ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses programmatic responses to the social and emotional needs of gifted students, we must immediately engage the question of whether such responses should be any different from those available to non-identified students. The affective education discussion is alive and well in the literature on gifted students. The chapter finds the way to the negotiated wisdom between giftedness as a vulnerability and giftedness as a protective factor, recognizing that it is both and neither. With the exception of a subset of teacher and parent rating scales, identification protocols for gifted services rarely take into account social or emotional behaviors of candidates. Subject and grade acceleration are effective and efficient options for bringing students to a more appropriate academic environment. The flexible grouping of students on the basis of academic performance is another way of bringing more appropriate curriculum to all students. Researchers studying pull-out and full-time programming have found mixed effects concerning self-esteem and the Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Effect.
