Gifted and Talented
Special Populations
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Teachers
of the gifted and talented are faced with many varying issues. One
issue that cannot be forgotten in shuffle is that gifted and talented
children are not all cut from the same mold. The gifted can exhibit
many and varying characteristics.They are all different and
there are special populations within a classroom of gifted students.
This realization leads to various questions for teachers of the gifted,
ranging from the early primary years and beyond.
- What
techniques are best for the individual
gifted children that I am teaching?
- Has this gifted
child been identified appropriately?
- Are there gifted children in the school
population who have not been identified?
- What are the greatest needs of the gifted
child? How can the teacher accomodate those needs?
- "Why is it that so many gifted children
suffer so wide a breach between potential and performance? What is it
that causes so many gifted children to lose this spark? What can be
done to rekindle it? How can the energy be channeled after it is
rekindled?"Webb, Meckstroth and Tolan, Guiding the Gifted Child: A Practical
Source for Parents and Teachers
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Giftedness is asynchronous development in
which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to
create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different
from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual
capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly
vulnerable and requires modifications in parenting, teaching and
counseling in order for them to develop optimally. (The Columbus
Group, 1991).
Gifted
Minorities
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Characteristics
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Cautions
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Accommodations
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Socioeconomic inequality
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May have limited social and educational
opportunities to explore and develop potential
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Include traditional as well as
non-traditional means of identifying the gifted
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First generation of family to have chance
at special programs
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Support systems may be absent
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Get families involved in their children’s
education
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Academic achievement not valued
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May be rejected by peers
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Link minority students and their parents
with teachers when they are young
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Low expectations
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Opportunities for challenges may be missing
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Under-representation
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Assessments may be culture biased
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Multiple talents exist and must be
identified
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Underachievement Among Gifted Minority
Students: Problems and Promises (ERIC
digest #E544) by Donna Y. Ford and Antoinette Thomas Some minority
groups of gifted learners, particularly Black, Hispanic American, and
Native American, have been underrepresented in gifted programs...
Extraordinary Gifts Often Come in Plain
Brown Wrappers by Fred A.
Bonner, II Does the academically gifted African-American student
experience college in a manner much different from the typical college
student?
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Gifted
Underachievers
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Characteristics
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Cautions
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Accommodations
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Student does not value the work or the
outcome
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Underachievers are not a homogeneous group
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Create assignments that are more enjoyable
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Severe discrepancy between expected
achievement and actual achievement
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Must not be a result of a true learning
disability
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Assist with academic self confidence
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Negative attitude toward school and low
academic self perception
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Hostility toward authority and self
perceptions influence what sort of challenges a student will take on
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Assist with global belief of self worth
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Negative attitude toward teachers and
classes
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Underachievers exhibit more negative
attitudes than do high achievers or average achievers
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Help the underachiever understand that the
effortful use of self regulatory strategies results in achievement
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Low motivation and self regulation
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Low self confidence
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Encourage students to value school
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Academic underachievement among the
gifted: Students' perceptions of factors that reverse the pattern
by Linda Emerick
Investigates factors which had influenced the reversal of the
underachievement pattern in 10 gifted students, ages 14 to 20, who
moved from chronic underachievement to academic success. Results
indicate six factors were influential in reversing poor school
performance. There is evidence that some gifted underachievers may
respond well to interventions incorporating educational modifications
which focus on individual strengths and interests...
Do Gifted Students Have Special Needs?
by Linda Kreger Silverman Students who achieve A’s based on what they
have already learned are gaining daily practice in
underachievement......
Underachieving Gifted Students (ERIC
Digest #478) by James R. Delisle and Sandra L. Berger There is perhaps
no situation more frustrating for parents or teachers than living or
working with children who do not perform as well academically as their
potential indicates they can...
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Gifted Visual/Spatial Learners
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Characteristics
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Cautions
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Accommodations
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Loves to construct with Lego, etc./ Early
ability when doing puzzles or mazes/ Highly creative ideas/products
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They like to pull things apart, to see how
they work
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Use manipulative materials
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May appear bright but have difficulty
learning to read/makes up rich stories but unable to write them down/
Strong visual memory
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School may be a miserable experience for
them
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Use sight approach to reading rather than
phonics/ Use visualization approach to spelling/ use computers
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Disorganized
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Preoccupied with space, at the expense of
time
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Emphasize creativity
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Excellent mathematical reasoning but may
be slow at math facts/Exceptional ability in math and science
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May dislike school due to rote learning –
indicated by not knowing math facts
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Use visual aids such as overhead
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Appears lazy, often daydreaming/unusual
imagination/ Highly sensitive to surroundings/may be easily distracted
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Self esteem suffers
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Find out what they already know, before
teaching something
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Often musically talented/often artistic
but may have poor fine motor skills
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Giftedness may not be recognized
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Emphasize creativity
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Sophisticated sense of humor/ Astute
questioning ability
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Peers may not get the humor or may resent
the questions
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Group gifted visual/spatial learners
together
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When spoken to, comprehends everything or
nothing
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Often do not understand the goals of
instruction
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Let them discover own method to problem
solving/Allow them to make their own decisions
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Importance of Assessing Spatial Ability in
Intellectually Talented Young Adolescents: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study by Daniel L Shea, David Lubinski
and Camilla P. Benbow "...Spatial ability added incremental validity to
the SAT-M and SAT-V assessments in predicting educational - vocational
outcomes over these successive time frames [age 13, 18, 23, and
33]. It appears that spatial ability can compliment contemporary
talent search procedures..."
