title: Wechsler profiles in referred children with intellectual giftedness: Associations with trait-anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and heterogeneity of Piaget-like reasoning processes.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  It is common that intellectually gifted children (IQ ≥ 130) are referred to paediatric or child neuropsychiatry clinics for socio-emotional problems and/or school underachievement or maladjustment. Among them, those displaying developmental asynchrony - a heterogeneous developmental pattern reflected in a significant verbal-performance discrepancy (SVPD) on Wechsler's intelligence profile - are thought to be more emotionally and behaviourally impaired than others. Our purpose was to investigate this clinical dichotomy using a cognitive psychopathological approach.
  
  
  METHODS
  Trait-anxiety and emotional dysregulation were investigated in two groups of referred gifted children (n = 107 and 136, respectively), a pilot-study of reasoning processes on extensive Piaget-like tasks was also performed in an additional small group (n = 12).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared to those with a homogenous Wechsler profile, children with a SVPD exhibited: 1) a decreased prevalence of social preoccupation-anxiety (11.1% versus 27.4%; p < 0.05); 2) an increased prevalence of emotional dysregulation (58.7% versus 41.3%; p < 0.05); and 3) an increased prevalence of pathological cognitive disharmony on Piaget-like tasks (87.5% versus 0.0%; p < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results support a clinical dichotomy of behaviourally-impaired children with intellectual giftedness, with developmentally asynchronous ones exhibiting more severe psychopathological features. This suggests that developmental asynchrony matters when examining emotional and behavioural problems in gifted children and call for further investigation of this profile.
authors.affiliation: CHU de Caen, service de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, avenue Clemenceau, 14033 Caen Cedex 9, France; INSERM, unité 1077, Neuropsychologie et neuroanatomie fonctionnelle de la mémoire humaine, avenue de la côte de Nacre - CS 30001, 14033 Caen Cedex 9, France. Electronic address: guenole-f@chu-caen.fr.
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Guénolé
authors.affiliation: Hôpital Mignot, service de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, 177 rue de Versailles, 78150 Le Chesnay, France; Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, faculté de médecine, 2 avenue de la source de la Bièvre, 78180 Montigny-le-Bretonneux, France.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Speranza
authors.affiliation: Hospices Civils de Lyon, service hospitalo-universitaire de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, Hôpital Femme-Mère-Enfant, 59 boulevard Pinel, 69500 Bron, France.
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Louis
authors.affiliation: Hospices Civils de Lyon, service hospitalo-universitaire de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, Hôpital Femme-Mère-Enfant, 59 boulevard Pinel, 69500 Bron, France; CNRS, unité 5304, Laboratoire sur le langage, le cerveau et la cognition, 67 Boulevard Pinel, 69675 Bron Cedex, France; Université Claude Bernard Lyon-1, faculté de médecine Lyon est, 8 avenue Rockefeller, 69373 Lyon Cedex 8, France.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fourneret
authors.affiliation: Hospices Civils de Lyon, service hospitalo-universitaire de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, Hôpital Femme-Mère-Enfant, 59 boulevard Pinel, 69500 Bron, France.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Revol
authors.affiliation: CHU de Caen, service de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, avenue Clemenceau, 14033 Caen Cedex 9, France; INSERM, unité 1077, Neuropsychologie et neuroanatomie fonctionnelle de la mémoire humaine, avenue de la côte de Nacre - CS 30001, 14033 Caen Cedex 9, France; Université de Normandie, faculté de médecine, avenue de la côte de nacre, 14032 Caen Cedex 5, France.
authors.forename: Jean-Marc
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Baleyte
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D002672:Child, Gifted / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D014888:Wechsler Scales
keywords: Anxiety; Child, Gifted; Deficient emotional self-regulation; Dysregulation profiles; Intelligence; Psychometrics