Doubt and Proof: The Struggle to Accept One’s Giftedness Across the Life Span

• In Event: Roundtable Session 104
  In Roundtable Session: Social and Emotional Development and Issues for Gifted Individuals

Abstract

There is little research that has explored gifted adults’ perspectives about growing up gifted. As part of a larger qualitative study of gifted adults’ perceptions of giftedness and graduate education, Gilligan et al.’s (2003) Listening Guide Method (LGM), a voice-centered method of analysis, was adapted to provide unique perspectives on the phenomena. LGM reveals genuine and often unexamined perceptions/perspectives by using transcribed first-person “voices” to create personalized I poems: investigative tools that provide a way of systematically attending to the many voices embedded in a person’s expressed experience. This poster specifically explores the conflicting role that doubt and proof play in the recognition and understanding of an individual’s own giftedness.

Author

• Adrienne E. Sauder, The University of Western Ontario