Abstract
Gifted children are described as very talented children who achieve more than their age mates in one or more domains (Steiner and Carr in Educ Psychol Rev 15(3):215–246, 2003). These children potentially share a cognitive advantage enabling them to excel in language, but also in other domains. In the present study we explored whether gifted children have a relatively advanced procedural memory. We further investigated the relation between procedural memory and complex syntactic comprehension. 25 gifted children and as many non-gifted children between ages 8 and 13 were administered a serial reaction time (SRT) task and a relative clause comprehension task. Results from the SRT task showed no significant difference between gifted children and their TD peers, whereas gifted children showed significant better comprehension of object relative clauses. No significant correlations were found between the two tasks. There was thus no evidence that gifted children excel in procedural memory. Possibly some other factor, such as meta-linguistic knowledge or a beneficial social environment, contributed to their advanced linguistic comprehension.
Highlights
When children are very talented and achieve or have the potential to achieve more than their age mates in one or more domains, they are often described as being gifted (Steiner and Carr 2003; Subotnik et al 2011)
Participants were excluded if they were outliers based on their amount of incorrect presses (> 3 SD from the group mean)
No participants had to be excluded on these grounds
Summary
When children are very talented and achieve or have the potential to achieve more than their age mates in one or more domains, they are often described as being gifted (Steiner and Carr 2003; Subotnik et al 2011). The most basic descriptive model of giftedness is the triadic model (Barbe and Renzulli 1975; Mönks 1985), within which general cognitive abilities, creativity and motivation are all important factors. In this theoretical framework, children are regarded as gifted when they distinguish themselves in these three factors. If the cognitive capacities of a child do not get the opportunity to develop, the child will not be identified as being gifted
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