Does the Label of Giftedness Matter? Yes, More Than You Might Expect

By Youssef Sleiman on September 25, 2025

Of all the labels, does this one matter?

“Can’t they just figure it out themselves?” 

That’s how most people reply when I say I support gifted adults. 

The question says a lot. For any other form of neurodivergence, from traumatic brain injury to ADHD to cPTSD, would the commonplace assumption be that the individual should be able to work it out alone, without support? Still, I understand why the assumption’s there: To many, gifted means smart, talented or special. It also might mean having a high IQ score or taking AP classes in school. 

But school’s over. If you’re an adult when you find out that you’re gifted, so what? So you scored high on some test. Big whoop. Why mention it to family or friends? Why tell a doctor? Is it worth the time to say you’re gifted to a psychotherapist, let alone family or close relationships? Even if it’s true, what does it matter to anyone else? 

Sure, you can be gifted. Do you need to say it? 

Why does the label of gifted matter? 

A member of our gifted community posed this question, and it moved me. Because I wrestle internally with it, too, even years after my own identification and self-discovery journey. Should I tell anyone? 

I understand the resistance to saying anything. That word. “Gifted.” It smacks of elitism, arrogance, superiority. Saying “I’m gifted” may invite scorn, disdain or dismissal. One recurring discussion in gifted spaces is “Can’t we come up with a different word for gifted?” (I love Dr. Patty’s reframing with galvanic and hyperneuroplasticity.) I know so many who find belonging and resonance in the community — and are disgusted at the word. 

Isn’t everyone gifted? In one sense, yes. I absolutely believe every soul can offer something no other individual can. 

In a very different sense, gifted refers to a rare neurology, one that can pose as many challenges as benefits. 

And acknowledging it may truly improve your life.

Why Does Identifying as Gifted Matter at All?

Because it's a real, objective phenomenon that impacts my life. 

The yuck of the word “gifted” aside, what it’s describing is an objective fact about me and the way my brain works. When my brain works differently, that affects anything my brain or nervous system processes. And what part of the human conscious experience occurs outside of the nervous system? 

Refusing to acknowledge any difference may invite challenges. 

Ignoring this one? Oh, boy. All the yuck attached to the label emerges in relationships in tangible, unforeseeable and materially harmful ways. 

Ignore the processing difference, and you’ll be called arrogant. 

Ignore the speed difference, and you’ll get called impatient. 

Assume everyone can do what you can do, then you’ll be also labeled with having high expectations.

How Makes Giftedness Worth Naming?

It's not like I'm touting that I'm a Libra and insisting that everyone accommodate a preference for balance. 

It's not like I'm an INTP and insisting that my personality preferences dominate my medical treatment or how I study in school.

Instead, it's more like being left-handed and asking for scissors made for me. 

This neurodivergence, as poorly represented and broadly misunderstood as it is, works more like a potentially fatal peanut allergy: If I go to your house, my allergy isn't likely on your mind the whole time. I'm aware of it, though. I definitely want you to know about it before you cook dinner. Or else, I'm gonna show up in a hazmat suit.

Except, well, it's not like an allergy that I could possibly forget about when not eating. 

It's not like a hand-related difference that only affects my life during certain tasks.

It's not like even requiring the use of a wheelchair and looking for ramps — because onlookers may assume I have advantages in a world not made for me. 

This thing, this real, neurological brain difference touches the entire nervous system’s circuitry, the very hardware and software operating how humans fall in love, how we worry about our children, how we choose shirts and careers, how we order a pizza and how our bodies react to medicine, alcohol and drugs. 

This objective, neurobiological difference affects my very experience of consciousness. 

With consequences when experts don't know.

With damage when partners aren't made aware.

With shame and fear when my needs are dismissed because, “well, you just figure things out anyway. You're better at it than anyone else. Who can help you? What could they do for you? You obviously have it under better control than literally everyone else I know."

No Wonder the Gifted Difference Is Hard to Explain

No wonder explaining it is a struggle. This neurobiological phenomenon touches everything, down to the quality of your conscious experience. 

