Comparison of 107 kindergarten children who either were or were not in a gifted program and received or did not receive special training in synectics (a strategy to facilitate creative thinking) found significant improvement in creativity scores for experimental but not control groups but not more for gifted than for nongifted children. (Author/DB)

A synthesis of ideas on talent development is presented, based on 10 interviews previously conducted with masters in arts and sciences. The six themes include: age at which the individual identifies with a discipline, early schooling experiences, skills and characteristics associated with great expertise, mentors, skills and characteristics…