Peer Acceptance and Social Play of Gifted Kindergarten Children

After identifying 29 intellectually gifted kindergartners using a combination of screening tests and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary’ Scale of Intelligence- Revised, we compared the gifted students’ peer acceptance and social play with two control groups of nongifted classmates. A disproportionate number of girls was identified as gifted. Although there were no significant differences between gifted and control girls in terms of peer acceptance, gifted boys received significantly fewer positive and more negative sociometric ratings than controls. The social play of gifted and control children was indistinguishable in terms of peer association pattern (solitary, parallel-simultaneous, or group play) and general focus (exploration, construction, dramatic, etc.). Gifted children tended to associate with more popular, though not more intellectually advanced classmates than their nongifted classmates