Gifted Children

A Tragic End for an Extraordinary Boy

By Richard Martin, 1-19-06

	What does it mean to be gifted?

This week's New Yorker features a long, and wrenching, profile of Brandenn Bremmer, a prodigiously gifted 14-year-old from western Nebraska who killed himself in his bedroom at his parents' farm last March. Figuring prominently in the story is Linda Silverman, who runs the Gifted Development Center, a "resource center for developmentally advanced children and their parents" in Denver.

Silverman, who lives in Golden, doesn't come off particularly well in the story; writer Eric Konigsberg details her tendency to grade smart kids at IQ-levels well off the scale that most child-development experts consider valid, including a 2001 case in which she scored an 8-year-old boy's IQ at "298-plus." That boy was later found to have been coached on the exam by his mother. Interviewed after Brandenn Bremmer's death, Silverman told Konigsberg that the teenager's parents "had contacts with him after he left his body" and that Brandenn's "mission to assist others in this lifetime may have been fulfilled by his death" (Bremmer's organs were donated to several recipients).

Curious about Silverman's reactions to the New Yorker article, I rang up the Gifted Development Center. Silverman wasn't available, and a staffer named Lee Ann politely informed me that she would have no comment on the story "because of confidentiality requirements."

"So," I said, "I take it Linda is not talking to anyone with the press about this story."

"We simply can't," Lee Ann replied.

I thanked her and hung up, refraining from pointing out that this makes no sense; any confidentiality restrictions between Silverman and Brandenn Bremmer (who met Silverman as a young boy and attended several GDC events, according to the story) were violated by Silverman's extensive interviews with Konigsberg, in which she discussed Bremmer at length.

The whole subject of gifted children has become a fraught one, with experts debating what constitutes "giftedness" and disagreeing how such way-above-average kids should be nurtured and taught. The example of Brandenn Bremmer is a cautionary one for all of us who suspect our kids might be brilliant. Unfortunately, Linda Silverman, at least in this instance, doesn't seem to be shedding much light on the subject.

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