I Think in Pictures, You Teach in Words:
The Gifted Visual Spatial Learner by Lesley Sword There is to date
no formal assessment instrument for identifying gifted visual spatial
learners. Identification is best done by...
Spatially gifted, verbally, inconvenienced
by David F. Lohman Sometimes the words are there and I can call them up
effortlessly and deliver them to my listeners with reasonable fluency.
But sometimes the words are not there, and I find myself struggling to
express with clarity even the simplest of ideas. I have
discovered that I am not unique. Indeed, my battles with words pale in
comparison to those that others have waged against them. The
astonishing fact is that even some of the great masters of the language
could not always trust their fluency...
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Gifted
From a Low Socio-Economic Background
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Characteristics
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Cautions
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Accommodations
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Are often under identified and under served
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Expected to meet same criteria as middle
class
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Base system on equity instead of equality
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Don’t quite meet the
standard/the cut off score
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Disparity remains
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Use tests that are more culturally fair
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The
Highly Gifted
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Characteristics
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Cautions
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Accommodations
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IQ of 175+
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Deep and complex families
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The higher the IQ, the greater need for
accommodations
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Learn rapidly, have extensive vocabulary,
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Other children are often intimidated by
their vocabulary
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Group the highly gifted together
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Mature for age at times/sensitive
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May be very sensitive to physical
surroundings (clothing tags and other tactile sensations)
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Provide preventive counseling
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Long attention span
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Some thrive when accelerated, some do not
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Acceleration for those who appear to need
it
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Curious/high energy, activity level
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Lower social self confidence
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Group the highly gifted together
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Highly
Gifted Children in Full Inclusion Classrooms Highly
Gifted Children, Summer/Fall 1996, 12 (4) by
Kathi Kearney The
telephone rang, and the mother was desperate. Five-year-old Michael was
entering kindergarten in the fall. He had recently been tested because
he seemed advanced in his development. To her surprise and the
examiner's, the child was not only intellectually gifted but tested
above 160 IQ. When she approached the principal of the public school
her son was slated to attend in September, to her dismay the principal
strongly discouraged the boy's enrollment at all, stating that his
staff had no idea how to educate such a child and that she should look
elsewhere for an education for him.
Helping Your Highly Gifted Child
(ERIC EC Digest #E477, 1990)
by Stephanie S. Tolan Most parents
greet the discovery that their child is not merely gifted but highly or
profoundly gifted with a combination of pride, excitement, and fear.
They may set out to find experts or books to help them cope with
raising such a child, only to find there are no real experts, only a
couple of books, and very little understanding of extreme intellectual
potential and how to develop it. This digest deals with some areas of
concern and provides a few practical suggestions based on the
experience of other parents and the modest amount of research available.
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Sumter
School District #17
Program for the Academically Gifted and
Talented
Students
Challenge
Elementary Program:
Students in grades three
through five, who have been identified as academically gifted and
talented, are
served on a daily basis through the reading and/or math curriculum
based on
academic strength(s) by a teacher who has obtained or is in the process
of
obtaining the gifted teaching endorsement from the South Carolina
Department of
Education.
Middle School Program:
Students in grades six
through eight, who have been identified as academically gifted and
talented,
are served on a daily basis through the reading, math, science and/or
social
studies based on academic strength(s) by a teachers who have obtained
or are in
the process of obtaining the gifted teaching endorsement from the South
Carolina Department of Education. The Challenge program is designed to
address
the needs of academically gifted students by providing instruction in
specific
content areas with an emphasis on rigor, depth, complexity and pacing.
High School Program:
Students in grades nine
through twelve who have been identified as academically gifted and
talented and
meet the requirements of the selected program may participate in the
honors
program and/or advanced placement courses such as English, music
theory, United
States History, chemistry and calculus. They
may also participate in the International
Baccalaureate Program.
Program for
the Artistically Gifted and Talented
REACH
(Reflecting Excellence And Creative
Heights)
REACH
is an after school, regular school day, or summer program designed to
develop
the unique artistic talents of eligible students. The
program’s areas of artistic study are
visual arts, drama, and chorus. The
visual art and drama programs are offered during a three week intensive
session
that ends with a production and exhibit. They
are open to eligible students in grades four
through twelve. The high school chamber
choir meets both
during the regular school day and after school. This
program is for students in grades nine through
twelve. Students are identified through a
state-mandated audition process that begins with nominations by
administrators,
teachers, parents, peers, or the students themselves and culminates
with a
final screening (audition) by judges representing the specific artistic
fields. Further information is available
from
teachers of the arts or the guidance counselor at each school or by
contacting
Tami Richardson, the coordinator for gifted and talented programs at
934-9757.
South Carolina State Identification System For Artistically Gifted and Talented Students
According
to Regulation R 43:220, in order for students to be eligible for
enrollment in
the state-funded gifted and talented programs in the visual and
performing
arts, the student must meet the following criteria:
- Superior ability as evaluated by at
least 2 persons with special expertise (district staff and outside
professional artist) in the category of a fine art form for which the
student is being considered and as reported on an approved rating
instrument.
- Demonstrated ability as evidenced by
specific school, individual or community-related activities.
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Teacher, administrator, parent, or peer
nominations based on approved instruments appropriate to the visual and
performing arts areas, to include creativity and expressive qualities.
Let
us think of education as the means
of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a
private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit
for everyone and greatest strength for our nation. -- John F. Kennedy
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