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| 1 | Introduction. Gifted people, especially children and adolescents, need individualized learner-centered methods of education, support and guidance. This article addresses the potential of mentoring in gifted education. The purpose of the research is to analyze theoretical and methodological perspectives of giftedness and specify the role of mentoring in the development of gifted individuals. Materials and methods. The author reviews and conducts a theoretical analysis of Russian and international scholarly literature on giftedness and mentoring; outlines Russian and international practices of mentoring the gifted; describes the main characteristic features of gifted individuals; summarizes the obtained data. Results and discussion. The author considers giftedness as a complex system and describes its main components which determine successful or problem development of gifted children and adolescents. Consequently, gifted children and adolescents need more individualized interventions and informal relationships. The article reviews retrospectively the most prominent international research investigations which revealed positive correlations between the experience of mentoring relationships and success and high achievements of their participants. Formal programmes of mentoring are designed in order to achieve positive outcomes of informal mentoring relationships. The majority of such programmes follow theoretical models of giftedness. The author describes R. Subotnik’s Talent-Development Mega- Model and clarifies the stages of domain trajectories when mentoring is mostly required. Conclusion. The author summarizes theoretical and methodological perspectives of giftedness. They include the following: 1. giftedness is a complex system of personal attributes and qualities which determine a possibility of high achievements in one or more domains and is considered as a result of whole personal development of the gifted individual; 2. gifted people have special needs for individualized support, guidance and special attention within an enriched facilitating learning environment which are determined by the heterogeneous nature of this group of learners; 3. essential characteristics of mentoring make it an appropriate method for meeting educational needs of gifted and talented learners. The role of mentoring in the development of gifted individuals is specified. Keywords: mentoring, giftedness, mentoring the gifted, a generalized portrait of the gifted child, development of gifted individuals, support, guidance, mentoring programmes for the gifted | 1517 | ||||