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The Terman Study of the Gifted - 1921 to Present?

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The Terman Study of the Gifted - 1921 to Present?

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Lewis Terman is the Sigmund Freud of Gifted Education.  While many of his theories have been debunked, he was instrumental in getting Giftedness worldwide attention and refuting the myth that smart kids are frail and socially inept.  The Terman Study of the Gifted, started in 1921 at Stanford University, was still ongoing as of the August 2000 article in Stanford Magazine (stanfordmag.org/contents/the-vexing-legacy-of-lewis-terman) and is the longest longitudinal study of "gifted" humans.  While his ties to eugenics and sole reliance on IQ tests are off-putting, he is still a notable figure in the history of helping advanced learners lead successful lives.
NOTE: The November 13, 2022, article on verywellmind.com says the Terman study is still ongoing (www.verywellmind.com/are-people-with-high-iqs-more-successful-2795280)

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To the Los Angeles juvenile authorities in 1923, Edward Dmytryk was an ordinary runaway trying to escape a vicious father who tore up his schoolbooks and clubbed him with a two-by-four. Mr. Dmytryk wanted his 14-year-old son back—if only, as the caseworker suspected, because Edward brought home vital income.

While the authorities deliberated, a letter arrived from Professor Lewis Terman, the nation's most famous psychologist and the man who had planted the term "IQ" in America's vocabulary. He wasn't a relative or family friend; he had never even met the boy. But the Stanford professor believed Edward deserved a break because he was "gifted"—a word Terman coined to describe the bright kids he devoted his life to researching.

Edward's high score on an IQ test had qualified him for Terman's pathbreaking Genetic Study of Genius. Terman, who had grown up gifted himself, was gathering evidence to squelch the popular stereotype of brainy, "bookish" children as frail oddballs doomed to social isolation. He wanted to show that most smart kids were robust and well-adjusted—that they were, in fact, born leaders who ought to be identified early and cultivated for their rightful roles in society.

Though the more than 1,000 youngsters enrolled in his study didn't know it at the time, they were embarking on a lasting relationship. As Terman poked around in their lives with his inquisitive surveys, "he fell in love with those kids," explains Albert Hastorf, emeritus professor of psychology. To the group he always called "my gifted children"—even after they grew up—Terman became mentor, confidant, guidance counselor and sometimes guardian angel, intervening on their behalf. In doing so, he crashed through the glass that is supposed to separate scientists from subjects, undermining his own data. But Terman saw no conflict in nudging his protégés toward success, and many of them later reflected that being a "Terman kid" had indeed shaped their self-images and changed the course of their lives.

Thanks to Terman's timely letter, for example, Edward Dmytryk went to a good foster home. You may have seen his name in the titles for The Caine Mutiny, one of the 23 films he later directed.

HINDSIGHT: Hastorf (right) took over the study after Sears (left) died in 1989. Terman “was a very nice guy,” Hastorf says, “but I have some things I would argue with him about.” (Photo: Courtesy Stanford Archives)

Forty-four years after Terman's death, the study is still going on. About 200 of his "kids" are alive, still completing periodic questionnaires on their health and activities and returning them to Stanford's psychology department. The Termites, as they're fondly nicknamed, have been tracked for nearly 80 years now, through nearly all the milestones of life. It's the longest-running survey ever carried out. And although Terman didn't conceive it as such, the study established a powerful new research approach: the longitudinal investigation, in which scientists follow a group of people over many years to learn how factors in early life influence later variables such as health and longevity.

Marred by design flaws, the genius study yielded few momentous conclusions beyond reassuring Americans that it's okay to be smart. Yet the archives have a value that Terman never envisioned: they provide an unmatched record of lives that spanned almost all of the 20th century. Researchers have pored over the Terman files to explore historical phenomena (did World War II veterans suffer lingering effects of combat?) as well as broader questions (does personality influence life span?). Social scientists have called the archives a national treasure because they tell the life stories of so many Americans.

A story of a different kind emerges from Terman's own writings—a disturbing tale of the beliefs of a pioneer in psychology. Lewis Terman was a loving mentor, yes, but his ardent promotion of the gifted few was grounded in a cold-blooded, elitist ideology. Especially in the early years of his career, he was a proponent of eugenics, a social movement aiming to improve the human "breed" by perpetuating certain allegedly inherited traits and eliminating others. While championing the intelligent, he pushed for the forced sterilization of thousands of "feebleminded" Americans. Later in life, Terman backed away from eugenics, but he never publicly recanted his beliefs.

Looking back, what are we to make of the man and his work? That's a question Al Hastorf has been grappling with. The former Stanford provost and vice president is the third director of the Terman study (he succeeded psychology professor Robert Sears), overseeing the project from his office in Jordan Hall. An amiable and restless man with a wry sense of humor, Hastorf has been pondering Lewis Terman's legacy for a chapter he's writing in a book on pioneering psychologists.

"There's a certain delicacy about talking about him," Hastorf begins, "because he was probably one of the first really big names Stanford had."

To most people at Stanford, the name Terman evokes another person entirely: Fred Terman, '20, Engr. '22, the engineering professor, dean and provost who helped launch California's electronics industry in the 1950s and who was Lewis Terman's son. But while Fred got his name inscribed on buildings on and off campus, Lewis probably had as much impact on people's lives, because he almost single-handedly introduced IQ testing in America.

EUGENICS AGENDA: Terman endorsed a 1922 circular calling for a movement “to stem the tide of threatened racial degeneracy.” (Photo: Courtesy Stanford Archives; photographed by Glenn Matsumura)

Terman was obsessed with intelligence. He had deep sympathy for the gifted, identifying with their yearnings and frustrations. This likely traced back to his childhood in rural Indiana, where he was the 12th of 14 kids in a prosperous farming family. Born in 1877, little red-haired Lewis preferred intellectual games and reading over sports or outdoor play and felt physically outclassed by his playmates, according to biographer Henry Minton. Back then, few farm kids stayed in school past eighth grade, but Terman was "fiercely ambitious for more education," as Sears, the study's second director, wrote in a biographical sketch. That drive, fueled by timely loans from his family, took Terman first to the local teachers' college, then to Indiana University and finally to Clark University in Massachusetts, a topflight school for psychology research. There, he completed a PhD dissertation comparing mental and physical abilities of smart and dull children. At the time, psychology had just established itself as a separate discipline from philosophy and was still seeking its course and methods.

Suffering from recurring tuberculosis, he moved in 1905 to the more equable climate of Southern California with his wife, Anna, and their two small children, Fred and Helen. For the next five "fallow years," as he described them, Terman worked as a high school principal and then as a professor of pedagogy at a teachers' college. In 1910, Stanford offered him a job in its fledgling department of education. He later moved to the psychology department, which he chaired for 20 years.

Eager to measure human minds, Terman plunged into intelligence testing soon after he arrived at Stanford. The original intelligence test had been designed five years earlier by French psychologist Alfred Binet as a tool to identify "slow" children needing special help. Terman and his Stanford colleagues translated Binet's test, adapted the content for U.S. schools, set new age norms and standardized the distribution of scores so that the mean score would always be 100. Terman called the new version the Stanford-Binet test.

With questions ranging from mathematical problems to vocabulary items, the Americanized test was supposed to capture "general intelligence," an innate mental capability that Terman felt was as measurable as height and weight. As a hardcore hereditarian, he believed that genetics alone dictated one's level of general intelligence. This vital constant, which he called an "original endowment," wasn't altered by education or home environment or hard work, he maintained. To denote it, he selected the term "intelligence quotient."

