[English] gifted students

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

" .. acceleration .. is the single best strategy .. " 

Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:54:55 +1000
From: Judith Hewton <judith.h at AANET.COM.AU>
To: Gifted and Talented Discussion List <GIFTED at DISCUSSIONS.EQ.EDU.AU> 

Dear Ngaio

In my work for/with gifted children, I encourage parents to compile a
profile on the child's ability and achievements in preparation for
negotiating with schools for appropriate education programs and
strategies to be used for gifted children throughout the compulsory
years of schooling. 

There are many checklists you can refer to (Education Queensland
recommends Sayler's which are on EQ website) but I would include results
of a good standardised test, this being the most accurate single measure
of giftedness. WPPSI is for the very young, and for older children there 
are two suitable Stanford Binet tests: SBLM and SB5. Also there's WISC4, 
and perhaps Raven's non-verbal is suitable too.

These are all considered accurate tests to use with gifted children.

For your information, incidence and categories of giftedness (IQ 
scores)that some refer to are:

Mildly (basically) gifted  115-129 (1:6 – 1:40)

Moderately gifted  130-144 (1:40 - 1:1000)

Highly gifted  145-159 (1:1000 - 1:10000)

Exceptionally gifted  160-179 (1:10000 -1:1million)

Profoundly gifted  180+ (<1:1million)

[Silverman, Gross (et al)]

High ability doesn't guarantee high performance though, especially if 
the ability is not recognised or appreciated by those who influence the 
child's development. Be cautious about revealing test scores to people 
who don't know anything about giftedness. If the child is underachieving 
at school, or behaviour deteriorates, it may be important to consider 
differnt schooling, particularly as the more highly gifted the child is, 
the more at risk in my opinion.

Consider joining the Queensland association - website www.qagtc.org.au 
and getting involved for networking and information exchange. The list 
of psychologists there are experienced with assessing gifted children 
according to members who have used them.

In talking to schools about educating gifted children I would avoid any 
school that does not support acceleration as this is the single best 
strategy (in its many forms). They are saying they know little about 
gifted education: See <http://nationdeceived.org/> (A Nation Deceived)

Ideally for the gifted I would want schooling that includes the 
appropriate mix of ability grouping, acceleration strategies and 
differentiated extension.

In the Queensland framework and guidelines to acceleration you can see 
there are options -
http://education.qld.gov.au/publication/production/reports/pdfs/giftedandta
lfwrk.pdf 

All state chools are expected to implement the framework and the 
acceleration strategies, but this is not rigorously followed up. Parents 
need to know something of what the research indicates so that they can 
bargain from an informed position, although information does not 
overcome ignorance if the other party is prejudiced against the concept. 
Non-state schools can use the state policies too.

The guidelines to early entry are at Education Queensland website. Go to 
http://education.qld.gov.au/ and enter 'early entry' in the search box. 
Several documents will come up for you to read.

Some other good sites to explore for general information are:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/
http://www.nagc.org/
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/

Gifted children are asynchronous - 'out of sync' - and this can mean 
frustration if there are no appropriate challenges or opportunites to 
mix with mental age peers. Parents need to keep an eye on self-esteem if 
there is no acceleration or ability grouping on offer at school. Most 
gifted children are underachievers at school.

We work on up to 10% of the population as some sort of gifted. (Some 
prefer to talk 5% - it's still a considerable number of children.) So 
that's up to 80 000 children enrolled in Queensland schools. Most are 
unidentified and certainly not extended in the use of their ability. So 
someone has to be advocating for them. (QAGTC is a voluntary, non-profit
organisation with no funding except for what we raise and we are all 
volunteers.)

See if you can find others to help contribute to your child's 
development and build on her abilities too. Mentors can make all the 
difference to the development of talent and passion for learning.

Best wishes

Judith Hewton
Gifted Children's Advocate
Past President QAGTC,
Immediate Past President, Australian Association for the Education of 
the Gifted and Talented.

NGAIO writes:

> Mandy,
> I'm at Harlin (just down the road from Kilcoy) and have a 5 year old 
> going into prep this year. She is very bright, and luckily going into 
> a one teacher school should get what she needs, and not just what the 
> other 5 year olds are doing. My question is, how can you tell how 
> bright your kid is? At what point are they gifted?  I myself am a 
> teacher but I work in high school learning support and don't know much 
> about little people.  Ngaio 
>
--

Cheers, people
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia