Four gifted elementary schoolchildren from the point of view of counselling psychology

Theory, research findings and educational models yield insights into the phenomenon of giftedness und offer guidelines for working with gifted children. The differentness of such children can cause problems that make it difficult for home and school to work together. The main function of a counselling centre for the gifted is to deal with such malfunctions of the system. Potential talents of a child always affect the family too, and cause difficulties for the child, of which it is itself partly the cause. In counselling this aspect is of particular importance, as counselling involves, after all, a child and not a phenomenon. The purpose of the four case studies of nine-year-old elementary school children presented hen is: (1) to demonstrate specific aspects in individual families and (2) to work out the interactions involved. This approach yields a differentiated picture of the diverging courses of development of four boys who are very similar in their intellectual ability.