In 1916, Terman sprang his test on America. He released The Measurement of Intelligence, a book that was half instruction manual and IQ test, half manifesto for universal testing. His little exam, which a child could complete in a mere 50 minutes, was about to revolutionize what students learned and how they thought of themselves.

‘There’s a certain delicacy about talking about him, because he was probably one of the first really big names Stanford had.’

Few American children have passed through the school system in the last 80 years without taking the Stanford-Binet or one of its competitors. Terman's test gave U.S. educators the first simple, quick, cheap and seemingly objective way to "track" students, or assign them to different course sequences according to their ability. The following year, when the United States entered World War I, Terman helped design tests to screen Army recruits. More than 1.7 million draftees took his tests, broadening public acceptance of widespread IQ testing.

The Stanford-Binet made Terman a leader in a fervent movement to take testing far beyond the schoolhouse and Army base. Proponents considered intelligence the most valuable human quality and wanted to test every child and adult to determine their place in society. The "intelligence-testers"—a group that included many eugenicists—saw this as the tool for engineering a fairer, safer, fitter and more efficient nation, a "meritocracy" run by those most qualified to lead. In their vision of a vibrant new America, IQ scores would dictate not only what kind of education a person received but what work he or she could get. The most important and rewarding jobs in business, the professions, academia and government would go to the brightest citizens. People with very low scores—under about 75—would be institutionalized and discouraged or prevented from having children.

IQ tests and the social agenda of their advocates roused critics right from the start. To the journalist Walter Lippmann, the intelligence-testers were "the Psychological Battalion of Death," seizing unparalleled power over every child's future. Lippmann and Terman dueled in the pages of the New Republic in 1922 and 1923. "I hate the impudence of a claim that in 50 minutes you can judge and classify a human being's predestined fitness in life," Lippmann wrote. "I hate the sense of superiority which it creates, and the sense of inferiority which it imposes." In a sarcastic rejoinder, Terman compared Lippmann to the creationist William Jennings Bryan and other opponents of scientific progress, then attacked Lippmann's writing style as "much too verbose for literal quotation." Though he could never match Lippmann's eloquence, in the end Terman won the war: intelligence testing continued to spread. By the 1930s, kids with high IQs were being sent into more challenging classes to prepare for high-earning jobs or college, while low scorers got less demanding coursework, reduced expectations and dimmer job prospects.

The genetic study of Genius grew out of that social vision. Terman was disturbed that most Americans didn't share his high opinion of precocious children—"early ripe, early rot" was the way they put it back then. A decisive study, he thought, would sweep away that bias.

He established the fact that bright people are normal people. The study was supposed to end there.

Using the Stanford-Binet and other tools, his assistants scoured elementary schools in Los Angeles, San Francisco and the East Bay, identifying a core group of 643 children with IQs of 135 or higher. Terman also enrolled subjects from earlier studies, along with hundreds of young people identified by volunteer testers or recommended by principals. He included the siblings of many participants, and even signed up his son and daughter.

By 1928, Terman had 1,528 subjects between the ages of 3 and 28. As a group, they were overwhelmingly white, urban and middle class. Nearly all lived in California. The gender imbalance—856 boys, 672 girls—puzzled Terman for the rest of his life (were boys smarter, or were teachers more likely to recommend them?). The group was lopsided in other ways as well: there were only two African-Americans, six Japanese-Americans and one American Indian.

Terman pledged not to release their names, and most never publicly declared their participation. Nonetheless, about 30 names have come out over the years—including several Termites whose involvement was announced only in their obituaries. The group included some prominent figures, like physiologist Ancel Keys, who discovered the link between cholesterol and heart disease; physicist Norris Bradbury, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Life journalist Shelley Smith Mydans, '36; and Hollywood big shots Edward Dmytryk and Jess Oppenheimer (see sidebar). We also know that two children who were tested but didn't make the cut—William Shockley and Luis Alvarez—went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. According to Hastorf, none of the Terman kids ever won a Nobel or Pulitzer.

For each child he enrolled in the core group, Terman amassed a thick dossier detailing physical health, interests, ancestry, reading habits, play, home life, household income and parental occupations. He wanted to know how many books the child's parents owned (on average, more than 300), and he dispatched assistants to interview the families and evaluate their homes. From this mass of data, he concluded that, by and large, these were well-rounded, happy and healthy kids. And in 1925 (before he had even finished enrolling subjects), he spread the word in a 650-page book, The Mental and Physical Traits of a Thousand Gifted Children. Terman had achieved his goal, says Hastorf: "He established the fact that bright people are normal people."

The study was supposed to end there. But to Terman, his children were like characters in a novel whose gripping first chapter he had just read. Enthralled, he decided to follow them as their lives and careers developed. And they obliged with a surprising amount of cooperation, filling out questionnaires about their sex lives and political attitudes, their earnings and religious beliefs, their physical and mental health, their satisfaction with life and marriage. Every five to 10 years, a new survey dropped into their mailboxes. The project inspired such loyalty that most Termites stayed in touch even under trying circumstances. Surveys sent out in 1945, for example, came back from servicemen around the world, including several who filled them out in foxholes at the front.

In all, Terman contributed to four books charting the changing attitudes, fortunes and health of the group. (A fifth report, by Sears and Carole Holahan of the University of Texas, came out in 1995.) He remained immersed in the study after he retired from Stanford in 1942, right up until his death in 1956. Sears—a Termite himself—renamed the project the Terman Study of Gifted Children and focused on how the group coped with aging. Hastorf, who took over after Sears died in 1989, sees his role today as maintaining the archives for others who want to use them. Most of the survivors are now in their 80s and 90s, he says, and the project will continue until the last one dies.

Like any pioneering effort, the study has its share of flaws. Some derive from Terman's own blunders: haphazardly selecting subjects, meddling in their lives and failing to establish a comparison group. The project also shares a constraint of all longitudinal studies, Hastorf notes: they're "locked in time," documenting a particular historical period but with limited relevance to other eras. All in all, the study tells us a lot about the development of some very bright Californians whose lives were roiled first by the Great Depression and then by World War II.

The kids proved remarkable in some ways and ordinary in others. One distinction was their avid pursuit of higher education. Two-thirds of the Terman men and women earned bachelor's degrees—that's 10 times the national rate for their time and all the more impressive because most did so during the Great Depression. The Termites also swarmed to graduate school. "There were 97 PhDs, 57 MDs and, sadly enough, 92 lawyers," Hastorf says. The women in the group, who reached adulthood in the 1920s and '30s, foreshadowed later trends. They had fewer children than others of their generation and bore them later in life. More of them went to college and graduate school, more had careers and more remained unmarried.

In other ways, the Terman kids were just run-of-the-mill 20th-century Americans. Some died young from accidents, diseases or suicide. A few were arrested; one went to prison for forgery. About 40 percent of the men served in World War II. Five men died in combat, while two were killed in war-industry accidents. As a group, Terman's kids got divorced, committed suicide and became alcoholics at about the national rate. They were no more—and no less—stable than the general population.

Some intriguing findings about their personalities emerged from a 1993 study of the archives. Reanalyzing the data, psychologist Howard Friedman of UC-Riverside looked for links between longevity and several personality traits. Conscientiousness, he found, had the greatest life-extending effect. Self-esteem had no effect, while cheerfulness actually seemed to shorten their lives—"perhaps because it . . . led people to ignore risks to their health," Friedman told the New York Times. The Times article concluded, "Score one for those pious voices of prudence: being cautious and somewhat dour is a key to longevity."

