There are many cognitive and affective characteristics of intellectually gifted adolescents which differ from those of their non-gifted peers. These characteristics have the potential to assist academic and social development, or conversely may present social and academic difficulties for the adolescents. Two cognitive characteristics and two affective characteristics typically associated with gifted adolescents will be examined to explore the relationship between these characteristics and their effect on social and academic development. The two cognitive characteristics that will be examined is self-regulation, and their dislike of slow paced work. And the two affective characteristics is the possible exhibition of perfectionist …show more content…

The boredom in the classroom can lead to different types of disruptive behaviour, such as constantly being provocative, being a ‘class clown’, or even non-attendance. (Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998) Despite the many negative consequences of the dislike of slow paced work, there are positive aspects, though not particularly for the gifted student’s benefit. When the gifted students have completed their set tasks, they may then proceed to provide assistance to their non-gifted peers. The gifted want the pace to increase, so by ‘tutoring’ their peers, can provide the assistance for more students to finish the work quicker, thus increasing overall pace. This generally helps the other students, but by teaching other students, their own understanding and mastery of the material also have the potential to increase. This practice however, can be perceived as discriminatory and unfair, in that the student is doing the teacher’s job. (Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998) Another possible positive aspect is that in a slow paced classroom, gifted students have the opportunity to seek out knowledge from their own interests, and become autonomous learners. Once the gifted student has completed the required tasks, they can then maybe proceed with extra credit work, or do research and learn material not in the curriculum, but peaks their interests. For example, learning about bath houses and the ‘unseen’ history, when