You Know Your Child Is Gifted When By Judy Galbraith

In 2015, I wrote about my personal philosophy of the gifted learner. I stated in my paper that, “Giftedness is not a one, set definition. The definition of gifted must encompass intellect, ability, creative talent as well as emotional awareness. It cannot be micro-managed and be a “one size fits all” definition” (Dauber, 2015). People, who are gifted, need differentiation and opportunity to express, demonstrate and show their giftedness. Educators must be able to provide opportunities for the gifted learner to express his/her abilities and/or talents. Gifted students learn differently and require special educational experiences in order to grow academically and achieve their highest potential. Therefore, the education field must be able to understand not only the cognitive side of a gifted learner but the affective or social/emotional aspects too.

The students within Northern Secondary School’s 2014-2015 Gifted Program graduating class slid into AP and gifted classes like they were made for them. Since the beginning of their middle school careers, these gifted high school students have been spoonfed a thought-provoking and comprehensive education. At Wong’s public gifted elementary school, Cummer Valley, the faced-paced and in-depth curriculum not only stimulated his intellectual capacity and unlocked his potential, but “compelled him to achieve higher academic standards and established a strong foundation to build upon for high school.” Wong claims that he entered Earl Haig, a non-gifted public high school, with a knowledge base practically a grade higher than the majority of his subordinate

One of the difficulties in identifying the needs of low-income students is the profound cultural barriers which exist that prevent their strengths and deficits from being identified. Children from low-income homes frequently have poorer vocabularies and a weaker basis of the type of knowledge that is frequently considered 'intelligence' on most forms of assessment. A low-income child's IQ may be high, even though he lacks a framework of accepted middle-class knowledge. "In January 2003, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on the seeming overrepresentation of minorities in special education and underrepresentation of those students in gifted education. The NRC reported that, nationwide, 7.47 percent of all white students and 9.9 percent of Asian students are placed in gifted programs. Meanwhile, 3.04 percent of African-American students, 3.57 percent of Hispanic students, and 4.86 percent of American Indian students are classified as gifted" (GT-minority identification, 2003, ERIC Clearinghouse). The discrepancy, the NAS believed, could not be solely explained by talent alone but was at least partially rooted in the methods of identifying students labeled as gifted. Biases in standardized and other tests identifying student strengths, combined with prejudices, however unintentional, amongst educators and administrators lead to under-identification of the gifted

Adams County public school system’s current program doesn’t seem to recognize any minority or poor students who could be considered gifted. Educators in this district and committee members seem to lack any motivation to include diverse learners in their program. The fact that Adams County only recognized three out of four hundred thirty-eight over a five-year span is appalling. I feel Adams County need some major changes to extend their idea of giftedness. It needs to start with intensive and in-depth teacher training along with community outreach and awareness programs to help educate parents about giftedness. For instance, parent could learn ways to better support their children and help identify their child’s areas of giftedness.

Validity is the assessment of the test’s informational construct, content, and criterion (Jarosewich, Pfeiffer, & Morris, 2002). Despite the fact that GATES does not reference any giftedness theory or theory of support, content validity is confirmed for GATES since the test was developed based on literature reviews, critiques of existing rating scales, and academic and test construction experts of the field (Jarosewich, Pfeiffer, & Morris, 2002, p. 330). A combination between federal guidelines on giftedness and a confirmatory item analysis is the basis of GATES creation.

“Fear is one of the persistent hounds of hell that dog the footsteps of the poor, the

When the students graduating from Northern’s Gifted Program were in elementary or middle school, they nervously took a test would make them eligible for the school’s reputable Gifted Program. At Northern, all students entering the grade 9 Gifted Program must be formally identified through the TDSB’s assessment of intellectual ability. In our Board, in order for a student to qualify for gifted education, his or her overall score must be higher than that of 98% of same age students; gifted students constitute the elite 98th percentile. TDSB gifted assessments such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children or Fourth Edition typically take about three hours to complete.