As a surrogate father—and a man with a point to prove—Terman yearned to see his kids become high achievers. Financially, the group lived up to his expectations. In 1954, American men in white-collar jobs earned a median salary of about $5,800, but their counterparts in the Terman group boasted a whopping $10,556.

Many who did well in their fields had received no boost from Terman beyond an occasional pat on the back and the knowledge that they'd qualified for his study. For others, like Dmytryk, Terman's intervention was life-changing. We'll never know all that he did for his kids, Hastorf notes. But it's clear that Terman helped several get into Stanford and other universities. He dispatched numerous letters of recommendation mentioning that individuals took part in his project. And one time, early in World War II, he apparently pulled strings on behalf of a family of Japanese-Americans in his study. Fearing they were about to be interned, they wrote to Terman for help. He sent a letter assuring the federal government of their loyalty and arguing against internment. The family remained free.

From a scientific standpoint, Terman's personal involvement seems foolish because it probably skewed his results. "It's what you'd expect a mentor to do, but it's bad science," Hastorf says. As a conscientious researcher whose work got him elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Terman should have known better—but he wasn't the first or last to slip. Indeed, the temptation to meddle is an occupational hazard among longitudinal researchers, says Glen Elder Jr., a sociologist at the University of North Carolina. A certain degree of intimacy develops, he explains, because "we're living in their lives and they're living in ours."

It's difficult to gauge Terman's influence on the kids because so many are deceased or still anonymous. One survivor willing to speak on the record is Russell Robinson, a retired engineer and former director of aeronautical research at NASA Ames. He was a high school student in Santa Monica when, he recalls, "someone in the school system tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Dr. Terman would like to test you, if you're willing.'" Robinson, now 92 and living in Los Altos, doesn't think being in the study significantly changed his life, but he did draw confidence from knowing that Terman thought highly of him. Several times during his career, he mentally invoked Terman to shore up his self-image. "Research is a strange business—in a sense, you're out there alone," he says. "Sometimes, the problems got so complex I would ask myself, Am I up to this? Then I would think, Dr. Terman thought I was."

WHIZ KID: Robinson, 92, says being a Termite boosted his self-esteem. (Photo: Courtesy Stanford Medical Center)

Others have echoed that sentiment, Hastorf says. In fact, the study meant so much to some of the subjects that the Terman project now runs entirely on their bequests.

Several Terman kids have cited a negative impact on their lives. Some complained of being saddled with an unfair burden to succeed, Hastorf says, while others thought that being dubbed geniuses at an early age made them cocky and complacent. For better or worse, a quarter of the men and almost a third of the women said they felt that being a Terman kid had changed their lives. And since Terman often did his meddling behind the scenes, others may have been influenced without ever realizing it.

His support of the gifted was heartfelt, but an equally fundamental part of Terman's social plan was controlling the people at the other end of the intelligence scale. Both were aims of eugenics, a movement that gained momentum early in the 20th century.

The eugenicists of Terman's day held that people of different races, nationalities and classes were born with immutable differences in intelligence, character and hardiness, and that these genetic disparities called for an "aristogenic" caste system. Traits like feeblemindedness, frailty, emotional instability and "shiftlessness," they believed, were controlled by single genes and could be easily eliminated by controlling the reproduction of the "unfit." In the United States, the movement peddled a topsy-turvy form of Darwinism, claiming that the "fittest" (defined as well-to-do whites of Northern European ancestry) were reproducing too slowly and in danger of being overwhelmed by the inferior lower strata of society. America was jeopardized from within, eugenicists warned, by the rapid proliferation of people lacking intelligence and moral fiber. From without, the threat was the unchecked arrival of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Together these groups would drag down the national stock.

Terman's letters and published writings show that he shared these beliefs and argued for measures to reverse society's perceived deterioration. He was a member of the prominent eugenics societies of the day. "It is more important," he wrote in 1928, "for man to acquire control over his biological evolution than to capture the energy of the atom." Yet he wasn't a renegade howling from the fringe. Eugenics was "hugely popular in America and Europe among the 'better sort' before Hitler gave it a bad name," as journalist Nicholas Lemann puts it. Luminaries who supported at least part of the early eugenic agenda include George Bernard Shaw, Theodore Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, Calvin Coolidge and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. In fact, Terman sat on the boards of two eugenics organizations with Stanford's first president, David Starr Jordan.

Early eugenicists managed to push through several laws. Thirty-three states, including California, passed measures requiring sterilization of the feebleminded. As a result, more than 60,000 men and women in mental institutions were sterilized—most against their will and some thinking they were getting an emergency appendectomy. In 1924, Congress set quotas that drastically cut immigration from eastern and southern Europe. Though pressure to stem immigration had come from many sources, including organized labor, the quotas had an undeniably racist taint. Terman cheered these efforts.

During the 1930s, as the brutality of Nazi policies and the scientific errors of eugenic doctrines became clearer, the eugenics movement withered in the United States and Terman inched away from his harshest views. Later in life, he told friends he regretted some of his statements about "inferior races." But unlike several prominent intelligence-testers, such as psychologist Henry Goddard and sat creator Carl Brigham, Terman never publicly recanted.

At least one eugenic measure proved as stubborn as he was. News of the Nazis' mass sterilization program did not put an end to the practice in the United States, where sterilizations of the mentally ill and retarded continued well into the 1970s.

Terman left a difficult legacy. On one hand, his work inspired almost all the innovations we use today to challenge bright students and enrich their education. As he followed the lives of intelligent kids, he also became their best publicist, battling a baseless prejudice. As a scientist, he devised methods for assessing our minds and behaviors, helping put the field of psychology on an empirical and quantitative foundation. He was one of Stanford's first nationally prominent scholars, and as a department chair for two decades, he transformed the psychology department from a languid backwater into an energetic, top-ranked program. He established the longitudinal method and generated an archive of priceless data. Longitudinal studies have "become the laboratory of the social sciences" and are growing in importance as the population ages, unc sociologist Elder observes.

On the other hand, as biographer Minton points out, the very qualities that made Terman a groundbreaking scientist—his zeal, his confidence—also made him dogmatic, unwilling to accept criticism or to scrutinize his hereditarian views. A similar paradox existed in his social agenda. Terman was a visionary whose disturbing eugenic positions and loving treatment of the gifted grew out of the same dream for an American meritocracy.

‘Sometimes I would ask myself, Am I up to this? Then, I would think, Dr. Terman thought I was.’

"He was a very nice guy, but I have some things I would argue with him about," Hastorf declares. His conclusion is that Terman was as much a product of his time as a force for change—and that, like many powerful thinkers, he was complex, contradictory and not always admirable.

Debate over heredity's contribution to intelligence remains divisive in America, particularly since racial differences in IQ scores persist—African-Americans on average score 15 points lower than whites. No one is sure why, and the gap does not disappear when researchers factor out obvious differences in socioeconomic status and remove culturally biased questions. The topic remains explosive; witness the eruption that followed the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve, which posits that the black-white score difference is mainly due to genetics.

As for what IQ scores can predict about a person's future, Hastorf offers a middle-of-the road position: the tests are pretty good at identifying "school-bright" children, those likely to perform well in ordinary school settings, but "on the issue of what makes you school-bright, it's obviously a combination of variables—your genetic constitution, your biological health, the motivation that your parents put into you, chance."

Though the Terman kids were handpicked for high IQ, the longitudinal results tell us little about the meaning of IQ, except for one study conducted by Terman's associate, Melita Oden. In 1968, she compared the 100 most successful and 100 least successful men in the group, defining success as holding jobs that required their intellectual gifts. The successes, predictably, included professors, scientists, doctors and lawyers. The non-successes included electronics technicians, police, carpenters and pool cleaners, plus a smattering of failed lawyers, doctors and academics. But here's the catch: the successes and non-successes barely differed in average IQ. The big differences turned out to be in confidence, persistence and early parental encouragement.

