THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED UNDERACHIEVERS - ORDINARY OR EXTRAORDINARY UNDERACHIEVERS

The starting point of the study is the often described ''underachievem ent syndrome''. To shed some light on the ''underachieving syndrome'' of gifted children, five groups of fourth-graders of elementary school s were investigated: ''underachieving gifted'', ''high achieving excel lently gifted'', ''high achieving gifted'', ''average achieving non-gi fted'' and ''high achieving non-gifted''. Control variables were ''gen der'', ''socio-economic status'', and ''grade point average''. Gifted underachievers were defined as students with an intelligence-percentil e greater than or equal to 96 and an achievement percentile less than or equal to 50. Data concerning personality, self-concept, development , school, and social adjustment were collected from the children, thei r parents, and their teachers. Results show that the underachieving gi fted children display more problems in nearly all investigated variabl es, and are described by their parents and teachers as being more prob lematic. Thus, the general underachievement syndrome also applies to g ifted underachievers in elementary schools.