Parental Beliefs about Giftedness in Young Children and Their Relation to Actual Ability Level

Some parents believe their preschool children to be gifted, but little is known concerning these implicit beliefs. This study provides data on the relationship between specific items perceived by parents to be indicators of giftedness in their young children and the children's actual measured ability level. Parental beliefs were found to be associated with actual IQ status. In particular, parents’ beliefs about memory, creativity-imagination, and abstract thinking abilities were associated with higher IQ, and knowledge of body parts with lower IQ. These data suggest that (a) parents have specific and differentiated beliefs concerning the constituents of giftedness in their young children, (b) parents exhibit a fairly high degree of accuracy in their judgments of their children's ability level, and (c) parental beliefs differ as a function of the actual ability level of their children.