In other words, intelligence alone doesn't guarantee achievement. But then, you don't have to be a genius to figure that out.

Mitchell Leslie is a science writer with the Stanford University Medical Center news bureau.

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The legendary Stanford psychologist helped hundreds of gifted children and showed America that it’s okay to be smart. But behind his crusade was a disturbing social vision.

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The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) was founded in 1954 to "positively influence some of the factors which affect a gifted child's life." (Isaacs, Gifted Child Quarterly). Nearly 70 years later, the NAGC continues to support all children with advanced capabilities by providing advocacy, outreach, education, and research.

Information on the founding of the NAGC: https://doi.org/10.1177/001698627001400418open_in_new

Information on the NAGC today: https://nagc.org/page/about-nagc

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National Defense Education Act Passed- 1958

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National Defense Education Act Passed- 1958

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The United States was shocked by the launch of Sputnik by the former Soviet Union. As a result, the U.S. passed the National Defense Education Act on 9/2/1958, which led to reviving gifted and talented programming.  The perception at the time was that the U.S. was behind other countries, namely the former Soviet Union, in science.  This was pivotal in gifted and talented programming after WWII.  $1B was provided in 40,000 loans, 40,000 scholarships, and 1,500 graduate fellowships over a period of 4 years.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ835843.pdf

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/694446

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President Ford amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to include the Special Projects act to have provisions for gifted students. This created the federal Office of Gifted and Talented within the US Dept of Education. It allowed for more money to be alloted for to state and local districts for supporting gifted students. The amendments were called the Education Amendments of 1974. Funding rose from $2.5 m in 1974 to $6.5 m in 1980.

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The Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness is developed in 1978

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The Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness is developed in 1978

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Dr. Joseph Renzulli developed the three-ring model of giftedness in 1978, shifting the definition of giftedness from "gifted people" to "gifted behaviors." His work introduced the idea that giftedness is more than just a high IQ, but instead is characterized by a clusters of traits: 1) above average intelligence, 2) creativity, 3) and task-commitment.

Renzulli, J. S. (2011). What Makes Giftedness?: Reexamining a Definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(8), 81–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171109200821

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https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/303

This act created funding through the federal government to support gifted education. The show also called for changes in education to be made in the areas of training for teachers and learning opportunities and researched based strategies from higher education findings in regrades to gifted learners' needs.

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Javits Act: Charting Directions | The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (1990-2013)

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E. Jean Gubbins University of Connecticut Storrs, CT The Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act has been reauthorized. The Javits Act of 1994 is part of Title X, Part B, and the act was supported because the Congress finds and declares that: All students can learn to high sta…

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 Susan Moore: JACOB JAVITS GIFTED AND TALENTED LAW 1988

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 Susan Moore: JACOB JAVITS GIFTED AND TALENTED LAW 1988

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This law was first passed by Congress in 1988 as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and was most recently reauthorized through the Every Student Succeeds Act to support the development of talent in U.S. schools. Recognized the importance of developing gifted learners and identifying them.  https://www2.ed.gov/programs/javits/index.html

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discretionary grants; elementary secondary education; federal aid; federal programs; gifted; students; talent; demonstration programs; high risk students; research; elementary education; jacob k. javits gifted and talented students education act; programs; financial awards

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Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program

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This program awards grants to help talented students in elementary and secondary schools develop their abilities and reach high levels of achievement.

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1993 DoE Report: National Excellence, A Case for Developing America's Talent

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1993 DoE Report: National Excellence, A Case for Developing America's Talent

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The U.S. Department of Education released the report, National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent in 1993. The report describes a "quiet crisis" in which not enough attention and resources are allocated to gifted education. The report mentions that students in the US are not challenged enough in school and oftentimes given work below their potential, resulting in underachievement.

Compared to other developed countries, gifted students in the US have a less challenging curriculum, read fewer advanced level books, and are less prepared for higher education and work. Children from diverse backgrounds (such as those from lower socioeconomic or culturally diverse families) are even more disadvantaged due to the lack of resources.

- Karen Nguyen

Report: http://nagc.org.442elmp01.blackmesh.com/sites/default/files/key%20reports/National%20Excellence%20%281993%29.pdf

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Gifted Females
What factors cause some smart young girls with hopes and dreams to become self-fulfilled talented women in their later lives? For the last two decades educators have speculated on the answers to this question, and while some research has addressed the issue, much more is needed. In this section, several issues related to the characteristics of gifted and talented girls in school are discussed.
Reis (1998) recently completed a comprehensive analysis of gifted females and offered numerous suggestions on how their needs can be better met across the lifespan. She studied research on talented girls’ social and emotional development through elementary and secondary school, concluding that achievement of girls is good in school, but that self-confidence and self-perceived abilities decrease and that achievement in life is lower than males of comparable ability. Some gifted females value their own personal achievements less as they get older, which may indicate that the aging process has a negative impact on both the achievement and the self-confidence of gifted females. Reis (1998) also found however, that as gifted females approach middle to later age, many of the conflicts they faced as young women decrease and they are able to excel.

https://gifted.uconn.edu/schoolwide-enrichment-model/major_turning_points/

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Sally M. Reis
Professor, Educational Psychology
Neag School of Education
University of Connecticut

President, The National Association of Gifted Children
The United States of America

What are the turning points in the education of gifted and talented students in this century? We begin a new century and it is appropriate to reflect on the extraordinary changes and advances witnessed in the last several decades in our field. Consensus on the turning points of the past century may be difficult to reach, but I am pleased to have an opportunity to offer one perspective while acknowledging that this perspective is filtered through an American lens and the perspective of someone who has spent the majority of her professional life in this area. The first and most important turning point is our understanding of the multidimensionality of giftedness.
Expanding Conceptions of Giftedness and Talent
In the past century, we have come to understand that gifted learners are not a homogeneous group. To the contrary, they are many, varied, and unique. A thorough review of the research on gifted and talented learners indicates that the gifts and talents among the gifted vary widely. For the first several decades of this century, psychometricians and psychologists, following in the footsteps of Lewis Terman in 1916, equated giftedness with high IQ. Some of this "legacy" survives to the present day, as giftedness and high IQ continue to be equated in some conceptions of giftedness. Since that early time, however, other researchers (e.g., Cattell, Guilford, and Thurstone) have argued that intellect cannot be expressed in such a unitary manner, and suggested more multifaceted approaches to intelligence (Wallace & Pierce, 1992). Research conducted in the 1980s and 1990s has provided data that support notions of multiple components to intelligence. This is particularly evident in the reexamination of "giftedness" by Sternberg and Davidson (1986) in their edited Conceptions of Giftedness. The different conceptions of giftedness presented although distinct, are interrelated in several ways. Most of the investigators define giftedness in terms of multiple qualities, not all of which are intellectual. IQ scores are often viewed as inadequate measures of giftedness. Motivation, high self-concept, and creativity are key qualities in many of these broadened conceptions of giftedness (Siegler & Kotovsky, 1986).

Howard Gardner's (1983) theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and Joseph Renzulli's (1978) "three ring" definition of gifted behavior serve as precise examples of multifaceted, expanding and scholarly conceptualizations of intelligence and giftedness. Gardner's (1983) definition of an intelligence is the ability to solve problems, or create products, that are valued within one or more cultural settings. Within his MI theory, he articulates eight specific intelligences: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist. Gardner believes that people are much more comfortable using the term "talents" and that "intelligence" is generally reserved to describe linguistic or logical "smartness"; however, he does not believe that certain human abilities should arbitrarily qualify as "intelligence" over others (e.g., language as an intelligence vs. dance as a talent) (Gardner, 1993).

