Exceptional Children and Disability Information
Gifted and Talented Children
Gifted and Talented Topic Categories
Giftedness refers to children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others their age, experience or environment. Gifted children and youth exhibit high performance capability in intellectual, creative, musical and/or artistic areas, possess an unusual leadership capacity or excel in specific academic fields. They require services not ordinarily provided by schools.
It has been assumed in Federal reports and legislation that approximately 3-5% of the school population can be considered gifted or talented. Since each state establishes its own definition of giftedness, percentages of children identified as gifted and talented vary from state to state. In general, children are not identified and placed into gifted programs until at least the 3rd grade.
The topics listed are individual websites that can be accessed only by members of The National Association of Parents with Children in Special Education (NAPCSE). If you are not a member of NAPCSE, and would like to join, click here to register. Members of NAPCSE, please log in above (member login and password) to activate these, and all other websites, in our database.
Accommodations and Modifications
- Acceleration: Educational acceleration is one of the cornerstones of exemplary gifted education practices, with more research supporting this intervention than any other in the literature on gifted individuals. Gifted readers and reading instruction: Children who have exceptional ability in reading and working with text information are considered gifted readers (Mason & Au, 1990). Gifted readers read voraciously, perform well above their grade levels, possess advanced vocabularies and do well on tests (Vacca, Vacca & Gove, 1991). Read more...Basic educatioinal options for gifted student in schools: There is a wide variety of ways that educators can assist in the talent development process of advanced learners. Yet every school needs to have basic provisions in place to assure the educational development of these students in the domains of learning for which the school has responsibility.Challenging gifted students in the classroom: How do teachers develop an instructional plan that will be challenging, enlightening, and intriguing to students of different abilities, and still maintain a sense of community within the classroom? This is the central question for educators as they begin the quest of bringing sound instruction to gifted students in regular classroom settings.
- Creative strategies for teaching Language Arts to Gifted Student K-8:Teaching strategies that stimulate higher level and imaginative thinking are important curriculum extensions for gifted students who have already mastered much of the written and oral language skills required at their grade level. This digest presents strategies and activities that, while appropriate for all students, encourage gifted students especially to work at their own pace and level of complexity and extend their talents in a variety of ways.
Adults who are gifted and talented
- Gifted Women: This is a links page for gifted women (men are welcome, too!). It has come about as a result of my own personal journey, so look for it to be updated as I find more - I'm continually searching for more gifted sites and articles!Women and TalentGiftedness self-test: an interesting lit of characteristics and questions for indoviduals seeking to dtermine giftedness.
- Are you an everyday genius: Sample questions to discover your everyday genius.
- Educational advocacy: This article is based upon the family experiences of twelve exceptionally gifted students (students who scored over 160 on the SB: LM) as the parents advocated for appropriate educational plans.
- Americans with Disabilities Act Home Page
- Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
- Center for the Study and Advancement of Disability Policy (CSADP)
- Center on Human Policy
- Consortium for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education (CADRE)
- Federal Register
- FindLaw, Your Online Legal Resource
- Wrightslaw
Assessing Individuals who may be gifted and talented
- Identification and assessment of Bilingual Hispanic Students: Traditionally, gifted and talented programs have been filled with White, middle- or upper-middle-class students. These are students whose home backgrounds have provided them enrichment opportunities and linguistic experiences to enhance their natural abilities in ways that allow them to do outstandingly well on standardized tests. Current use of the Stanford Binet in assessing gifted students: The Gifted Development Center uses the Stanford -Binet Scale of Intelligence, Form L-M as a supplemental test instrument. Although there are more recently normed tests, those who work with the highly and profoundly gifted feel that it is the best test for locating children with intellectual abilities above the 99th percentile.Identification of gifted and talented: This article presents the three-ring conception of giftedness. A detailed process is presented illustrating how students can be effectively screened for gifted and talented programs through the three-ring conception approach. Testing options-great site for understanding intelligence tests and Standardized tests and what they measure: The following article has been written by Dr. Dobbs to help clients understand their choices when it comes to testing their child. There are many testing instruments available, more than we have listed here. This representative sample should help you make an informed decision as to which test to use. If you child has already been tested, the following article may also answer some questions about the scores you were given. FAQ about assessing giftednessAssessing for giftedness: A good overall review of assessment of the gifted.Alternate assessments:The following terms may be used as descriptors or identifiers when searching the ERIC database. Additional information on alternative assessments is available from The National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, which conducts research on important topics related to K-12 educational testing.Assessing and nurturing the talents of young gifted children: There are many reasons for seeking intellectual and academic assessment, including educational planning, understanding a child's pattern of abilities, or checking for disabilities in a child who is known to be gifted. Sometimes young children lose interest in school and both parents and professionals want to find out if the child is receiving sufficient intellectual challenge or if social and emotional issues are involved. Identifying gifted students (for use by school districts): Few areas in the education of children with exceptionalities are as controversial and critical as appropriate identification of children who are gifted. The controversies involve all the pros and cons of labeling children as well as a variety of political issues.
