This book is more of a technical reader for an individual specializing in Education for the Gifted; i.e. it utilizes nomenclature that will likely be unknown to the general reader. If this is fine with the reader, the author does an excellent job of summarizing various theories and insights into the current state of education for the gifted as it relates to the development of the gifted individual in the areas of: socialization, emotion, and psych socialization.

Overall, it is a book that I will continue to use as a reference. ( )

Rinn has written a work that is not only good for use by educators and administrators but it can be used by parents as well to get a better understanding of their child's needs in life. The work is divided into four sections each dealing with a different aspect of the child's development and then each chapter within the section divides the section topic down farther. The work walks the reader thru from basic development of both the cognitive and personality, then into traits seen in the child like perfectionism and then to how gifted individuals are different from the non-gifted. Rinn also looks at skills that gifted individuals need to develop their talents not only their self beliefs but also their motivations. Then Rinn looks at the effects of the chil's environment plays in their development . In this final section, Rinn gives the educator or parent a look at how varying systems all play a role in the child's development and the role of the ones who have to be the intervention to guide the child's development also. Taking into account that proper counseling and the child's mental health should come above all else to insure that the gifted child develops. Several different models are shown and a work contains a very large reference section. However, there is no index to direct the educator or parent to a topic within the work. The work was easy to read and is based on the works of the well known leaders within the field of Gifted education, The work ties the last century of research together and places it into modern day to allow a in depth view of what development of the subject of the development of gifted and talented children to aid the reader also. Overall a good work on its subject and could make a fine addition to many media centers and educators resource shelves. ( )

What a great read that offered an opportunity for me to reminisce about my graduate school years. I enjoyed reading about different theories and research that I haven't thought about in many years. I was impressed with the way Rinn applied this information to gifted and talented individuals. The information about developmental and educational psychology was a great springboard for discussions regarding gifted and talented students. I especially liked the section about sensory sensitivity since I see this often as a special education teacher. I appreciate the multitude of references provided. Although this read is dense and thorough, I found the writing style to be engaging and interesting. Thank you! ( )

This volume is geared towards those inclined to work professionally with or research gifted students, that is, grad students, early career scholars and teachers. It is supposed to serve as an introduction into how gifted learners differ from others in terms of their individual development and as far as the psychology of their education and development is concerned, thus providing teachers as well as (budding) scholars in the field with a good introductory overview of what to expect and consider when working with gifted learners.

Well organized and well written, this volume offers a wealth of information and is well suited for the above mentioned purpose. ( )

I come at this book as a parent and a mentor of talented youth. I am interested in honing my skills to be more effective in serving these students. This book is written especially towards those working in gifted education, whether at a K-12 level or higher. Rinn gathers all of the research and presents it in a careful manner. She also exposes where research consensus is currently lacking and requires more study. All in all, she presents a comprehensive and balanced take into an interesting and important topic.

Rinn addresses four fundamental questions: What is Development? Are gifted individuals qualitatively different from nongifted individuals? Which psychosocial skills are necessary in the development of talent? And what effect does the environment have on the development of psychosocial skills conducive to the development of talent? In turn, she breaks these questions into several smaller topics which serve as her chapters.

To be frank, the first section (on development) seemed unnecessary and not to cover any new territory. A developmental approach is certainly needed for gifted and talented individuals, but this topic seemed to distract from the whole thrust of the book in which newer thoughts were elaborated. I would have reduced this section to a single chapter at most because many other books on education deal with this topic adequately.

To me, the most interesting topics are whether gifted individuals have a different make-up than the rest of the population and whether mental health challenges are different for this population. Rinn examined these topics in depth and arrives at some tentative conclusions – although the data are, at best, somewhat mixed in its opinion. She covers a wide swath of challenging difficulties, including perfectionism, emotional intensity, self-belief, motivation, imposter syndrome, big-fish-in-little-pond syndrome, and mental illness.

Overall, this book is suited to those interested in guiding, teaching, and mentoring gifted and talented individuals, either in education or research. As the author suggests in the last chapter, this book might also prove helpful to professional counselors who often lack a skill set to effectively deal with gifted-and-talented issues in their work. ( )