Gifted children have the cognitive ability to learn at a quicker pace. For that reason, gifted education programs generally cover more material during a school year, and in more depth, compared to general education programs.
Gifted children have the ability to concentrate and commonly learn skills without needing as much practice.
Gifted children have a strong desire to learn and can become bored when they do not feel cognitively challenged. The Highline School District in Burien, Washington, describes the abilities of students in the gifted program: "students...utilize higher level thinking skills such as synthesis, analysis, creativity, inference, evaluation, interpretation and translation."
Gifted children are quite observant and more easily notice and understand nonverbal cues of peers and adults. Considering that only seven percent of communication is verbal, gifted children have an advantage of being able to easily "read" nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication includes facial expressions, voice intonation and body language.
A gifted child's affective characteristics are more likely to be age appropriate. Cognitive giftedness does not necessarily correlate with or imply advanced affective development. Because of a heightened emotional sensitivity, gifted children may be more upset by negative comments or perceived rejection. Gifted children find learning enjoyable and are less likely to struggle when learning new concepts. They can be perfectionistic, however, and may not cope well when encountering obstacles.