Renzulli's (1978) definition, defining gifted behaviors rather than gifted individuals, is composed of three components as follows:

Gifted behavior consists of behaviors that reflect an interaction among three basic clusters of human traits-above average ability, high levels of task commitment, and high levels of creativity. Individuals capable of developing gifted behavior are those possessing or capable of developing this composite set of traits and applying them to any potentially valuable area of human performance. Persons who manifest or are capable of developing an interaction among the three clusters require a wide variety of educational opportunities and services that are not ordinarily provided through regular instructional programs. (Renzulli & Reis, 1997, p. 8)

The United States federal government also subscribed to a multifaceted approach to giftedness as early as 1972 when a national report was issued called the Marland Report. The Marland, or "U.S. Department of Education," definition has dominated most states' definitions of giftedness and talent (Passow & Rudnitski, 1993). The most recent federal definition was cited in the most recent national report on the state of gifted and talented education:

Children and youth with outstanding talent perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment. These children and youth exhibit high performance capability in intellectual, creative, and/or artistic areas, possess an unusual leadership capacity, or excel in specific academic fields. They require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the schools. Outstanding talents are present in children and youth from all cultural groups, across all economic strata, and in all areas of human endeavor. (U.S. Department of Education, 1993, p. 26)

Though many school districts adopt this or other broad definitions as their philosophy, others still only pay attention to "intellectual" ability when both identifying and serving students. And, even though many psychologists and educators recognize broadened definitions of giftedness and intelligence, many students with gifts and talents are unrecognized and underserved.

Conceptions of Schoolhouse vs Creative Productive Giftedness
A discussion of "high intellectual ability or potential" and "high creative ability or potential" is presented in two separate sections because existing research and discussion often identify two broad categories, which Renzulli (1986) appropriately referred to as either "schoolhouse giftedness" and/or "creative/productive giftedness." Schoolhouse giftedness refers to test-taking, lesson-learning, or academic giftedness, and individuals who fall into this category generally score well on more traditional intellectual or cognitive assessments and perform well in school. Creative/productive giftedness, on the other hand, is reflected in individuals who tend to be producers (rather than consumers) of original knowledge, materials, or products and who employ thought processes that tend to be inductive, integrated, and problem oriented. Results of a recent longitudinal study provide research that supports Renzulli's distinction between schoolhouse giftedness and creative/productive giftedness. Perleth, Sierwald, and Heller (1993), in their Munich Longitudinal Study of Giftedness (1985-1989) focusing on a large number of secondary students, found clear differences between students who demonstrated creative/productive as opposed to schoolhouse giftedness. Renzulli believes that both types of giftedness should be developed and that an interaction exists between them (Renzulli, 1986). This dichotomy provides a departure from previous conceptions of giftedness and a focus on the need to develop creativity as a form of giftedness.
The Decline of Challenge for Gifted and Talented Students
In the recently released federal report on the status of education for our nation's most talented students entitled National Excellence, A Case for Developing America's Talent (U.S. Department of Education, 1993), a quiet crisis is described in the education of talented students in the United States. The report indicates the absence of attention paid to this population and the absence of challenge that confronts them: "Despite sporadic attention over the years to the needs of bright students, most of them continue to spend time in school working well below their capabilities. The belief espoused in school reform that children from all economic and cultural backgrounds must reach their full potential has not been extended to America's most talented students. They are underchallenged and therefore underachieve" (p. 5). The report further indicates that our nation's talented students are offered a less rigorous curriculum, read fewer demanding books, and are less prepared for work or postsecondary education than top students in many other industrialized countries. Talented children from economically disadvantaged homes or from culturally or linguistically diverse groups are especially neglected, the report also indicates, and many of them will not realize their potential without some type of intervention.

Boredom and Repetition in School
In the last twenty-five years, American textbook publishers have been accused of "dumbing down" textbooks. In 1982, for example Kirst (l982) indicated that a sample of U.S. publishers agreed that their textbooks had dropped two grade levels in difficulty during the last 10 to 15 years. And, according to Kirst, when California educators tried to find textbooks that would challenge the top one-third of their students, no publisher had a book to present for adoption, and suggested instead, the reissuing of textbooks from the late sixties. The term, "dumbing down of textbooks" was used in 1984 by Terrell Bell, the Secretary of Education during Reagan's first term, as a reaction to A Nation at Risk, the well known national report that was extremely critical of our American schools and provided the impetus for most current educational reform initiatives. However, the problem with the use of easier textbooks did not begin in 1984. A thorough examination (Reis & Westberg, 1994) of the dumbing down problems with textbooks found that the trend towards easier materials began in the 1920s when the vocabulary began to decrease because more children of immigrants and the poor began entering schools. Fewer and fewer new words were introduced in textbooks and the words that were introduced were repeated more and more often to meet the needs of a changing population. This trend continued in the 1930s through the 1950s in both reading and social studies. Chall repeatedly questioned the practice of using reading textbooks that were too easy because they were matched to students' grade placement, but not their reading levels as the problems of less challenging textbooks continued (Chall & Conard, 1991). Chall and Conard further documented that the trend to using less challenging content continued through the end of the century.

Classroom Practices for High Ability Students in Classrooms in The United States
Recently, three studies conducted by the University of Connecticut site of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented have analyzed what occurs in American classrooms for high ability students and the results portray a disturbing pattern. The Classroom Practices Survey (Archambault et al., 1993) was conducted to determine the extent to which gifted and talented students receive differentiated education in regular classrooms. Approximately 7,300 third and fourth grade teachers in public and private schools in the United States were randomly selected to participate in this research and over 51% of this national sample of classroom teachers responded to the survey. Sixty-one percent of public school teachers and 54% of private school teachers reported that they had never had any training in teaching gifted students. The major finding of this study is that classroom teachers make only minor modifications in the regular curriculum to meet the needs of gifted students. This result was consistent for all types of schools sampled and for classrooms in various parts of the country and for various types of communities.

The Classroom Practices Observational Study (Westberg, et al., 1993) examined the instructional and curricular practices used with gifted and talented students in regular elementary classrooms throughout the United States. Systematic observations were conducted in 46 third or fourth grade classrooms. The observations were designed to determine if and how classroom teachers meet the needs of gifted students in the regular classroom. Two students, one high ability student and one average ability student, were selected as target students for each observation day and the types and frequencies of instruction that both students receive through modifications in curricular activities, materials, and teacher-student verbal interactions were documented by trained observers. The results indicated little differentiation in the instructional and curricular practices, including grouping arrangements and verbal interactions, for gifted students in the regular classroom. In all content areas in 92 observation days, gifted students rarely received instruction in homogeneous groups (only 21% of the time), and more alarmingly, the target gifted students experienced no instructional or curricular differentiation in 84% of the instructional activities in which they participated. The daily summaries of these observations completed by the trained observers were also examined. The most dominant theme in this content analysis involved the use of identical practices for all targeted students. For example, phrases such as "no purposeful differentiation" appeared on 51 of the 92 daily summaries. Anecdotal summaries such as the following provided poignant glimpses into the daily experiences of high ability students: "It should be noted that the targeted gifted student was inattentive during all of her classes. She appeared to be sleepy, never volunteered, and was visibly unenthusiastic about all activities. No attempt was made to direct higher order thinking skills questions to her or to engage her in more challenging work.She never acted out in any way."

