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• Students with gifts and talents perform—or have the capability to perform—at higher levels compared to others of the same age, experience, and environment in one or more domains.
• Students with gifts and talents require modification(s) to their educational experience(s) to learn and realize their potential.
• Students with gifts and talents come from all racial, ethnic, and cultural populations, as well as all economic strata.
• Students with gifts and talents require sufficient access to appropriate learning opportunities to realize their potential.
• Students with gifts and talents can have learning and processing disorders that require specialized intervention and accommodation.
• Students with gifts and talents need support and guidance to develop socially and emotionally as well as in their areas of talent.
• Socio-emotional development may lag behind intellectual development (e.g., asynchronous development)
• It is crucial that gifted education professionals and parents of students with gifts and talents be mindful of social-emotional development to promote well-rounded development and self-actualization.
• Qualities such as emotion regulation, social skills, willingness to take strategic risks, ability to cope with challenges and handle criticism, confidence, self-perceptions, and motivation should be developed, as they may differentiate those individuals who move to increasingly higher levels of talent development from those who do not.
• Students with gifts and talents require varied services based on their changing needs.
• The services that students require should be based on both their current achievement level or potential and how the instructional environment addresses their immediate and future needs.
• The goal of services should be to alleviate a need that would otherwise go unmet.