Giftedness, a category of Special Education under IDEA, is defined in numerous ways by different states. The State of Connecticut defines giftedness as “any exceptional child who… (B) has extraordinary learning ability or outstanding talent in the creative arts, the development of which requires programs or services. The definition that will be utilized for this paper will be based on the federal definition as specified in the 1994 reauthorization of the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act of 1988: …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. (PL. 103-382, Title XIV, 1988, p. 388) Although this definition identifies the need for special services for this population of students, there is no mandated law that states that school districts are required to provide services for these students. Because of this, these students may not be able to fully develop their gifts. Conceptual theories of giftedness have been proposed by several people. Sternberg and Zhang proposed one theory, pentagonal implicit theory that required a person to meet five criteria in order to be considered gifted. These criteria were (Turnbull, 197): 1. Excellence~ the person must be superior in some dimension to their peers, 2. Rarity~ the person must have a high level of an attribute that that rare relative to their peers, 3. Productivity~ the person, along with the dimension in which the person is being evaluated as superior must lead to or potentially lead to product... ... middle of paper ... ...dness and Talent. In Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education. (pp. 508-551). New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall King. (2005)Addressing the Social and Emotional Needs of Twice Exceptional Students. Teaching Exceptional Children (Sep/Oct), 16-20 Maker, C.J., Udall, A.J. (1985). Giftedness and Learning Disabilities. ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education. McGrail, L. (1998).Modifying Regular Classroom Curriculum for Gifted and Talented Students Gifted Child Today, Spring, 21-23 National Association for Gifted Children, Giftedness and High Ability. State Notes on Gifted and Talented, State Gifted and Talented Definitions Turnbull, R. Turnbull, A. Shank, M. Smith, S.J., (2004). Giftedness. In Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today’s Schools (pp. 194-224). New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Runco, M. A. (2005). Creative giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 295-311). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Stephanie Lindsey the author of the article Autism and Education addresses some serious issues in the education system between the special needs students and the highly gifted students. Stephanie writes the article based off her children and how they are treated in school. Her son has autism, which affects his capability to learn, speak, and to train himself when it comes to bathroom use. Also never being alone in school due to him having a personal aid alongside him with special classes he is treaded with a different type of education. Her daughter on the other hand tests in the 95th percentile nationwide on standardized testing. She’s twelve and her capability of progressing information and taking complex ideas apart and putting them back together to form new thoughts is like no normal twelve year old. She reads entire novels, solves Sudoku puzzles, and also participates in her school
The problem associated with how students are chosen to join a gifted and talented program stems from the way that we define giftedness. Because there are countless ways in which any individual can define talent, the government created a federal task force in 1972 to study gifted education in order to standardize the way in which schools choose students for and implement their gifted and talented programs. The task force’s results are known as the Marland Report and include much information as a result of their research, including a decision that a public school’s gifted and talented programs should aim to serve between 3 and 5 percent o...
The Talents Unlimited Model was created under the philosophy that all students, both those identified as gifted and those not, would benefit from enrichment programs. The model is used to educate teachers on how to use differentiated instruction to use “higher order cognitive tasks to help students with varying abilities use their preferred thinking talents to manipulate instruction to solve problems, see broad relationships, evaluate varying perspectives, draw comparisons among disparate viewpoints, and predict causes and effects” (Schlichter, 2009, p. 434).
Donovan, M. Suzanne and Christopher T. Cross (2002, August). Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/lib/drexel/-docDetail.action?docID=10032383.
Whitney, C. S. & Hirsch, G. (2011). Helping Gifted Children Soar. A Practical Guide for
Rogers, K. B. (1991). The relationship of grouping practices to the education of the gifted and talented learner. Retrieved April 14, 2004, from http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/rogers.html
Richards, S., Taylor, R., Smiley, L. 2009; Exceptional Students: Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century
Runco, M. A. (2005). Creative giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 295-311). New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Integrated Curriculum Model has three main dimensions advanced content, process/product, and issues/themes. The first dimension, advanced content, is content that it at a higher level. In English Language Arts the readings are usually two grade levels above. Within advanced content, diagnostic-prescriptive approaches are used to promote new learning. Teachers are to continually pre-assess students before teaching content to make sure they are teaching at the appropriate level for the gifted students. In the second facet of the model it ensures that the students are thinking and processing information at higher complex levels. The third dimension of the Integrated Curriculum Model centers gifted and talented students learning around major issues and themes. To connect the themes and issues to real world applications is creating a deeper understanding of the material.
Heward, W. L. (2013). Exceptional children: An introduction to special education (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Gifted Child Today, 2004: 2000-. Willis Web. City U of New York Lib. 1 Dec
Ysseldyke, J. and Algozzine, B. Special Education: A Practical Approach for Teachers. 3rd.ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1995.
One of the most controversial things about gifted and talented education is the criterion educators use to identify the gifted and talented. In the past, a student’s intelligence, based on an I.Q. score, was considered the best way to determine whether or not they qualified as gifted. As a result of using this method of identification, many gifted and talented students are not discovered nor are they placed in the appropriate programs to develop their abilities. Talents in the arts or an excellent ability to write are not measured on an I.Q. test but are abilities that may certainly qualify a student as gifted or talented.
Parke, B. (n.d.). Challenging gifted students in the regular classroom. Retrieved March 1, 2004, from http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content/Challenging_gifted _kids.html