It is unclear from current research whether gifted children exhibit higher rates of mental health problems, says Laurie Thayer Martin, ScD, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health who specializes in the study of cognitive performance in childhood and its effect on physical health.

In a three-year study funded by a $75,000 Rosen grant, Martin will explore how common mental health problems are, and whether they lead to lifelong mental illness.

Earlier studies on gifted children and rates of mental illness have been small and have shown conflicting results.

By analyzing data from two large-scale studies that track mental health over a lifetime, Martin hopes to home in on how intelligence affects mental health during a lifespan.

"For example, if a gifted child shows signs of mental health problems, does that change when they reach adulthood, or do they continue to have problems?" asks Martin.

Martin is analyzing data from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project (NCPP) and the Terman Life Cycle Study of Children with High Ability.

Starting in the 1950s, the NCPP tracked 50,000 children from birth through age 7 with the goal of identifying factors during the prenatal, perinatal and early-childhood periods that influence a child's health and development.

Researchers tracked the children's cognitive development and physical and mental health by interviewing mothers about the children's development, physically examining the children, and, in some cases, drawing on lab tests and observation.

In 1999, approximately 2,000 participants–gifted and non-gifted–enrolled in a follow-up study, which Martin believes will allow her to link childhood cognitive skills to mental health status.

She will also examine information taken in the original study, such as family socioeconomic status (SES); parental education and occupation and income; child gender and learning disabilities; and family mental health history.

Martin will match this information with data from the adult survey, which includes DSM diagnoses, age of onset of the disorders and other symptoms of mental illness.

The Terman study followed 1,470 gifted children with wide-ranging IQ scores every five to 10 years since 1922–information that will help Martin examine whether degree of giftedness affects mental health outcomes.

Based on her work linking higher cognitive function with better physical health, Martin believes that gifted children will have a lower incidence of mental illness–partly due to SES, but also because they have more inner resources.

These resources, such as enhanced planning, problem-solving, communication and reasoning skills, may help protect against mental illnesses, and that protectiveness may rise with level of giftedness, Martin theorizes.

Martin hopes that the combined data from both studies, particularly factors such as demographics, learning disabilities, health behaviors and social relationships, may elucidate how giftedness and other factors affect mental health.

While Martin knows that one study alone cannot prove her theory, she hopes that this work will help guide the delivery of school and local mental health programs for gifted children.

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Excerpted from longer article: The inner life of the gifted child, By Laurie Meyers, APA Monitor, Dec 2005
http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec05/gifted.html

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