Niall (not real name), an 11-year-old boy identified as gifted scoring in the 99.5 percentile for his age in the Woodcock Johnson III test. He is

A Gifted and talented (G/T) student” is “one who . . . exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area, possesses an unusual capacity for leadership, or excels in a specific academic field” (Aldine ISD Board Policy Manual, 2014). The Texas Education Agency (TEA) provides a state plan, which outlines the standards for Texas schools to be in compliance. It also offers the educational opportunities these students should receive. In fact, there are performance measures for five aspects of G/T programs including student assessment, service design, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and family and community involvement. The plan assists districts in delivering these comprehensive services to

In college writing is going to evident in many different forms. While the syllabus will vary between classes and teachers, there will be similarities from time to time. This essay is a comparison of a generic intro to college writing course and a forensic writing course. The two courses both involve writing, but they teach different styles of writing. When you take a closer look you can see some similarities.

A fifth grader may come in at a “second-grade level” and graduate at a “fourth-grade level,” which is a tremendous achievement on the part of the educators; however, because standardized testing fails to account for such circumstances, the entire year would be seen as a failure from the perspective of the state (Berger). To put it crudely, “poor schools can’t win at standardized testing” because students in areas of poverty start school academically behind and are unable to catch up as there is the lack of resources and funding (Broussard). On the other extreme, gifted students are also hurt by attempts to standardize education, for instance, with the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that many say has “failed our adolescents” (Steinberg). Teachers say that the legislation has resulted in a “race to the middle” that means “talented students have their potential squandered” as schools “[don’t] foster growth” (Weller). In effect, standardization attempts to remove individuality from learning and ignores that students have different capacities for learning, that some students may need more help while others need to be challenged above their grade level - instead it averages it all out to a “standard” that harms both

The term twice-exceptional refers to an individual who is gifted in one area and yet suffers from a emotional, physical, sensory, learning, or developmental disability (Assouline, Foley, & Huber, 2006). The term gifted student refers to a student who has an exceptional capability (2006). Over the years there have been numerous myths about gift learners. One such myth is that these students are lazy or underachievers (2006). Another myth is that a student can be gifted and also have a learning disability (2006). This kind of thinking has led to numerous amounts of students being misclassified and not receiving the services and interventions they need (2006).

Ellen Winner also authored a very relevant article in 2000, titled The origins and ends of giftedness. This article is essentially a supplemental piece to her book, cited above. This article was written four years after it, and her perspective on the origin of giftedness in children has begun to lean a bit more toward the growing psychological opinion that giftedness most often arrives from goal directed hard work, otherwise referred to as deliberate practices. Winner also continues with a cautionary focus on parents who are over eager and often overbearing when pushing their young children to learn, and in turn negatively affect them emotionally and behaviorally. In the article she notes, though, that parents of high-performing children tend

Firstly, achieved statuses are more important than ascribed statuses as achieved statuses differentiates people from one another, especially when they are taken into greater regard than ascribed statuses, which then in turn affects other people’s perception of them. One example of this is education in Singapore, where the greater emphasis on one’s results places the spotlight on individual achievements. Students are judged by others based on how much they score for tests and what grades they get. One of the first things family members ask students when they meet them is how they are doing in school. Furthermore, there are programmes in Singapore that provide greater depth and breadth of content for students, for which the students are selected based purely on merit and ability. The Gifted Education Programme (GEP) is one such programme that aims to identify individuals who are “gifted” and provide them with a more enriched programme. All students in the country take selection tests in Primary 3 and the top 1% of the cohort is identified for the programme. The selection test does not discriminate based on one’s ascribed statuses, be it race, religion or nationality.

Before the 1950s, most educators and school systems tended to follow Louis Terman’s example and based most decisions about gifted individuals on IQ and scholastic achievement scores. Standardized group intelligence tests, such as California Test of Mental Maturity, were often used to determine IQ. In these tests, educators were looking for exceptional ability in verbal or performance IQ, or a combination of the two. For the final identification, individual IQ tests such as the Wechsler scales and the Stanford Binet were used. Most school systems around this time considered an IQ of 130 or above to fall in the "gifted" range. This information comes from a book by Frederick B. Tuttle, Laurence A. Becker, and Joan A. Sousa (48).