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Show : GIFTED CHILDREN Resource center offers special guidance By KAREN MEREDITH Copley News Service Educators have come to realize more and more in recent re-cent years that a gifted child has special needs that must be recognized and properly tended if that child is to develop de-velop to full advantage. "Gifted children," says school psychologist Francine Cristel, "need expert attention atten-tion and guidance if they are to adjust psychologically to their own special drives and adjust socially with their peers." Cristel is founder and director di-rector of The Resources Center for Gifted Children, in New York City, which she describes as a "haven and guiding force" for gifted youngsters. The center offers guidance gui-dance and counseling through its programs geared solely to the special needs ol gifted children, from toddlei age through adolescence and their parents. A variety of testing, counseling, coun-seling, educational and ca-reer ca-reer services is provided bj the center, and designed foi both intellectually anc creatively talented youth Although its program is di rected at the gifted and their parents, the center stresses special services for schools. "Many parents," Cristel said, "make the mistaken assumption as-sumption that the school can be relied upon to guide their gifted progeny and maximize maxim-ize their talents. In the reality reali-ty of the conventional school, however, it doesn't work that way. "Public or private, few schools have the time or the resources for the gifted. Nor do their staffs always include in-clude specially trained psychologists psy-chologists and guidance counselors to help the child deal with the psychological trauma of feeling, or being made to feel 'different.'" Gifted children are not al-, al-, ways easily identified, Ciis-tel Ciis-tel said. Group testing pro- vides no measurement of ; functional superiority in I such areas as art and music. : At the same time, she said, many teachers often fail to , detect the less obvious abilities abili-ties of seeming undera- chievers. The center offers short, in-r in-r tensive courses for teachers and guidance personnel to 1 enhance their professional . knowledge of the gifted child - in the classroom. Courses on so-called acceleration options op-tions and enrichment seminars semi-nars are available as well. Gifted children receive IQ and emotional testing, counseling coun-seling and group therapy on problems they may encounter. encoun-ter. "Gifted children," said Cristel, "are one of society's most valuable natural resources. re-sources. To fail to supply them with an adequate support sup-port system is to fail our society. so-ciety. "Not the least important of our goals is to dispel the myths associated with gifted children," said Cristel, formerly for-merly chief psychologist at the Avalon School for emotionally emo-tionally disturbed children in Great Barrington, Mass. "When handled properly, they are not 'freakish,' unsocial, unso-cial, disturbed, clumsy and unathletic. Parents generally gener-ally are not overbearing, 'pushy,' using the gifted child as a kind of status symbol. "With gentle, assured guidance," gui-dance," Cristel said, "which the center hopes to provide, both elements in the picture can be made to develop a satisfaction with life, in general, gen-eral, and with themselves, in particular." |
