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Article Excerpt
If neuroscientists are to prevent their work from being
misrepresented [in this way], they must think more critically about how their research is presented to educators and the public, and in particular they must be very cautious about even the most innocent speculation about the practical significance of basic research. They should remind the interested public that we are just at the beginning of our scientific inquiry into how neural structures implement mental functions and how mental functions guide behavior. (Bruer, 2002, p. 1033).
Welcome to this special issue on the cognitive neuroscience of giftedness. There are a few goals that this issue will attempt to accomplish. First is to update the story on what we do and do not know about giftedness from a neurobiological point of view. Historically and continually, there are multiple definitions of giftedness that encompass the notion of g (Spearman, 1927), domain-specific expertise (Csikzentmihalyi & Robinson, 1996), various forms of intelligence (Gardner, 1993; Sternberg, 1985), and creativity (Amabile, 1996; Csikzentmihalyi, 1991; Feldman, 1994; Simonton, 2000; Torrance, 1988). The open question is will knowledge of how neurobiological processes bear on giftedness boil these down? One senses an implicit expectation that knowledge of the neurobiology of human ability and performance will make these answers simpler and more concise, so that we can organize, optimize, and better remediate and educate our talented children. In truth, it is likely to make the case more complex. For instance, why, in the case of pediatric hemispherectomy, can a child have half of their brain removed and yet their intelligence remain completely intact (Battro, 2000; Pulsifer, Brandt, Salorio, Vining, Carson, & Freeman, 2004)? There is much to explore about the functional anatomy of talent (Kalbfleisch, 2004). Why talent? It is a concept broad enough to encompass questions related to both intelligence and creativity. From a neurobiological standpoint, giftedness is a type of neural plasticity that we do not understand--there are open questions about the relationship between structure and function, the role of stress in the expression of giftedness, and an important distinction to make between characterizing cognitive processes associated with ability and cognitive states associated with the performance or the inhibition of talent (Kalbfleisch, in press; Kalbfleisch, Van Meter, & Zeffiro, 2006; Kaufman, Kalbfleisch, & Castellanos, 2000). Assertive explorations of biological and educational implications for disabled populations (Fawcett & Nicolsen, 2007; Fidler & Nadel, 2007; Kovas & Plomin, 2007) indicate ideal timing for the consideration of high-ability children in educational neuroscience.
When I talk with audiences of laypeople, I pose the question, "Why does it look like we know so much when we know so little?" First, because much of what is known until very recently comes from studies of learning and memory in animal species. Second, because findings from neuroimaging studies performed in humans are oftentimes based on group averages. That is why MRI is not used to "diagnose" ADHD or dyslexia in individuals. MRI is a costly, highly technical, and sophisticated method. Its sensitivity, however, is not at a level where it can reliably illustrate necessary information about the nature of individual differences on a person-to-person level. Contrast this with the notion that giftedness is a construct focused on the individual, and it is a construct sometimes handled in relative terms (i.e., some children are gifted in one county or state but not in another), not absolute. Indeed, this is evident in the constant challenge to align identification and programming practices. The purpose of this special issue is to provide gifted education practitioners and researchers with a primary source view of the neuroscience that currently exists that bears upon our modern definitions and conceptions of giftedness, and to help educate the reader about the methods of modern cognitive neuroscience.
In keeping with this, the second goal of this special issue is to increase the scientific literacy of the reader so that you come away with a clearer understanding of both the utility and the limitations of neuroimaging studies and a set of operating principles to employ when reading about neuroimaging studies from both primary and secondary sources. The potential for cognitive neuroscience to impact education has been an issue of high interest and rigorous debate (Ansari, 2005; Bruer, 1997, 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 2002; Byrnes & Fox, 1998; Geake & Cooper, 2003; Goswami, 2004, 2005, 2006; Gura, 2005; Jolles et al., 2006; Kalbfleisch, 2006; McCandliss, Kalchman, & Bryant, 2003; O'Boyle & Gill, 1998; Posner & Rothbart, 1995; Stern, 2005; Tomlinson & Kalbfleisch, 1998) and international communities of educators and scientists have convened to explore potential intersections (Jolles et al., Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Center for Educational Research and Innovation [OECD-CERI], 2002, 2007). There are hubs of organized activity that are currently working to consolidate existing knowledge about the biological basis of learning and guide public inquiry into the topic of educational neuroscience (International Mind, Brain, and Education Society, IMBES, 2007; OECD-CERI, 2002, 2007). The British and American Educational Research Associations (BERA, AERA) have special interest groups designed to promote fruitful interactions amongst practitioners and researchers. The National Research Council has synthesized knowledge of human learning across methods, which serves as breaking ground for more complex research now that imaging methods have matured (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Furthermore, several articles have made commentary on whether or not neuroscience and education have a future together and in what ways that might come to pass (Ansari, 2005; Coch & Ansari, in press; Goswami, 2006; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; Kalbfleisch, 2006; Stern, 2005; Varma, McCandliss, & Schwartz, 2008).
It is on this precedent that this special issue moves forward to involve a community of researchers who are interested in basic issues of learning, ability, and performance in the gifted. Who are the authors in this issue? Among us we hold the roles of educational psychologist, behavioral geneticist, structural neurobiologist, cognitive neuroscientist, and neuropsychologist. This collection of authors represents those who are performing primary source neuroscientific and neuropsychological work on giftedness and probing issues related to the nature of intelligence and creativity. While enthusiasm is great for the potential of cognitive neuroscience to inform issues related to human performance and potential, modern science is only at the beginning stages of producing new knowledge and insight about learning...
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