A third study, The Curriculum Compacting Study (Reis, et al., l993) examined the effects of using a plan called curriculum compacting (Reis, Burns & Renzulli, 1992) to modify the curriculum and eliminate previously mastered work for high ability students. The work that is eliminated is content that is repeated from previous textbooks or content that may be new in the curriculum but that some students already know. Four hundred and thirty-six teachers participated in this study as did 783 students. Students took the next chronological grade level Iowa Test of Basic Skills in both October and May. When classroom teachers in the group eliminated between 40-50% of the previously mastered regular curriculum for high ability students, no differences were found between students whose work was compacted and students who did all the work in reading, math computation, social studies and spelling. In science and math concepts, students whose curriculum was compacted scored significantly higher than their counterparts in the control group. Accordingly teachers could eliminate as much as 40-50% of material without detrimental effects to achievement scores. And in some content areas, scores were actually higher when this elimination of previous mastered content took place!

The Ramifications of the Lack of Challenge for Gifted Students
Three ramifications clearly exist for gifted students in our nation's schools. First, they are clearly underchallenged and therefore, their development is delayed or may even be halted. If instructional materials are not above the students' level of knowledge or understanding, learning is less efficient and intellectual growth may stop. It is, for example, not surprising to find a very talented first grader in a urban school who reads on a fifth grade level who is reading only slightly above grade level when he/she enters fifth grade. Second, too many of our brightest students never learn to work and consequently, acquire poor work habits. In a recent study (Reis, Hébert, Díaz, Maxfield & Rattley, 1995) conducted on 35 high ability urban students who underachieve in school, students have provided insight into why they are doing poorly in high school, blaming an elementary school program that is too easy. One students' comment is representative of the attitude of the majority of students involved in the study: "Elementary school was fun. I always got As on my report card. I never studied when we were in class and I never had to study at home."

The problem of not learning to work does not, however, exist only in urban areas or in America alone, and it seems to be an area of increasing importance in education of gifted and talented students.
Underserved Populations in Gifted Education
Unfortunately, the majority of young people participating in gifted and talented programs across the country continue to represent the majority culture. Few doubts exist regarding the reasons that economically disadvantaged and other minority group students are underrepresented in gifted programs. For example, Frasier and Passow (1994) indicate that identification and selection procedures may be ineffective and inappropriate for the identification of these young people. They also indicate that limited referrals and nominations of students who are minorities or from other disadvantaged groups affect their eventual placement in programs. Test bias and inappropriateness have been mentioned as a reason as the continued reliance on traditional identification approaches. Groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in gifted programs could be better served, according to Frasier and Passow (1994), if the following elements are considered: new constructs of giftedness, attention to cultural and contextual variability, the use of more varied and authentic assessment, performance identification, identification through learning opportunities, and attention to both absolute attributes of giftedness, the traits, aptitudes, and behaviors universally associated with talent as well as the specific behaviors that represent different manifestations of gifted potential and performance as a consequence of the social and cultural contexts in which they occur (p. xvii).

In addition to students from economically disadvantaged populations, various minority and cultural groups, as well as gifted students with various disabilities such as learning disabilities, visual and hearing impairments, and physical handicaps. Another group of students who are traditionally underrepresented in gifted programs are females who have potential in mathematics and science, as well as gifted females who achieve in school but later underachieve in life (Reis, 1987; 1998). Special programs, strategies, and identification procedures have been suggested for many of these groups, however, much progress still remains to be made to achieve equity for these underrepresented groups.
Diverse Gifted and Talented Learners
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Gifted and Talented Learners
The decade of the eighties was marked by an increasing interest in the atypical gifted who are described generally as consisting of ethnic, racial, and linguistic minorities, the economically disadvantaged, gifted females, gifted underachievers, and the gifted/disabled. In these populations, the identification of giftedness may be masked by other characteristics and prejudices (Bireley, Languis, & Williamson, 1992). During the last two decades, researchers in the field of gifted education have increasingly turned their attention to the underrepresentation of some populations in gifted programs such as those mentioned above. Ethnic, racial, and linguistic minorities have also been targeted by federal and state policies. For example, the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act of 1988 established that "outstanding talents are present in children and youth from all cultural groups, across all economic strata, and in all areas of human endeavor" (U.S. Department of Education, 1993, p. 26).

The pervasive disparity in the proportion of culturally and linguistically diverse (e.g., limited English proficient (LEP), bilingual, English as a Second Language) students identified and served in programs for the gifted is the major concern of several researchers and educators in gifted education (Kloosterman, 1997; Maker, 1983; Mitchell, 1988). The primary reason cited for their underrepresentation is the absence of adequate assessment procedures and programming efforts (Frasier, García, & Passow, 1995; Frasier & Passow, 1994; Kitano & Espinosa, 1995). The United States Department of Education (1993) report, National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent, states that "special efforts are required to overcome the barriers to achievement that many economically disadvantaged and minority students face" (p. 28). Various sections in this report also address the need to identify talents in youngsters of different socioeconomic and cultural background. In this regard, although several efforts have been made in the last decade to overcome these limitations, school districts and individuals still find themselves lacking systematic research support to design and implement a more equitable system of identifying these students. However, careful attention needs to be devoted to the relevance of the current checklists of traits and characteristics leading to the identification of advanced students. For instance, teacher judgment poses difficulties in referring and identifying culturally and linguistically diverse students due to negative teacher attitudes, resistance, and/or unsatisfactory knowledge of the manifestations of giftedness in these students. It is crucial that educators hold positive and high expectations towards their bilingual/LEP and culturally diverse students and become aware of the family culture, which may differ greatly from majority families. It is also critical that unique characteristics of each population be included as a part of the identification process.

Recently, researchers at The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented completed a three-year study of 35 economically disadvantaged, ethnically diverse, talented high school students who either achieved or underachieved in their urban high school (Reis, Hébert, Díaz, Rattley, & Maxfield, 1995). Qualitative methods were used and a number of common personal characteristics were found to be exhibited by the participants in this study including: motivation and inner will, positive use of problem solving, independence, realistic aspirations, heightened sensitivity to each other and the world around them, and appreciation of cultural diversity. A determination to succeed was consistently echoed by most of the participants in this study, despite what could be considered prejudice leveled against them. Rosa, one of the participants in the study, said that she had experienced various types of prejudice in her community, and occasionally in academic experiences, and she believed that she experienced prejudice because she is both intelligent and Puerto Rican. This prejudice occurred in school, coming from teachers as well as students, and in the summer programs she participated in for high achieving students-which were held at some of the most prestigious private schools in the state. She explained, "I know that people will occasionally look at me and say, when they find out that I'm smart, 'How can that be? She's Puerto Rican'" (Reis, et al., 1995, p. 102).

Each of the high achieving participants in this study referred to an internal motivation that kept them driven to succeed in their urban environment. One participant referred to this drive as an "inner will" which contributed to the strong belief in self observed in the participants. Resilience was also exhibited by many of the participants in this study, as the majority came from homes which had been affected by periodic or regular unemployment of one or more parents, poverty, family turmoil caused by issues such as alcohol, drugs, and mental illness, and other problems. All participants also lived in a city plagued by violence, drugs, poverty, and crime. Their school district has often been called one of the worst in the country and had the dubious distinctions of having the state eliminate the local board of education and take over the schools. Despite these challenges, the majority of the high achieving participants in this study developed the resilience necessary to overcome problems associated with their families, their school, and their environment. The courage and resilience they displayed seems remarkable, and yet they simply accepted their circumstances and took advantage of the opportunities given to them.

