Identification of Giftedness

Different percentages of the general population have been identified as
gifted, depending on the definition of giftedness. Terman’s use of IQ scores
of 140 or above identified 1 percent of scorers as gifted. The current common
indicator of intellectual giftedness is a score of 130 or above on a standardized,
individually administered intelligence test, which is achieved by
the top 2.5 percent of scorers. By the broader Marland definition, some
formof which has been enacted through legislation by most states that have
mandated gifted education programs, a minimum of 3 to 5 percent of
school children are estimated to be gifted. Other definitions would identify
as many as 10 to 15 percent of schoolchildren as gifted, or as many as 15 to
25 percent in a talent pool. Gifted and talented students receiving services
in schools in the United States constitute about 6 percent of all children who
are enrolled.
By almost any definition, giftedness is very difficult to identify during infancy.
Most researchers would agree that giftedness has a biological foundation,
but whether this foundation exists as a general or a specific capability is
unknown. One of the earliest indicators of many forms of giftedness is precociousness,
or unusually early development or maturity. During preschool
years, precociousness can generalize across several domains, such as the use
of logic with an extensive vocabulary, or it can be more specialized, such as
drawing realistic pictures of animals or objects, or picking out a tune by ear
on a musical instrument. Development does not seem to proceed in all areas
at the same pace, however, so a young child may develop early in one or two
areas but still behave in many ways like other children of the same age. Because
of such asynchronous development, parents should not assume that a
child who can master the moves of checkers at four years of age, for example,
will accept losing a game any better than the average four-year-old.
A surprising number of gifted children are their parents’ only children or
first-borns, but this fact only reveals that their precocious development is
due, at least in part, to learning from the models in their early environment who are adults rather than age-mates. As Bloom’s study suggested, parents
or other adult caretakers provide opportunities, resources, and encouragement
to learn. Whatever reading ability a child may have, for example, can
be nurtured by adults who read both to her and around her, who provide appropriate
materials to read, and who show interest in the child’s spontaneous
efforts to read.
A child who is developing a talent early often will tend to rehearse it spontaneously,
or call for repeated performance or for explanation by the parent
(or other model) to review or understand what the child wants to learn. An
eight-year-old, for example, might draw a whimsical but easily recognizable
portrait of a parent’s face while watching cartoons. A nine-year-old might
play a competent if not yet masterful game of chess with the school principal,
who then asks the child to explain certain moves, and so on. The products
and performances of gifted children in elementary school are often
similar to the products and performances of skilled but less gifted adolescents.
For this reason, gifted children are often bored when instruction is
designed for their age level rather than for an advanced level and rapid pace
of learning.
By the school years, children’s giftedness can be assessed reliably in ways
other than observation of precociousness. Assessment usually begins with
nomination by a teacher, parent, group of peers, or possibly the child himself
or herself to identify who is gifted. Some psychologists have argued that
nominations by those who know children well can be sufficient for placement
in a gifted education program or a set of services beyond those normally
provided by the regular school program, in order to help gifted children
realize their potentials.
Teacher nominations cannot be the sole indicator of who is gifted, however,
because studies have shown them to miss about half of all gifted children.
Nominations by teachers and others are often supported by academic
marks during the previous year, and these evidences of achievement are often
supplemented by standardized test scores. These scores can result from
individual or group assessments of intelligence, school ability, cognitive abilities,
academic aptitudes or achievements, and creative or productive thinking
abilities. Because tests themselves have been found to identify only half
of all gifted children, test scores are sometimes supplemented by scores
from other types of instruments (such as checklists), ratings of portfolios or
performances, or interviews to complete the assessment process. No single
assessment technique or instrument has been found to identify satisfactorily
all types of giftedness in the Marland definition. Underrepresentation of African
American, Latino, and American Indian children in gifted education
programs in the United States remains largely a problem of identification.