Underachievement

Home > Giftedness - an Overview

Recommended Reading:
The Gifted Underachiever

Underachievement: From the Inside Out

Patterns for Charlie

Jim Delisle on the "Underachievement" label

Further Links:
Books

Therapists

Theories

Schools

Underachievement is one of the more slippery concepts in education, let alone in the realm of giftedness. There is no explicit threshold we use to determine that a child is or is not an underachiever. "If your grades all one standard deviation below your aptitude, as measured on the I.Q. Test, then you are deemed to have underachieved."

Nope. It is just not that simple.

A lot of what we end up with is I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. Personally, I have a hard time with the concept, and to an extent, the papers that follow this reflect that difficulty. But at the same time, I cannot deny that there are people who are keenly aware of not living up to their expectations of themselves, let alone the expectations of people around them (like teachers, counselors, and especially parents).

As always, you can find myriad links on the subject at Hoagies!