Assessing and accessing high human potential: A brief history of giftedness and what it means to school psychologists

The history of giftedness pertains to historical changes regarding how giftedness is conceptualized and defined, and how it serves the practical purpose of identifying gifted children and providing them an appropriate education. The past century has witnessed debates and controversies about what constitutes this elusive human quality we deem “gifted.” Overall, it has undergone significant changes from monolithic, static to more pluralistic, dynamic conceptions. The first part of this article delineates historical changes in the past 100 years in our understanding of the nature and development of giftedness, followed by the second part on the changing ways we define, assess, and identify gifted children or gifted potential for intervention purposes. The final part of this article depicts a broad trend toward expanding gifted education to a wider range of students, with the understanding that gifts and talents are widely distributed in student populations, and the deliberate cultivation of human potential should not be confined to a selected few.     

Best practices in gifted identification and assessment: Lessons from the WISC-V

School psychologists in today's schools have the unique opportunity—and responsibility—to guide identification for gifted programs. “Who is gifted?” remains a perennial question in the gifted education literature, not answered by group intelligence screeners that purportedly level the playing field for all. As the student body grows more diverse, there is increasing necessity to ensure that all students have equal access to gifted programs. Failure to identify and develop the advanced abilities of gifted children who are culturally diverse, economically deprived, highly gifted, or twice exceptional is justifiably viewed as a civil rights violation. The National Association for Gifted Children's 2018 position statement, “Use of the WISC-V for Gifted and Twice Exceptional Identification,” offers important considerations for identifying the gifted. Based on a national research study of 390 gifted children on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition (WISC-V), the statement recommends that the traditional practice of mandating Full Scale intelligence quotient scores be abandoned. Instead, it embraces the use of any one of six expanded index scores that are better measures of abstract reasoning for selecting students for gifted provisions. As gifted children are oftentimes asynchronous, alternate index scores are less biased and better able to document the strengths of all gifted children. What is learned from the WISC-V can be applied by school psychologists to improve the choice of comprehensive individual intelligence tests, brief intelligence tests, and the body of evidence gifted children must exhibit.     

From the editor's desk

This article examines the underrepresentation of African American and Hispanic students in gifted education, proposing that social inequality, deficit thinking, and microaggressions contribute to the inequitable segregated programs. Underrepresentation trends are presented, along with methods for calculating underrepresentation and inequity. Underrepresentation is placed under the larger umbrella of achievement gaps and inequities in school settings with attention to de jure segregation. I argue that underrepresentation is beyond statistical chance and is a function of attitudes and beliefs grounded in deficit paradigms among those with power or social capital. Denying access to gifted education based on race is counterproductive and illegal and is discussed with Brown v. Board of Education as the legal background and a recent court case in gifted education (McFadden v. Board of Education for Illinois School District U-46). Recommendations for desegregating gifted education are provided.     

Family Processes and Psychosocial Problems of the Young Korean Gifted

It is widely known that Korean parents have a high aspiration for providing opportunities of higher education and high expectations for their children’s academic achievement. Young Korean gifted children with ages from four to ten years did not show many psychosocial problems. However, some showed such problems as distractibility and inattentiveness, aggressiveness, helplessness, or psychiatric symptoms, when parents exert pressure, fathers are not involved in education, or parents do not discipline children’s behavior. Korean young gifted children showed high motivation for learning, when parents provide support, help, and supervision on TV watching. Based on the results, it was suggested that parents provide support for learning, rather than pressure on learning, and discipline their children’s behavior when they are young. In addition, fathers need to be more involved in their children’s learning in order to prevent psychosocial problems of the young gifted.     

Giftedness and social adjustment: evidence supporting the resilience approach in Spanish‐speaking children and adolescents

Do gifted students adjust poorly to their social environment? There are currently two competing positions: one that sustains that giftedness is by itself a risk factor for social adaptation, and another that holds that high cognitive abilities involve distinctive features that are protective and hence increase individual resilience. Empirical support has been provided for both positions. This paper provides data from a study performed with 50 Spanish‐speaking gifted children and adolescents using a comparison group of 50 average‐ability peers matched by sex and chronological age. The results show no significant differences between gifted students and their peers on global measures of adjustment. Instead, they suggest that gifted students are neither significantly more poorly nor better adjusted than their peers during different age periods. Our analysis of the results provides moderate support for the resilience position.     