- Identifying students for GT programs (for use by parents) : States and school districts have a wide variety of policies and use a wide variety of instruments, screening mechanisms, and procedures to identify gifted students.
- Wide variety of video tapes :A comprehensive list of video-tapes for giftedness.Back to top
- Child prodigies bibliographyHome schoolingJournal of Creative BehaviorCreative Education Foundation PressGifted booksGiftedness in Children and AdolescentsAD/HD and Giftedness: What do we Really Know?A-Z guide
- Reference list of articles
- 3 ring conception of giftedness:The age-old issue of "what makes giftedness" has been debated by scholars for decades. In the past twenty years, a renewed interest has emerged on this topic. This chapter will attempt to shed some light on this complex and controversial question by describing a broad range of theoretical issues and research studies that have been associated with the study of gifted and talented persons.
- How do we develop giftedness:This author provides reflections on the 25 years of his work, focusing on the evolutions of models designed to help identify and meet the needs of gifted and talented students. The cited models include the Three Ring Conception of Giftedness, the Enrichment Triad Model, and the Schoolwide Enrichment Model. Summaries focus on the rationale supporting each model, including practical applications of the model in various school situations and underlying research. Also included are insights related to potential modifications and future development of the models.
- Characteristics: From The National Foundation for Gifted and Creative Children was formed over 30 years ago. The main goal of The Foundation was to get much needed information to the parents of gifted children. Click on "characteristics"Characteristics of extreme intelligence: This full text article is excerpted from Growing up Gifted. In it, author Barbara Clark reviews the research on characteristics of children with extreme intelligence and identifies 30 characteristics highly gifted children commonly possess. This chart summarizes work from Dahlberg, Gross, Koppel, Lovecky and Silverman.Checklist: Provides a characteristics checklist for teachers and parents looking for signs of giftedness in young childrenStages of moral development: KOHLBERG'S APPROACH to levels of moral development is attractive, particularly in the context of the gifted who are often accused of being immature on the grounds that they do not always readily find a set of social peers.The following information to the table of Kohlberg's stages comes from Guiding the Gifted Child by Webb Meckstroth and Tolan.Characteristics of giftedness scale: From a developmental perspective, the characteristics associated with giftedness become apparent early in life. The following list of descriptors has been used successfully for nearly 19 years at the Gifted Development Center to predict performance in the superior and gifted ranges of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Silverman, Chitwood & Waters, 1986), WISC-III, and other standardized intelligence tests. The Characteristics of Giftedness Scale was designed specifically for parents as part of a phone intake procedure. It was developed as a result of research findings and clinical observations, as well as many years of teaching experience with this population. Read more...General characteristics: Common traits of giftedness.
- Characteristics of the Gifted child: The gifted child can exhibit many unique characteristics, or none at all. And even those who seemingly exhibit none of these characteristics may feel many of them, hidden just below the surface. And the effort it takes to continue hiding is often exhausting.
