ABSTRACT
Research also suggests that gifted people favor the right hemisphere, which seems to be more developed than average. Studies show how in gifted people, the prefrontal cortex follows atypical development, with delayed structural and metabolic maturation: in the early stages of life, it appears thinner than the average population. The condition of gifted students at school is often difficult because of the malfunctioning of executive functions with the risk of seeing compromised learning and academic success. Executive functioning must be present throughout a person’s development and therefore it cannot be satisfied when a child learns easily. Children who are not challenged enough miss out on an opportunity to practice critical executive functioning skills. Gifted students who have a higher Intelligence Quotient in their primary school years seem to have an extended period in adolescence during which they retain the ability to learn at a rapid pace, just like much younger children.