Identifying and Nurturing Gifted Children in Israel

The article describes Israel’s approach to the education of gifted and talented children. It describes the programs for gifted and talented children in Israel and the process for selecting students for these programs. The method of selecting students for programs is consistent with the Ministry of Education’s definition of giftedness, the goals of the giftedness programs, and the characteristics of these programs. The selection method is affected by the standards required of the instruments as well as other constraints, such as the constraints on funding for this purpose.The author of this article is the director of the Szold Institute program for identifying gifted children. The project is funded by the Israeli Ministry of Education     

Bridging the gap between Religious Education and gifted education: theory and praxis in three secondary school programmes in Cambridgeshire

Religious Education (RE) has the potential to identify as gifted many students who might otherwise be missed. The findings discussed here are based on a study of Heads of Department in three very different secondary schools in Cambridgeshire, which investigated how their training and praxis affected the way they identified and challenged students gifted and talented in studying religion. Reasons are given for the gap between RE and gifted education, internationally, nationally and regionally. The lack of student challenge in much RE is identified and ways are suggested to extend and enrich all. Strategies are discussed for doubly exceptional students, with profound insights but poor written skills. Questioning the dominance of pragmatic approaches in the UK, the article suggests how the RE profession could develop a critical and theoretically informed approach to giftedness, with direct implications for classroom practices.     

Enriched education promotes the attentional performance of intellectually gifted children

The education of gifted children is of considerable interest. The present study focused on the effect of enriched education on intellectually gifted children’s attention. In the present study, 7–12-year-old children completed seven tests of attention (alertness, focused attention, divided attention, attentional switching, sustained attention, spatial attention, and supervisory attention) to investigate the differences among intellectually gifted children under different educational environments. The results showed that intellectually gifted children who received enriched education had better attentional performance than did intellectually gifted children who received standard education. The result affords theoretical support for gifted-education practice.     

Gifted education policy and advocacy: Perspectives for school psychologists

Education laws and policies serve to guide the way programs and services are implemented in schools. The transition from law or policy to implementation can be fraught with complications that impact the education system across many levels. According to Viennet and Pont (2017), one of the areas that can either hinder or support the transition from policy to practice is “inclusive stakeholder engagement” (p. 3). School psychologists are an important stakeholder in the education system thus they should have familiarity with gifted education policy to ensure students are being served appropriately—both academically and socio-emotionally. This article will introduce school psychologists to (a) federal and state laws impacting gifted students, (b) the role litigation, due process, and research has in shaping policy, and (c) relevant gifted education policy considerations.     

What characterizes children nominated as gifted by teachers? A closer consideration of working memory and intelligence

Teacher nominations are often used in school settings to identify gifted children. However, although high intelligence is part of almost all definitions of giftedness, prior research has consistently shown that not all children nominated as gifted by teachers have high intelligence. In order to further understand the characteristics of these students, we herein explore the role of another cognitive construct, namely working memory (WM). In a sample comprising N = 81 fourth graders, both WM and intelligence showed the same predictive value for characterizing teacher-nominated gifted children, pointing to the importance of the thus-far-unattended WM for characterizing these students.     

Changes over time and transfer of analogy-problem solving of gifted and non-gifted children in a dynamic testing setting

This study examined differences in transfer of analogical reasoning after analogy-problem solving between 40 gifted and 95 average-ability children (aged 9–10 years old), utilising dynamic testing principles. This approach was used in order to examine potential differences between gifted and average-ability children in relation to progression after training, and with regard to the question whether training children in analogy problem-solving elicits transfer of analogical reasoning skills to an analogy construction-task. Children were allocated to one of two experimental conditions: either children received unguided practice in analogy problem-solving, or they were provided with this in addition to training incorporating graduated prompting techniques. The results showed that gifted and average-ability children who were trained made more progress in analogy problem-solving than their peers who received unguided practice experiences only. Gifted and average-ability children were found to show similar progression in analogy problem-solving, and gifted children did not appear to have an advantage in the analogy-construction transfer task. The dynamic training seemed to bring about no additional improvement on the transfer task over that of unguided practice experiences only.     