- 3 ring conception of giftedness: The age-old issue of "what makes giftedness" has been debated by scholars for decades. In the past twenty years, a renewed interest has emerged on this topic. This chapter will attempt to shed some light on this complex and controversial question by describing a broad range of theoretical issues and research studies that have been associated with the study of gifted and talented persons.
- Classroom/program placement and gifted students: The decision to enroll a child in a gifted program is not irreversible. If the placement doesn't work out, the child can always go back to the regular education classroom. The reverse is rarely true. If you opt to keep your child in the regular education classroom, and your child quickly becomes bored, transferring to the gifted classroom during the same school year may not be possible.
- Curriculum compacting: Curriculum compacting is a flexible, research-supported instructional technique for modifying the regular curriculum to meet the needs of high ability students.
- Developing appropriate curriculum for gifted students: A comprehensive curricula for high ability learners, grade Kindergarten through 8, in science, language arts, and social studies.
- Developing a program for the gifted in a school system: Developing program models for gifted students rests with the states or school districts within a state. There is no "one right way" to develop programs for these students, who are so varied in their interests, talents, abilities, and learning styles.
- Early entrance to college: Early entrance is a way that highly gifted students can accelerate and enroll in postsecondary education before completing high school. There are different types of early entrance:
- Enrichment activities for gifted students: The field of gifted education has been, for many years, a laboratory for the development of creative educational enrichment activities. Critical thinking, problem-finding, and problem-solving activities, for example, were originated by professionals working in gifted education.
- Evaluating gifted programs: Developing an evaluation plan is one of the most critical elements of providing programs and services for students who are gifted. Many people make the mistake of planning evaluation after the program has been running for a couple of years because they want to make sure that the program is fully implemented before assessment or evaluation.
- Funding for gifted education: Federal funding earmarked for gifted education is available through application to The Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program. The Javits Program is designed to build nationwide capability in gifted and talented education and encourage rich and challenging curricula for all children.
- Gifted children with disabilities; children with disabilities and giftedness: Children who are gifted and have disabilities share many of the traits and challenges of both groups—gifted and disabled. Their intellectual capacity may be equal to that of an adult. Other strengths include short- and long-term memory, intellectual curiosity, ability to conceptualize abstractly and see cause-effect relationships.
- Gifted students and attention deficit disorders: During the past five years, an increasing number of gifted children have been identified or diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder, with or without hyperactivity.
- Gifted students and learning disabilities: Gifted students with learning disabilities have much in common with other gifted students. They typically have an excellent long-term memory, an extensive vocabulary, they grasp abstract concepts and thrive on complexity. They are highly creative, imaginative, perceptive, insightful, and are keen observers.
- Gifted students and learning disabilities (diagnostic tests) : This file includes information about the use of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) to identify learning disabilities in gifted students.
- Gifted students in the regular education (inclusive) classroom: The term "inclusion" may refer to schools, classrooms, or even curricula. It is both a philosophical approach and an instructional method. When used to refer to classrooms, it typically means all students are learning in the same classroom setting—that is, heterogeneous grouping.
- Gifted students in the regular education (inclusive) classroom (grouping practices): When attempts are made to evaluate the effect of a particular school environment, such as the resource room, or ability grouping, or a particular instructional method such as Creative Problem Solving, the range and diversity of results is impressive.
- Highly gifted: Highly gifted children tend to be those who demonstrate asynchronous development. Due to their high cognitive abilities and high intensities they experience and relate to the world in unique ways.Three ring conception of giftedness: The age-old issue of "what makes giftedness" has been debated by scholars for decades. In the past twenty years, a renewed interest has emerged on this topic. This chapter will attempt to shed some light on this complex and controversial question by describing a broad range of theoretical issues and research studies that have been associated with the study of gifted and talented persons. Just what is a gifted child: Labels are unimportant until you realize that people still use them and sometimes not in the same way ASKING "WHAT IS a gifted child?" is a good question to start with. Who are the gifted?: There are many definitions for giftedness. They all have one element in common: A gifted person is someone who shows, or has the potential for showing, an exceptional level of performance in one or more areas of expression.
