Education of the Special Populations of the Gifted

While the controversy over the nature versus nurture argument rages on, there are a myriad of studies in support of identifying giftedness as early as two or three years of age. In these cases it is more than likely the parents of these precocious children will be the first to notice and seek out professionals to help determine the potential abilities of their young children. Unfortunately, this is not the case with families from low socioeconomic and different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. They often lack knowledge of the system and the financial resources necessary to seek professionals who can help determine the abilities of their children.

Therefore, the first phase for these young children should be aimed at informing parents and preschool teachers about the characteristics of early childhood giftedness and the types of educational interventions that would provide for their academic, social, and emotional needs both at school and at home. It is likely that nursery schools, Head Start, and other preschool program options will have at least one or more of these gifted students in their classrooms. In order to adequately meet their needs, it is necessary for teachers to be aware of the characteristics of these young gifted students and, in collaboration with their parents, develop strategies for meeting their needs. Remember, these young gifted students come from all socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.

Phase Two in the identification of young gifted students should include general screening, through the use of parent and teacher questionnaires and observations. The following are some of the behaviors that may be solicited and reported by parents and observed by preschool teachers.

• Long attention span. Some young gifted children are able to work on projects for blocks of time as long as 45 minutes to 2-1/2 hours.
• Creativity and imagination. Some may demonstrate unique and novel uses for common items. These children may also design unusual dramatic play situations, such as astronauts landing on the moon, and they often have imaginary friends for companions.
• Social relationships. They may be leaders of other children, with advanced social skills for their age, or they may prefer to be alone to work on their own interests. They may prefer to interact with older children and adults rather than with their same-age peers.
• Number concepts. Some gifted children seem to be fascinated with numbers before they begin formal schooling.
• Language skills. Gifted preschoolers may recognize letters early and show an early interest in printed matter. They may be interested in foreign languages. They may show an advanced vocabulary and may begin reading before they start school.
• Memory. Gifted children may show exceptional memories.
• Specific interests. The young gifted student may show an in-depth interest in one or more areas and spend a great deal of time developing a collection of a class of objects, such as rocks or plastic animals.
• Attention to detail. Gifted children often notice "insignificant" details in pictures and situations. They also enjoy making things more complex—elaborating on rules for games, etc.
• High energy level. Some gifted children have been called hyperactive because of the high level of energy they show. These children also seem to need little sleep.
• Reasoning ability. The ability to form analogies at a young age and to justify those responses may be another indicator of giftedness.

Phase Three involves individual testing. Through standardized intelligence and academic testing, some may show "peaks" of extraordinarily high performance in some areas, but not necessarily in all cognitive ability and academic areas. There are many reasons why these students may not do well on tests. Because of their developmental age, they may have a short attention span and are uncomfortable with unfamiliar people or places. Because many standardized tests require verbal responses to items, children who have difficulty expressing themselves verbally may not score as high as they could on nonverbal tests.

So, standardized intelligence and achievement tests have been fairly unsuccessful as the sole determiner in the identification of young gifted children since they are only partially reliable before the child reaches the age of five or six. Therefore, it is more important to focus on what the child can do instead of what he or she cannot do. A profile of the student, composed of a variety of test scores and teacher and parent reports, could be compiled. Those involved with identification of young gifted children could then examine the profiles and focus on the areas of highest performance as possible indicators of giftedness.