ABSTRACT
The question of why some gifted children fail to thrive in school is a tantalising one that has occupied researchers for many years. Underachievement is usually considered to be the result of individual, family and/or school-related factors (Baker, Bridger and Evans 1998) but many gifted children are recognised as having neurobiological problems that interfere with academic and social/emotional functioning. It is common practice to label these according to the symptoms they manifest. Labels frequently used include ADD, ADHD (Leroux and Levitt-Perlman 2000), Visual or Auditory Perceptual problems, Tourette's Syndrome, Dyslexia (Winner 2000), Dyspraxia, Asperger's Syndrome (Neihart 2000), Autism (Cash 1999), and so on. These conditions may be accompanied by learning disabilities that persist in spite of diverse therapies being tried by often desperate parents.