“Attempting to explain the water you're swimming in" doesn't work as a sharp enough metaphor. “Explain the parallel dimension you're living in — but to someone who hasn't heard of parallel dimensions."

Surely that “parallel dimension" metaphor is an exaggeration, right? Well...

Gifted Sensitivity Misunderstood as a Flaw

Others might write off your experience this way: “So you're a sensitive person. Stuff's louder, brighter, etc. Toughen up." 

They misunderstand how that same sensitivity relates to your precision for details, your sensitivity to information. Think about it. If you're operating from more information than everyone else in the room is, then heckyeah, you're potentially going to arrive at some wildly different conclusions than everyone else. 

Meanwhile, no matter how much “toughening" you do, the sensitivity stays rooted firmly in your skin, eyes, taste, nose, thoughts, memories, feelings, conjectures …

Gifted Processing Misunderstood as Overthinking

Others might write off your experience this way: “So you overthink. You're living in your head, you're thinking all the time, and you know stuff. Well, stop thinking so much. Calm down, Speedy Spock." They misunderstand that you're not putting in more effort. 

They might mistake your baseline as anxiety; they might mistake your “overdone" explanations as “trying to look better than the rest of us, to score points with the boss or the teacher." Nope. Actually, this is just you, asking plainly about conclusions you wonder about, speculating from a dataset you may assume everyone has access to. 

Consider this scenario. A new piece of data or realization hits everyone in the room. For you, the new knowledge worms its way into implications in other spheres of knowledge (because, of course, they're related). The info cascades down into new ideas the team could take advantage of, changes the family might adopt or a simple (to you) reframing that resolves the very tension you're in therapy for. Complex isn’t your intention. It’s a value judgment from outside, from others interpreting your process. 

And wouldn't you know it, no amount of “trying not to think as much" works out right. 

You're not doing more. You're doing different and getting called “more” or “too much.” 

Even if you're numbing out in every possible way, it’s an uphill battle. Your neurology has a baseline, regardless of how often friends, family, spouses, doctors or therapists instill the message that “Your baseline is too much." 

Because it's not a conscious choice; it's a neurobiological reality that can be quantified sometimes — in such a peculiar way, if you think about it. 

What IQ Score Is Considered Gifted? Complex Answers for Neurotypes Defined by Complexity

Consider this: For about 120 years, this neurotype has largely been identified by how well it performed on timed abstract reasoning test. 

Any full-scale IQ scores below 130: Non-gifted

A full-scale IQ score of 130 or greater: Gifted

Anything beyond 145: Congrats, you broke the test. Your IQ is immeasurable. 

An IQ score is an attempt to estimate how rare your intelligence is. However, the rarer yours is, the less and less accurate the test is. The IQ test manages to identify only some folks with this complexifying-sensitivity quality. Even David Wechsler, the psychologist behind the WAIS and WISC IQ tests, wrote in 1943 that his test only identified a portion of intelligence behaviors. 

Imagine if doctors only identified ADHD by a person’s performance at a harried, game-show-like gauntlet of challenges designed to measure extraordinary task switching. Or imagine a diagnostician identifying dyslexic individuals with a test of how quickly they could navigate a corn maze with written signage. I mean, sure, maybe it could identify some of the neurotypes you’re looking for — yet the test would be fraught with issues, from tampering to accommodations for factors that would disrupt the test, issues that obscure IQ test results themselves. 

Giftedness Still Has So Many Unknowns

That said, the scientific inquiry into this neurotype’s population has been broadly limited to the IQ test, focused largely on children, and seeking how to improve educational experiences for children with this condition. There are decades of studies and research into how to identify children who do well on the test, how to change education to serve kids who do well on the test, and so on — and only in the last 20-ish years have psychologists tried to identify quality of life, social needs, etc., even recognizing that the IQ test may not be the best way to identify people with this neurobiological difference.

