What are the signs of a highly gifted adults and children?

Einstein

Foreword
I though it would be neat to share the signs of highly gifted children and adults. I made some extra edits, additions and elaborations on the signs my self. Unfortunately the list is bound to be abused by confirmation bias. However, it might apply to a lot of people reading this, simply because, I think Quora is an attractive platform for highly gifted people to share their knowledge but also because highly gifted people are often interested in . . . highly gifted people, therefore increasing their chance to get in contact with my answer, because of the Quora algorithm.

Being highly gifted is much more than just being able to learn fast, highly gifted people differ greatly from each other, but still have some persisting commonalities. These are gifts you are born with. Don’t take things to literal. For instance, creativity means more than playing a musical instrument.

Sings of being highly gifted in adults.

Being highly sensitive

• You have always felt different compared to other people.
• You have a low image of yourself and low self esteem.
• You are sensitive to: pain, sound, light, crowded spaces, odors and other external stimuli.
• You are quickly influenced by the moods of other people.
• You are perfectionist.
• You are intuitive.
• You can notice subtle signs from your environment.
• You are quickly irritated and impatient.
• After day of hard work you want to be left alone to rejuvenate yourself.
• You are more sensitive compared to other people to effects from certain substances like, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol and tea.
• You can feel the emotions of other people through your own body. ( Does not necessarily apply to all gifted people).
• You dislike violence.
• You can become extremely aw struck by the inner beauty of subjects and objects, be it music or math.

Higher consciousness

• You are able to quickly come up with different solutions for problems.
• You were an outcast at school.
• In school you never belonged in any group, you just walked a long with different types of groups, as to not stand out too much.
• You are extremely loyal.
• One moment you are very motivated and can take on the whole world, the other moment you just want to lie in your bed all day.
• You complain a lot because you can see how much there can go wrong.
• You have a preference for older friends than yourself.
• You often have to defend your opinions and ideas or else they will be ignored.
• You often doubt your own ideas, because you’re the only one who thinks in this way.
• People regularly say to you that you shouldn’t make things so complex or be so serious all the time.
• You would like to improve upon the world if you had a chance, and you also have a lot of ideas on how to do this.
• You feel like you can outperform your older self.
• You have a hard time finding inner peace.
• You are extremely loyal and trustworthy in relationships.
• You are scared to do an intelligence test, because if you fail, apparently your eccentricity hasn’t even something to do with being highly gifted.
• You know things without knowing how.
• You have extraordinary experiences you don’t always know how to understand or in what context to place.

Intelligence, creativity and determination

• You function the best in a solo position.
• You have high demands of yourself and others, and you are very critical.
• You have great determination when it comes to doing something you like or something you yourself must do.
• You have to repeat yourself often or explain it multiple times. Others don’t understand you.
• You have your own way of living.
• You don’t think learning is hard, but the way the material is presented should fit your way of thinking.
• You have a strong sense of justice.
• You have an eccentric type of humour.
• You dislike repetition.
• You can concentrate on something for hours if it is interesting.
• You like meetings where you can have intense discussions.
• Parties bore you quickly.
• Your vocabulary is large. But often you make sure not to use many big words, as to not look smug or pretentious.
• You like the juicy details in the discussions and often catch others in their inconsistencies.
• You have an astronomical curiosity.
• You are hungry for knowledge regarding your favorite subject matters.
• You could read at a very young age. (Depends on the environment, does not necessarily apply to every highly gifted person)
• You still read a lot, anything and everything.
• You have a shelf full of books.
• You work at multiple projects at the same time.
• You have a hard time initiating a task.
• You procrastinate a lot.
• You have a hard time finishing projects, because your attention has been captivated by the next interesting thing.
• When you work you follow strict procedures or you have a really hard time with creating structure.
• When the deadline is near, you work extremely hard and you still get it done. (Crisis management)

Highly gifted signs in children
Not necessarily everything applies, but here are some that parents often report.