- Definition: The term "gifted and talented" when used in respect to students, children or youth means students, children or youth who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership ability, or in specific academic fields, and who require service or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities. Read more...
- Overexcitabilities used to predict giftedness: Over the past few decades researchers have been trying to map out the correlation between "overexcitabilities" and giftedness.
- 10 most commonly asked questions: All about highly gifetd children
- About testing and assessing: Many questions concerning assessing giftedness.
- History of gifted education: One might suspect that gifted programs originated with Plato, who believed in an intellectual elite. In the early part of the 20th century, programs consisted primarily of acceleration when students needed it. Formal gifted programs can be traced back to 1918. In 1924. Many links on this topic.
- Council for Exceptional ChildrenDavidson Institute for Talent DevelopmentEric ClearinghouseGifted Child SocietyNational Association for Gifted ChildrenSupporting Emotional Needs Of the Gifted-SENGWorld Council for Gifted and Talented ChildrenCenter for Gifted Education Policy
- American Mensa
Overview and General Information
- Basic educational options: There is a wide variety of ways that educators can assist in the talent development process of advanced learners. Yet every school needs to have basic provisions in place to assure the educational development of these students in the domains of learning for which the school has responsibility. Information and resources: Gifted children have better social adjustment in classes with children like themselves. The brighter the child, the lower the child's social self-concept in regular classrooms. Social self-concept immediately improves when children are placed with true peers in special classes. Read much more...Legal issues and gifted education: Gifted preschool, elementary, and secondary school children have very limited protections under state and federal laws. Without a federal law to protect the legal rights of gifted children, the legislative responsibility rests with the states. Approximately 37 states have gifted education legislation, although only 26 states have a full or partial mandate to serve gifted children. Longitudinal studies on gifted students: Longitudinal studies represent one of the best ways to determine educational practice because they view children and adults over an extended period of time.Models or "best practices" for teaching the gifted: When attempts are made to evaluate the impact of a particular school environment, such as the resource room, or ability grouping, or a particular instructional method such as creative problem solving, the range and diversity of results is striking. It is clear that resource rooms work well sometimes, and not at all well at others. Problem-based learning: Problem-based learning (PBL) is an approach that incorporates many of the principles of differentiated curriculum with some of the newer constructivist notions of learning and curriculum development. Racial and ethnic minorities and gifted education: For many years, educational professionals have been concerned about the disproportionate underrepresentation of children from some cultural, linguistic, and low income backgrounds in traditional gifted programs. Resiliency:Resiliency is the term applied to children exposed to severe risk factors, such as poverty, who nevertheless thrive and excel. It is the ability to spring back from and successfully adapt to adversity.Teaching gifted ESL students: For several decades educators have expressed frustration about their inability to nurture the high abilities of some students with limited English proficiency. Some of the barriers faced by the children when they first enter school are -Read more...
- The value of gifted programs : The first step in planning responsible advocacy for gifted students is to contact your state Department of Education in your state's capitol and find out if your state has policies, regulations, or guidelines on gifted education.
- Home schooling:When families consider homeschooling, there are many issues to explore. Common myths: Common myths about giftednessParenting gifted preschoolers: REALIZING THAT YOUR preschooler is gifted can catch you unawares, especially if the child is your firstborn. Parent checklist for identifying giftedness: Gifted children have a propensity to display many of these characteristics. Of course, each child is different, and the number of characteristics that apply will vary from child to child. Even if a child seems to have many of these characteristics, these observations alone do not 'prove' that a child is intellectually gifted. Gifted 101:comprehensive resource for education of gifted children. It's full of great information, with links to the most complete, easiest to use resources on nearly every aspect of gifted education available on the Internet, plus lots of annotations and first hand information provided by parents facing the same challenges that you are facing.
- Gifted 102:There are levels of giftedness, and you may find it important to learn where your child falls.
Prevalence
- Prevalence facts