These culturally diverse gifted students and those who are acquiring English represent a heterogeneous group. According to Kitano and Espinosa (1995), "Their diversity suggests a need for a broad range of programs that provide options for different levels of primary and English language proficiency, different subject-matter interests, and talent areas" (p. 237). These authors call for new strategies for identifying diverse gifted students including, developmental curriculum and enriched programs that "evoke" a gifted student's potential, broader conceptions of intelligence, alternative definitions of giftedness, and assessment models developed for specific populations.

Gifted Females
What factors cause some smart young girls with hopes and dreams to become self-fulfilled talented women in their later lives? For the last two decades educators have speculated on the answers to this question, and while some research has addressed the issue, much more is needed. In this section, several issues related to the characteristics of gifted and talented girls in school are discussed.

Some research (Arnold & Denny, 1993; Bell, 1989; Cramer, 1989; Hany, 1994; Kline & Short, 1991; Kramer, 1991; Leroux, 1988; Perleth & Heller, 1994; Reis, 1987,1998; Reis & Callahan, 1989; Subotnik, 1988) has indicated that gifted females begin to lose self-confidence in elementary school, which continues through college and graduate school; increasingly doubt their intellectual competence; perceive themselves as less capable than they actually are; and believe that boys can rely on innate ability while they themselves must work hard. Talented girls, it is also said, choose more often to work in groups, and are more concerned about teacher reactions, more likely to adapt to adult expectations, and less likely than boys to describe themselves or to be described as autonomous and independent. But some bright girls also use affiliations and their relationships to assess their level of ability, and to achieve at higher levels, and often believe that their grades will be higher if their teachers like them.

Reis (1998) recently completed a comprehensive analysis of gifted females and offered numerous suggestions on how their needs can be better met across the lifespan. She studied research on talented girls' social and emotional development through elementary and secondary school, concluding that achievement of girls is good in school, but that self-confidence and self-perceived abilities decrease and that achievement in life is lower than males of comparable ability. Some gifted females value their own personal achievements less as they get older, which may indicate that the aging process has a negative impact on both the achievement and the self-confidence of gifted females. Reis (1998) also found however, that as gifted females approach middle to later age, many of the conflicts they faced as young women decrease and they are able to excel.

Gifted Students with Disabilities
Historically, the exceptionality of gifted students with disabilities was mentioned at a national conference on handicapped gifted held in 1976; in 1977 the category "gifted handicapped" was added to ERIC indices (Yewchuk & Bibby, 1989). During the last twenty years, some research has contributed to our understanding of the special needs of these exceptional young children; however, it is still clear that students with disabilities are more often recognized for handicaps, not gifts (Baum, 1990; Schwartz, 1994; Yewchuk & Bibby, 1989). Research about this population is ongoing and will be briefly discussed by specific exceptionality.

Hearing disabled gifted students
Children with hearing impairments were judged by teachers to exhibit similar characteristics of giftedness to hearing peers, except for academic achievement, which may be delayed for four or five years. Yewchuk and Bibby (1989) concluded that "giftedness in both hearing and hearing impaired populations is manifested in similar ways" (p. 48), i.e., in eagerness to learn, visual skills, superior recall, quick understanding, superior reasoning ability, expressive language, etc.

High potential students with cerebral palsy
Willard-Holt (1994) explored the experiences of two talented students who have cerebral palsy who were not able to communicate with speech. Using qualitative cross-case methodology, she found that these students demonstrated the following characteristics of giftedness: advanced academic abilities (especially math and verbal skills), broad knowledge base, quickness of learning and recall, sense of humor, curiosity, insight, desire for independence, use of intellectual skills to cope with disability, and maturity (shown in high motivation, goal orientation, determination, patience, and recognition of their own limitations). Several educational factors contributed to the development of these characteristics in these students such as willingness of the teachers to accommodate for the disabilities, mainstreaming with other students, individualization and opportunities for student choice, and hands-on experiences.

Gifted and talented students with learning disabilities
During the last two decades, increasing attention has been given to the perplexing problem of high ability/talented students who also have learning disabilities. The specific research concerning high ability students with learning disabilities began following the passage of PL 94-142, when the expanded emphasis on the education of students with disabilities created an interest in students who were both gifted and demonstrated learning disabilities. Although the literature has addressed this topic, problems still exist regarding the identification and provision of support services and programs for this population. Research on high ability students with learning disabilities continues to be difficult because of problems in defining each population. The fields of gifted education and education of students with learning disabilities have long been separated by their own definitions of the population to be served (Vaughn, 1989; Ysseldyke & Algozzine, 1983).

Baum and Owen (1988), in a study of 112 high ability or LD students in grades four through six, used statistical analyses to find that the major characteristic distinguishing high ability/LD students from both LD/average and high ability (non-LD) groups was a heightened sense of inefficacy in school. The high ability/LD students in their study also displayed high levels of creative potential, along with a tendency to behave disruptively and to achieve low levels of academic success. Also, 36% of the students in their study who had been identified as having a learning disability simultaneously demonstrated behaviors associated with giftedness. Baum (1990) later identified four recommendations for gifted students with learning disabilities: encourage compensation strategies, encourage awareness of strengths and weaknesses, focus on developing the child's gift, and provide an environment that values individual differences.

After a thorough review of the literature on gifted/LD students, Reis, Neu, and McGuire (1995) compiled a list of characteristics of gifted/LD students that may hamper their identification as gifted. These characteristics are the result of the interaction of their high abilities and their learning disabilities. These researchers studied talented college students with learning disabilities who were successful in college, finding that the use of compensatory strategies were necessary for their success and that half of these identified students with learning disabilities experienced social and emotional difficulties because of their uneven pattern of academic strengths and deficits.

Gifted children and ADHD
Children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and gifted children may exhibit similar behaviors (e.g., inattention, high energy level, impulsivity), and there seems to be mounting evidence that many children being identified as having ADHD are also very bright, creative children (Cramond, 1995; Baum, 1990). Recent attention given to this population would indicate that more research is needed to be able to identify how to better identify and program for this population.

Underachieving gifted learners
Student performance that falls noticeably short of potential, especially for young people with high ability, is bewildering and perhaps the most frustrating of all challenges both teachers and parents face. According to a 1990 national needs assessment survey conducted by The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, most educators of gifted identified the problem of underachievement as their number one concern (Renzulli, Reid, & Gubbins, n.d.).

Some students underachieve or fail in school for obvious reasons: excessive absences from school, poor performance, disruptive behavior, low self-esteem, family problems, and poverty. In addition to the risk factors that predict the reasons most students fail, another long-standing problem which causes underachievement in gifted or high potential students is the inappropriate curriculum and content which some of them encounter on a daily basis. The hundreds of hours spent each month in classrooms in which students rarely encounter new or challenging curriculum, the boredom of being assigned routine tasks mastered long ago, the low levels of discussion, and the mismatch of content to students' ability lead to frustration on the parts of many of our brightest students. In fact, dropping out of school is the only way that some students believe they can address these issues effectively.

