Intellectual giftedness and sports practice among youth in France: A special commitment?

Based on current knowledge and relative international consensus, the identification of intellectual giftedness involves conducting a psychological assessment and administering an approved intelligence test, which results in obtaining a general intelligence quotient (IQ) score equal to or greater than 130, corresponding to approximately 2.3% of the population. Nearly 370,000 young people under the age of 20 would be concerned in France. Mainly conducted in psychology, many research studies on this subject have largely focused on the educational domain. But what about their development in extracurricular settings, specifically regarding their physical and sports activities? While the data collected through a questionnaire, completed by parents of 513 identified intellectually gifted children under the age of 20, enabled us to assess the physical and sports environment of these individuals, the discursive analysis derived from 22 interviews conducted with concerned parents provided further clarification, discussion, and enrichment of these statistical results. One of the main contributions of this study lies in the fact that identified gifted children and adolescents, especially girls, are highly engaged in physical and sports activities, particularly when these activities are individual.