Gifted and Talented Students

This week our class focused our discussion on students with disabilities, ULD, and talented and gifted students. While our readings were full of information on the ways to teach students with disabilities and how successful ULDs are, I was left a bit curious about how gifted and talented students are accommodated. How is a student identified as being gifted or talented? What kinds of activities and programs can they participate in ? How many gifted or talented students are there currently in the U.S.?

While researching this topic, I came across the website NSGT.org (National Society for Gifted and Talented Students).  Not only does this website define gifted students, but it also provides educational resources, such as programs and organizations that gifted students can join and additional information on how to identify gifted children.  NSGT explains that gifted children are defined as children who use talent to achieve at remarkably high levels in areas of their lives (academic, artistic, athletic, and social). These students achieve or have the potential to achieve at levels way above their peers.
The website states that there are "approximately three million gifted and talented children in grades K-12 nationwide, of whom only perhaps a quarter have been identified and receive support." The first step in helping these students achieve their highest level of success is by first identifying them.

How do you identify a gifted child?
While there are no nation-wide or sate-wide standards for identification, school districts decide which students are considered gifted with the use of philosophy, resources, and their own definition of giftedness.

What are signs/characteristics of gifted children?

1. Gifted students are often perfectionist and idealistic.
2. Gifted students may experience heightened sensitivity to their own expectations and those of others.
3. Gifted students are asynchronous.
4. Some gifted students are “mappers” (sequential learners), while others are “leapers” (spatial learners).
5. Gifted students may be so far ahead of their chronological age mates that they know half the curriculum before the school year begins!
6. Gifted children are problem solvers.
7. Gifted students often think abstractly and with such complexity that they may need help with concrete study and test-taking skills.
8. Gifted students who do well in school may define success as getting an “A” and failure as any grade less than an “A”.

Gifted students generally have unusual talent in one or occasionally two of these areas: Creative Thinking, General Intellectual Ability, Specific  Academic Ability, Leadership, Psychomotor, and Visual/Performing Arts.

What kinds of programs can gifted students participate in outside of their normal schooling?Programs known as SIG programs are offered to gifted students. These programs combine academics with social, cultural and recreational opportunities. Both summer and online programs are available. The online courses "offer students curriculum beyond what is offered during the school day, are wide ranging in potential interest areas for individualized learning, and engage students in hands-on learning while applying school content through speaking, writing, researching, analyzing, reasoning and questioning."

This website was extremely helpful in my search to find more answers about gifted students.  Our education system has worked hard to accommodate the needs of student with disabilities, and I would love to see that gifted and talented students also get the same kind of attention and accommodation that they, too, deserve.