• They often talk a lot or are very quite and shy. (99th percentile extroversion or 99th percentile introversion).
• They do things fluidly for their age e.g. tying shoe laces.
• They do things slowly for their age but at once correctly and complete.
• They are often strong for their age, they have a lot of strength.
• They have an excessive amount of energy which can be tiring around some adults.
• They are very sensitive, physical and emotional, suppressing these sensitivities can lead to a lot of stress.
• They are often intuitive. Parents often report paranormal like abilities, but these abilities get often suppressed by adults.
• They develop with irregularities. For instance, they can write extremely well, but their fine motor skills are lacking behind in development.
• They often intellectualize emotions, and are not capable yet to place them in context or experience the emotions themselves.
• They are sensitive to beautiful things.
• They are very good at describing things in a detailed manner, because they are very good observers.
• They often play games classified for an older audience.
• They are not aware how their giftedness impacts the adults.
• They notice that they are being treated differently compared to other kids, and therefore try to fit in better.
• They are curious.
• They like to collect things.
• They often have significant knowledge of subjects they find interesting.
• Or they can have a trivial knowledge about a lot of subjects rather than deep knowledge.
• They can endlessly ask questions about what is happening around them.
• They need foods for their brains, they talk a lot, they want to know a lot, they remember a lot, they are like sponges.
• They learn quickly without problems if the methods of learning fit their way of thinking.
• They are more likely to have dyscalculia or dyslexia compared to the average.
• They like to read, and often read books intended for an older audience.
• They can solve problems intended for an older audience.
• They have a high capacity to concentrate on things they find interesting.
• They are often bored because they have understood the essence quickly.
• They often feel different compared to others, and because of that lonely.
• At a very young age often ask existential question e.g. why do I exist?
• Sometimes they express how they don’t like the world and would rather be dead.
• They have a hard time choosing.
• They need help with setting priorities, every child needs help with this, but for highly gifted children it is especially important because, they see many opportunities.
• They often are friends with kids who are older than them.
• They have a hard time accepting authority. Often because what an authority figures expresses is inauthentic or simply untrue.
• They need help with setting goals, they are often overwhelmed by the opportunities.
• They have a unique sense of humour.
• They can be dominant and bossy but also quiet and shy. (Often because of certain negative experiences).
• They are often perfectionists, coupled with their intelligence, they can produce highly qualitative work for their age.
• They set high demands for themselves, and often fail in reaching them, which often results in a negative image of themselves.
• They are often impatient with others who are less capable because they don’t understand the differences.
• They often have a natural talent in something like dance, music, drawing, painting, writing or other things.
• They are good at improvising.
• They often have original ideas and play with a variety of possibilities.
• They have a rich inner world and often day dream.

Difference between Highly Gifted and just Gifted.

There are definitive differences between people who are gifted, that is to say people who have a significantly higher IQ than the average, compared to highly gifted people. The difference lies in the intensity of how highly gifted people experience reality, which in turn manifests itself in intense behavior. Because of this intensity unique thought patterns, insights, knowledge and behaviors manifest themselves. The difference in intensity is caused by having a higher form of consciousness, which results in significantly different behavior patterns and thought patterns.

• Gifted people often show interest, while highly gifted people have an internal hunger for knowledge. This doesn’t necessarily need to happen through books, most highly gifted people require to be shown something just once, and they will get it, if it interests them.
• Gifted people excel in school work, and are able to memorize large chunks of factual knowledge, and are able to recall that knowledge.
  A lot of highly gifted people are also capable of this, however they have a hard time with the traditional methods of teaching used by schools. Also a hard time with the recalling detailed and small isolated facts. This is because every new piece of information gets combined with the current information they have in their head, in a web like manner. Because of this, new connections and patterns emerge. The knowledge is still usable, however it makes it harder to reproduce it by the required school methods, used in exams.
• The gifted person is part of a group, they are often frontrunners but are metaphorically speaking on the same wavelength, compared to their less intelligent friends. The highly gifted person is often way ahead of the group and the frontrunners from the group. Is often thinking a head of what the group was thinking about.
• The gifted person often needs for something to be repeated around 5 times to be understood. Often gets good ideas, knows the structure of these ideas, neatly finishes its tasks, they are good at absorbing knowledge and remembering. The highly gifted person often needs for something to be repeated around 2 or 3 times to be understood. They often want to share their opinion about tasks, often has wild ideas, sees new connections and patterns and sees immediately how something works. However, often they have a hard time explaining this to other people.
• A gifted person often feels at home in a group of students, because the gifted person is obviously smarter, however they still think in the same manner compared to the others. The highly gifted person has a hard time with finding a group who thinks in a similar way. This is simply because highly gifted people are rare. It is often socially unaccepted to become friends with people or to gather with people on the basis of you guys being highly gifted, this makes it even harder for them to find similar minds.
• Gifted people think in steps and learn in steps, from easy to harder. A highly gifted person would first like to see the whole big picture and then independently examine pieces of the whole. If there are parts which the highly gifted person does not understand, than extra explanation is useful or else it will be distracting. They often have a hard time because of the simplicity of the material rather than the difficulty of it. For instance, they might over think answers e.g. this cant be the answer it’s to easy, there has to be a twist somewhere.
• A gifted person predominantly uses his or left brain which regulates language and math, they often think in words and language. A highly gifted person often has compared to the average a very active right hemisphere, where creativity and musical ability are regulated, they also think more often in pictures.

To finish it of here is a poem by Pearl S. Buck

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him.

He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

Originally published at www.quora.com.