“Social and Emotional Education of the Gifted: The Discoveries of Leta Hollingworth”, Linda Kreger Silverman1990 (IQ)⁠:

Leta Stetter Hollingworth was concerned with the unique adjustment problems that gifted children experience.

In her writings we find insights into the nature of these problems, their impact at different levels of giftedness, and solutions that could be implemented today. Although in any one article she limited her discussion to 5 or 6 of these “perplexities”, as she called them, I found a total of 11 different issues among her writings on this topic.

This article synthesizes Leta’s thoughts on the psychosocial development of gifted children and presents her program for “emotional education” of the gifted.

(1926_98ya, 1930, 1931, 1939, 1940a, 1942):

• finding enough hard and interesting work at school

• adjusting to classmates

• being able to play with other children

• not becoming hermits

• developing leadership abilities

• not becoming negative toward authority

• learning to “suffer fools gladly”

• avoiding the formation of habits of extreme chicanery

• conforming to rules and expectations

• understanding their origin and destiny from an early age

• dealing with the special problems of being a gifted girl.

See Also:

• “Leta Stetter Hollingworth: A pilgrim in research in her time and ours”

• “Leta Hollingworth’s contributions to above-level testing of the gifted”

• “Beyond Terman: contemporary longitudinal studies of giftedness and talent”