As systematic literature reviews continue to show, this population’s community isn’t overburdened with longitudinal studies into aging, development, career and more. 

It's disappointing how little of the holistic picture we have of how this novel neurology affects a person's life — and it's exciting that so much more has been synthesized.

This very point is why doctors, therapists and professionals in the field of studying it rely so much on accounts of lived experience from people experiencing this rare condition.

Describing Giftedness Without Using the Word Gifted

Here’s my imperfect, highly specific-to-me attempt to explain this experience difference, as if I were explaining it to a therapist, a medical professional or even a first date. 

So, I've got a kind of condition where my nervous system is really sensitive to all kinds of stimuli, not just my senses, and so my nerves and brain process quite differently, sometimes making shortcuts or detours. Because of my condition, my brain reorganizes quickly and substantially, even changing parts of me that others might have expected to be permanent. My nerves and neurons adapt and change more readily than most. In turn, medicines either don't work or work too well. By the way, most people with this condition are also pretty different from each other.

Now, my condition doesn't distress me. It's not exhausting how my mind runs or how bright, loud, itchy or smelly everything is. That's just normal, sometimes wonderful.

It also doesn't turn off or stop. Even if I feel the need to try to hide it. It's less of a preference and more like biology.

What complicates my experience is that sometimes this condition can look like a benefit. I tend to pick up skills quickly or come up with uncommon ideas — and it also means I can be especially sensitive. Things just stick, whether it's the average age of cars in America or when you yelled at me for dropping my pencil. This condition also affects my memory (and my body); it carries things longer than you might be used to, and that's normal to me. Please don't be surprised when I mention that something that hurt my feelings long ago is still painful to remember.

Also, because of the sensitivity and adaptability, I may also be more willing than you are to try something unexpected, uncommon or weird. That sensitivity means I have a baseline for new stimuli, and I may sometimes crave a lot more than most of the people around me. This also may mean I get bored with situations that seem to hold everyone else's interest.

If you're my therapist, you may notice my swift processing, and that it runs deep without much warm up, and that I may crave even more time taking my processing even deeper. This is okay.

If you're my friend or family member, you may notice me bringing up old topics or continuing a conversation you don’t remember. I'm not trying to embarrass or exhaust you; they were still interesting to me for so long, and I still think about them.

If you're my partner, you may notice over the years that I'll seem to change, and I mean more than just my taste in food. I’ll reconsider and reconfigure whole areas of my life. People are supposed to keep growing and changing, and I likely will.

My condition means I may do things, need things, or share things you're not accustomed to seeing. After all, estimates are that fewer than 1 in 10,000 people experience things as differently as I do.

Even that difference carries different qualities among others who also have such a different wiring system. 

Anyone with this condition may adapt quickly and deeply to all kinds of stimuli, and they'll look so different from each other. The reason why starts with adaptation: “What have we adapted to before? And what are we adapting to now?" That's what makes me and so many like me different, even from each other.

This condition can look like personality, perhaps. Maybe I am tenacious, creative, spontaneous, quick-witted, insightful, etc. However, I also want you to know, as someone in my life, that this runs deeper than personality. 

The very condition that makes it easy to score well on an IQ test also makes it hard to forget the insults your parents said to me. So I must work through those things with a therapist that understands how trauma processing works — because what may seem at first like a small hurt to most therapists has actually worked its way so deeply into my system that I'm challenging my very identity, just based on their hurtful words. 

Yeah, this condition means I can learn kazoo, JSON, narrative therapy and how to run a forklift in an afternoon. Some might see that as a benefit.

They might never imagine I need support.

The truth is, I need more support than many realize, even if I’m figuring it out on my own.

Quirky, wordy, and lightning-fast at the keyboard — Bright Insight Vice President Youssef Sleiman is a creative professional, neurodivergent gamemaster, speaker, writer and special consultant with Gifted Curious, helping late-identified, rediscovering, or gifted curious individuals. He reports on the most recently published studies and dissertations about giftedness, twice-exceptionality and neurobiology on Substack.