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Article Excerpt
As a graduate student in the 1970s, the first author of this paper was inspired by an idea presented in a course on childhood psychopathology: Garmezy's (1976) notion of the "invulnerable" child. This concept of children and youth thriving despite adversity seemed to hold the key to social change. If we could identify and recreate the factors that made children invulnerable to hardship stemming from severe family dysfunction, trauma, or intense poverty, we could raise the emotional and academic functioning of children who might otherwise succumb to failure. "Resilience" has since replaced the overly optimistic language of invulnerability, and research in psychology on this topic has continued to flourish. In the aftermath of September 11, resilience has become a public focus with the intent of providing information on supporting recovery from trauma wrought by terrorism (e.g., American Psychological Association Task Force on Promoting Resilience in Response to Terrorism; Alpert et al., 2004; Dudley-Grant, Comas-Diaz, Todd-Bazemore, & Hueston, 2004). Research has expanded to focus on "educationally" or "academically" resilient children--those who succeed in school despite the stresses of poverty and inadequate childrearing conditions. Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1998) and Waxman, Gray, and Padron (2003), among others, investigated educational resilience and derived recommendations for schools.
Over the years, professionals in gifted education have explored the relationship between resilience and giftedness. Bland, Sowa, and Callahan (1994) suggested that resilient individuals share many characteristics with gifted children and that further study may identify coping skills that counselors can teach. Ford (1994) described barriers to resilience among gifted African American youth and made recommendations for enhancing resilience among this population. Hebert (1996) examined coping strategies of young gifted Latino men, and Frydenberg (1997) those of gifted adolescents in general. More recently, psychologist Neihart (2002) suggested that resilience might serve as a theoretical framework for systematically addressing the social and emotional issues of gifted individuals (e.g., lack of challenging curricula, asynchronies in development). Attention to affective development of gifted students is particularly important given that IQ accounts for only about 25% of the variance in schooling outcomes and 4% to 30% of the variance in job performance (Sternberg, Grigorenko, & Bundy, 2001). Sternberg et al. point to self-efficacy, a factor supporting resilience, as an important contributor beyond intelligence.
A resilience approach would serve especially well the needs of underrepresented populations of gifted students those most at risk for serious hardships. "At risk" would include gifted children and youth living in poverty or in circumstances of abuse and neglect; children and youth who experience discrimination based on race, language, gender, or sexual orientation; and students from all backgrounds who have experienced trauma. The focus on successful individuals from at-risk environments and the strategies they can share makes a resilience framework particularly compelling.
This article summarizes findings from resilience literature relevant to the development of children and youth and derives specific strategies for enhancing outcomes for gifted children and youth most at risk for encountering adversity.
Research on Resilience and Coping
"Resilience" describes the phenomenon of surviving and thriving in the face of adversity typically predictive of negative outcomes: poverty, family psychopathology, trauma. Resilience improves conditions affecting an individual's ability to cope (Osofsky & Thompson, 2000). Psychologists have studied resilience and coping since the 1970s, producing an abundance of literature. Following a description of types of factors critical to understanding resilience literature, we focus on studies relating intelligence, development, and diversity to resilience-topics that can inform practice with gifted children and youth, particularly those at risk.
Central to understanding the literature is the concept that four types of factors function in predictable ways to influence resilience: compensatory, risk, protective, and vulnerability factors. According to Tiet et al. (1998), the first two factors yield consistent effects across levels of risk. Compensatory factors (e.g., healthy family functioning, high educational aspirations) always have a beneficial consequence irrespective of risk level. In contrast, risk factors (e.g., poverty, substance abuse, incarceration) always have a potentially harmful effect, whether there is low or high risk. In contrast, the consequences of protective and vulnerability factors vary depending on risk level. Protective factors (e.g., self-esteem, positive coping strategies, internal locus of control, social skills) exert a buffering effect at high risk but little or no effect at low risk. Vulnerability factors are the opposite of protective factors and have little or no effect at low risk and detrimental effects at high risk. A life absent of stress, for example, might constitute a vulnerability factor--inconsequential when there is no risk, but disadvantageous at high risk if the individual as a result has no successful experience coping with hardship.
Intelligence and Resilience
Level of intelligence appears to play a role in resilience, though the operating rules for its influence have yet to be defined. At least one study suggests that higher intelligence may function as a risk factor (Luthar, 1991). However, most experts view it as a protective factor (e.g., Condly, in press; Doll & Lyon, 1998; Tiet et al., 1998; Werner, 2000). Findings may differ depending on outcomes investigated (e.g., psychological adjustment or school achievement; drop out status or delinquency), measures used (e.g., psychiatric diagnoses, teacher ratings), and subjects studied (e.g., age, economic status, ethnicity).
Luthar (1991), in a study of primarily African American and Hispanic high risk, inner city adolescents, found intelligence and positive events to operate as vulnerability factors in determining peer- and teacher-rated social competence under stress. Luthar interpreted the findings as suggesting that for older adolescents, in contrast to...
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