The DMGT: Changes Within, Beneath, and Beyond

This article begins with a brief survey of the recent update of the Differentiating Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT). The DMGT defines talent development as the transformation of outstanding natural abilities (called gifts-G) into outstanding knowledge and skills (called talents-T). Two types of catalysts, intrapersonal (I) and environmental (E), actively moderate the talent development process (D). These causal components of talent development have biological underpinnings; I propose here a way to integrate these biological roots to the DMGT in the form of ‘basements’ that exert their influence upwards to moderate the development of natural abilities, as well as many intrapersonal catalysts like temperament, needs, interests, and volition. This new tri-dimensional approach to the structure of talent development leads to two hitherto unpublished proposals. The first one is a Developmental Model for Natural Abilities (DMNA), in which biological building blocks create a diversity of natural abilities, through a developmental process based on maturation and informal learning, and with the necessary contribution of both sets of I and E catalysts. The second one integrates the new DMNA and the DMGT into an Expanded Model of Talent Development (EMTD) that begins with the biological foundations and ends with high level expertise.