Social Competencies and Difficulties of Gifted Children Compared to Nongifted Peers

This study, conducted in Israel, examined the social and emotional difficulties of gifted children, in comparison with nongifted children. The gifted children were further compared in two educational settings: segregated classes and pull-out programs. The 974 participants were from the fifth to twelfth grades. The dependent variables included loneliness, social competence, empathy, and self-concept. The results indicated that gifted children score higher on need fulfillment, empathy, academic self-concept, and lack of emotional anxiety and lower on self-disclosure and physical self-concept. Few differences were found between the two settings for gifted children. The conclusion is that gifted children differ from nongifted children only on some of the social–emotional variables examined, mainly for the better.     

Gifted Education and Counselling in Canada

Education in Canada is determined at the provincial level of jurisdiction. Each province and territory has a unique system of legislation and policy, although most provinces view the education of gifted students as a category of service provision under special education. The first section of this paper provides a brief, general overview of key themes that emerge from an analysis of the relevant Education Ministry documents and literature concerning gifted education and counselling within the Canadian context. Where appropriate, the particular province(s) and/or territory(s) associated with the themes is noted. The second section highlights the work of Canadian scholars most relevant to counsellors working with gifted students. A brief review of recommended counselling needs, goals, and practices for the gifted is presented in the conclusion.     

A Journey Toward Excellence: An Interview With Bruce M. Shore

From a sample of 13,176 children with disabilities who were a part of the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study, 330 students achieved a score at the 90th percentile or higher on the Woodcock-Johnson III. These children represent some 9.1% of children who have disabilities nationally and who might be identified as gifted or academically advanced. Only 11.1% of these students were participating in programs for gifted and talented students with African Americans, Hispanics, or females significantly less likely to participate. The discussion considers the reasons behind these results and possible approaches for identifying and serving students within a current response-to-intervention approach.     

Public Speaking: Reducing Student Apprehension and Improving Oral Skills

In this article, the author compares the potential academic and attitudinal gains of a gifted and talented population using different instructional methods. It has been found that instruction for identified high-achieving students must be different than that of general education students. Gifted and talented students cannot maximize learning opportunities unless they are appropriately challenged and motivated to learn. When gifted learners are lethargic and disinterested in learning, better-matched instruction is needed. Using contract activity packages with a gifted and talented population will support high-end learners in the classroom. During this project, the contract activity packages method of instruction provided the children with choice, flexibility, and challenged them at a higher level than they experienced through traditional lessons.     

英国数学英才教育的实证研究及对我国的启示——基于英国三所中学数学英才学生的问卷调查

英国是世界上公认的重视英才教育的国家,而且其英才教育的理念、培养和评价等教育体系比较成熟。通过对英国三所中学的141名数学英才学生进行问卷调查、个别访谈,结果表明:英国数学英才学生"痴迷"数学,"钟情"创新;数学知识获取方式和学习方式多元化;学习自我效能感高;英才身份认同感强。这些对我国的数学英才教育具有一定的借鉴意义。     

美国数学教育改革与数学天赋学生培养的简略回顾--如何在鱼腹中发现珍珠

数学天赋教育是数学教育改革的重要分支，美国最近20多年的数学教育改革提供了关于数学天赋教育的有价值的经验，天才班并不是培养数学天赋学生的唯一选择，数学教师必须努力在一般课堂中识别数学天赋学生并开发他们的潜能；必须学会运用基本的策略来调整课堂教学以提高对天赋学生教学的能力；必须逐步建立自己的信念，调整自己的知识结构来培养数学天赋学生。     

Finnish Elementary School Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Gifted Education

This study examined Finnish elementary school teachers’ (N = 212) attitudes toward the gifted and their education. On a general level, teachers’ attitudes toward gifted education were slightly positive. Teachers saw that gifted students have social value and that they need special services. The results of teachers’ attitudes toward specific gifted education options were in line with earlier Finnish research, because teachers supported differentiated teaching but were more negative toward acceleration or separating the gifted into their own groups. However, despite the strong support for differentiated teaching for the gifted, teachers’ positions toward practice were more skeptical.     

国际数学资优教育的研究综述

在有关数学资优教育的研究中,涉及较多的是对数学资优生的界定、特征、评估及培养途径,许多国家都形成了数学资优生的教育模式。其中的许多成果及实践经验对我国的数学资优教育都具有重要的参考价值。