GIFTED CHILD

any of various children who are naturally endowed with a high degree of mental ability. Since little is known about special abilities, the term is usually confined in psychological and educational writings to a child whose innate general ability rises above a certain specified borderline. The borderline itself is largely a matter of administrative convenience. In the United States the most common cutoff point is an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 130135. This corresponds to the borderline generally adopted in Britain for scholarships to secondary (grammar) schools in the early days of scholarship examinations. Some U.S. school systems, however, place it as low as 120 IQ.