This month’s lecture covered the social and emotional needs of gifted children and addressed the social experiences of gifted students, their wellbeing and mental health. This talk addressed the possible social stigma of giftedness, the need for mental health care workers to know more about giftedness and how gifted students can improve their wellbeing.
It was given jointly by Prof Lianne Hoogeveen, Dr Szilvia Fodor and Dr. Colm O’Reilly. Their bios are included below.
Bios
Prof. Dr. Lianne Hoogeveen, current President of the European Council for High Ability (ECHA), is Program Director of the Radboud International Training of High Ability (RITHA). She coordinates the master specialization ‘Gifted Education’ at Radboud University. As a mental health psychologist, she examines and counsels adolescents and adults with high abilities at CBO Talent Development in Nijmegen. As part of the Behavioral Science Institute (Radboud University), specifically in the research group RATiO she is involved in research on giftedness and education, cooperating with colleagues of Dutch and international universities. She is a guest lecturer in several European and non-European universities.
Szilvia Fodor, PhD is a psychologist and an associate professor at the Department of Counselling and School Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. Her main research topics are positive psychological aspects of gifted education, the psychology of optimal/high achievement, and school organizational psychology. Dr. Fodor is a regular consultant of the European Talent Centre, Budapest, member of the international advisory board of the European Talent Support Network and serves as the vice-president of the ECHA (European Council for High Ability).
Colm O’Reilly, PhD is the Director of the Irish Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI) at Dublin City University. Colm has worked in the area of gifted education for the last 30 years and has written books and articles and presented papers at conferences worldwide. His research interests include working with gifted students in out of school programmes and social development of these students. He has designed online programmes for teachers of gifted students in various EU initiatives. He serves on many national international advisory boards for gifted education and is currently the secretary of the European Council for High Ability.