-perspective coordination were provided, Masden referred to Piaget’s conception of social-perspective coordination as an ability to take into account many different perspectives within a situation. The quality of friendships, social-perspective coordination, and self-concept were all found to be positively correlated with interpersonal development. In addition, there was an identifiable link between cognitive ability and social competence, providing support for the proposition that ability levels do link with perspective taking and ToM, specifically social perspective taking. Additional studies are required to further explore these links.


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$PODMVTJPOT 5IF#FOFGJUTPG"UUFOEJOHUP(JGUFEOFTT 8JUIJOUIF5P.-JUFSBUVSF Much has been learned about ToM through an extensive examination of individuals with autism, and the potential for a rich source of information now lies within a renewed examination of ToM within the gifted population, particularly for false-belief understanding. More specifically, an examination of the development of false-belief understanding for children who are gifted is lacking. If these individuals demonstrate earlier false-belief understanding than their sameage peers, possibilities exist for developing more sensitive measures to detect ToM understanding in children of all abilities, and to minimize the risks of ceiling effects in the measures. Furthermore, if children who are gifted employ different strategies related to ToM tasks, then the potential for these strategies to be developed as an intervention tool for individuals who struggle in these areas (e.g., individuals with autism) becomes a distinct possibility. In addition, autism and intellectual giftedness can occur together (e.g., Asperger’s syndrome), and it would be interesting to see which set of outcomes is favored in this population. 5IF#FOFGJUTPG"UUFOEJOHUP5P.8JUIJO UIF(JGUFEOFTT-JUFSBUVSF ToM abilities are integral to the development of interpersonal relationships. Although the interpersonal relationships of the gifted have been addressed, there is a lack of understanding of the social aspects of ToM within the giftedness literature. Perhaps a deeper understanding of ToM within gifted individuals will provide a link to other important aspects of research, such as the grouping of gifted children. Furthermore, common social characteristics of gifted children including an acute sensitivity to others, overexcitability, or empathy can be further understood through an examination of the cognitive components of ToM, such as perspective taking.

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5IFPSFUJDBM*NQMJDBUJPOT An examination of the existing links between ToM and giftedness provides evidence for a potential bridge between the two constructs. The social and cognitive aspects of ToM and giftedness are connected, and these connections need to be further studied. How much of a connection exists between these two domains is unknown. This is further evident when considering autism spectrum disorders. Often children with autism struggle with ToM tasks and experience social difficulties, whereas many children who are gifted evidence strong ToM skills but still experience social difficulties. Perhaps there are closer connections between ToM, autism, and giftedness than currently identified. This not only has implications for how diagnoses are described and developed, but also has implications within education, to be discussed next. &EVDBUJPOBM*NQMJDBUJPOT Examining the ToM abilities of gifted children can provide essential information to educators pertaining to the appropriate development of curriculum. For example, Coleman (2005) provided a comprehensive overview of cooperative learning, which involves a form of interdependence between all of the members of the group as well as an opportunity for socialization within an educational setting. This type of learning environment was identified as particularly useful for children who are gifted, because this environment often involves complex discussion and extension of ideas as well as the previously mentioned sense of interdependence. One caveat to this form of learning involves appropriate differentiation of group work so that gifted students do not become overwhelmed. Strategies for improving this form of learning are provided, including the use of open-ended and flexible tasks. Furthermore, Coleman and Gallagher (1995) concluded that a cooperative learning environment adequately addressed the needs of the gifted learners who showed enthusiasm for this form of learning in homogeneous groups. This form of learning resembles a new wave of literature within education, related to inquiry curriculum, which has also been determined to fit particularly well with the educational needs of individuals who are gifted (Aulls & Shore,


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