Gifted children with written output difficulties: Paradox or paradigm

Abstract

This study was designed to ascertain the prevalence of written output deficits in young gifted children, to delineate the relationship between written output performance and reading performance, and to identify possible mechanisms for specific written output deficits in such children. Data from a sample of children scoring >120 on at least one IQ or achievement subscale indicated: (1) that there was a significant incidence of discrepancies between written spelling scores and reading (decoding) scores, as compared to the population; (2) that performance on spelling tasks was more subject to a maturational timetable than decoding was; (3) that performance on spelling tasks is less amenable than performance on decoding tasks to compensatory enhancement by higher level processing, and involves a sequential processing module that is shared with calculation but not with decoding; and (4) that strengths in visual‐spatial tasks may interact with relative weaknesses in both decoding and calculation tasks to predict even poorer performance on written spelling tasks.