Early childhood environments and education

This chapter presents what is known about gifted children during the development and the implications in Australia and New Zealand for their education, their sense of self and their families, and teachers. In Australia and New Zealand, early childhood teachers may identify giftedness through their usual approach of assessing all children holistically, such as compiling narratives or portfolios based on observations of learning. A child's intellectual giftedness is inevitably associated with an intense need for a high level of intellectual stimulation, which in turn creates a need for appropriate experiences that may be unusual for the child's age. Findings from the few studies of family responses to very young gifted children indicate a mutual responsiveness in family interactions. In each country, the early childhood curriculum is a framework for teachers' decision making, in collaboration with families, based on the strengths, needs, and interests of individual children in their community and cultural contexts.