Reis & McCoach (2000) identified specific characteristics of gifted underachievers, which may provide helpful insights for educators regarding the performance of some of their students. These characteristics include: high or variable abilities, especially verbal and/or visual/motor; good knowledge, memory and motivation in areas of strength and interest; possible creative talents; low course grades relative to ability; variable scores on standardized achievement tests; preference for non-traditional rewards; poor organization and time management; lack of homework production; and unrealistically low or high self-concept. Reis and McCoach (2000) also provided a comprehensive summary of research on gifted students who underachieve, and summarized the limited interventions studied to address this area.
A Change in Direction From a List of Traits or Characteristics to an Understanding of the Ways that Giftedness Occurs, is Identified and Developed
In the past, the general approach to the study of gifted persons could easily lead the casual reader to believe that giftedness is an absolute condition that is magically bestowed upon a person in much the same way that nature endows us with blue eyes, red hair, or a dark complexion (Renzulli, 1980). This position is not supported by the current research cited in this article. The multiple lists of traits and characteristics-some for girls and some for boys; some for students from the majority culture, others for students from diverse cultural backgrounds indicate the diversity of talents in different populations. For too many years educators have pretended that we can identify THE traits of gifted children in an absolute and unequivocal fashion. Many people have been led to believe that certain individuals have been endowed with a golden chromosome that makes him or her "a gifted person." This belief has further led to the mistaken idea that all we need to do is find the right combination of traits that prove the existence of this "gift." The further use of terms such as "the truly gifted," "the highly gifted," the "moderately gifted," and the "borderline gifted" only serve to confound the issue. The misuse of the concept of giftedness has given rise to a great deal of criticism and confusion about both identification and programming, and the result has been that so many mixed messages have been sent to educators and the public at large that both groups now have a justifiable skepticism about the credibility of the gifted education movement and our ability to both define and offer services that are qualitatively different from general education.

Most of the confusion and controversy surrounding characteristics of giftedness can be placed into proper perspective if we examine a few key questions. Do we use specific characteristics of one group of people to identify another group? Are the characteristics of giftedness reflected in high ability Puerto Rican students the same characteristics of giftedness as those demonstrated by above average Mexican students or Chinese students? Are there characteristics common to each group? If so, how are they exhibited? What happens to a child who consistently manifests these characteristics when he/she is in the primary grades but who learns to underachieve in school because of an unchallenging curriculum? What about a gifted child with a learning disability whose disability masks his or her talents? Are characteristics of giftedness static (i.e., you have or you don't have them) or are they dynamic (i.e., they vary within persons and among learning/performance situations)?

These questions have led us to advocate a fundamental change in the ways the characteristics and traits of giftedness should be viewed in the future. We believe that the characteristics of any advanced learners must be identified within various population groups. That is, we should attempt to identify the characteristics of talented students within each educational context and population. This information should be used to help us differentiate between all students and those who need different levels of service, or a continuum or services (Renzulli, 1994; Renzulli & Reis, 1997) in school to realize their potential. This shift might appear insignificant, but we believe that it has implications for the way that we think about the characteristics of giftedness and the ways in which we should structure our identification and programming endeavors. This change may also provide the flexibility in both identification and programming endeavors that will encourage the inclusion of diverse students in our programs.

Defining our populations, then deciding which services are offered to all students and what is qualitatively necessary for gifted students based on the traits of the population, will help us to develop programs that are internally consistent. At a very minimum, we must understand that giftedness is manifested by different traits in different populations, and we must develop programs that reflect the diversity of talent in our culture.

A Continuum of Services
A broad range of special services is recommended (Renzulli, 1994; Renzulli & Reis, 1997) to meet the needs of the a program for total talent development that challenge students who are capable of working at the highest levels of their abilities and special interest areas. These services may include: individual or small group counseling, direct assistance in facilitating advanced level and accelerated work, arranging mentorships with faculty members or community persons, and making other types of connections between students, their families, and out-of-school persons. Direct assistance also involves setting up and promoting student, faculty and parental involvement in special programs such as Future Problem Solving, the Model United Nations program, and state and national essay, mathematics, and history contests. Another type of direct assistance consists of arranging out-of-school involvement for individual students in summer programs, accelerated learning opportunities, on-campus courses, special schools, theatrical groups, scientific expeditions, and apprenticeships at places where advanced level learning opportunities are available. Provision of these services to students whose learning needs match the service is one of the responsibilities of the gifted program teacher or an enrichment team of teachers and parents who work together to provide options for advanced learning.

Applying "Gifted" Education Pedagogy to Develop Talents in Students
Much that has been learned and developed in gifted programs can be adapted to offer exciting, creative alternatives in instruction and curriculum for all students, understanding that if this were to occur, truly advanced services could be targeted for those who really need them. A rather impressive menu of exciting curricular adaptations, independent study and thinking skill strategies, grouping options, and enrichment strategies have been developed in gifted programs which could be used to improve schools. The Schoolwide Enrichment Model (Renzulli & Reis, 1985; 1997) has been field tested and implemented by hundreds of school districts across the country for the last nine years. Experiences with schoolwide enrichment led us to realize that when an effective approach to enrichment is implemented, all students in the school benefit and the entire school begins to improve. This approach seeks to apply strategies used in gifted programs to the entire school population, emphasizing talent development in all students through a variety of acceleration and enrichment strategies that have been discussed earlier. Not all students can, of course, participate in all advanced opportunities but many can work far beyond what they are currently asked to do. It is clear that our most advanced students need different types of educational experiences than they are currently receiving and that without these services, talents may not be nurtured in many students. Gifted and talented students flourish in an environment that nurtures and tries to develop the talents of all children, and the unique needs of gifted students are better served in an environment that seeks to maximize the potential of all students.

We seldom ask how gifted program participants benefit from their experiences, and we rarely ask what else we should have been doing for gifted students who had some program involvement. It is clear that a continuum of services should be made available representing a variety of different approaches, including acceleration, counseling, regular curriculum modification and differentiation, separate classes, and a pull-out or resource room component. Longitudinal studies should also investigate the acquisition of self-regulated, self-directed learning, given the current explosion of knowledge available on the web. We must start to investigate how gifted students can gain access to this information while also learning the skills of synthesis, analysis, and evaluation necessary to understand how to interpret the large body of information they encounter.

The new millennium is causing us to ask questions about every area of our personal and professional lives. The explosion of knowledge has yet to be completely explored in the area of education. If we could imagine a perfect learning situation for every advanced learner, it might include some of the following: opportunities for advancement through the regular curriculum at an appropriately challenging rate and pace; depth and advanced content; independent, self-directed learning challenges; independent study; and varied learning opportunities based on interest, learning styles, product preferences and modality preferences.

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Major Turning Points in Gifted Education in the 20th Century

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President, The National Association of Gifted Children The United States of America What are the turning points in the education of gifted and talented students in this century? We begin a new century and it is appropriate to reflect on the extraordinary changes and advances witnessed in the last several decades in our field.

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After NAGC report 2016 titled, "Turning a Blind Eye: Neglecting the Needs of Gifted and Talented,"  a legislative package that includes funding of 12 million USD to help with research that can benefit underrepresented learners, as well as policies that focus on students with high potential by Yara Wilson

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After NAGC report 2016 titled, "Turning a Blind Eye: Neglecting the Needs of Gifted and Talented,"  a legislative package that includes funding of 12 million USD to help with research that can benefit underrepresented learners, as well as policies that focus on students with high potential by Yara Wilson

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Positive News for Gifted Education

NAGC comes out with a paper titled, "Turning a Blind Eye, Neglecting the Needs of Gifted and Talented." It shows how not serving the needs of gifted learners is even "hazardous" to the nation's future. After years of dedicated advocacy, finally in 2016, Congress passes more funding that has the potential to help with achieving equity for underrepresented learners.

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02.06.2023 | Diversity in Gifted Programs

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02.06.2023 | Diversity in Gifted Programs

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Anthony Vargas is a supervisor at the district level in Manassas, VA. He is working  to close gaps in the Gifted program system by developing his understanding of equitable practices when it comes to selecting students to join the district's Gifted program.

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Anthony Vargas listened intently as a young student launched into her presentation on the Navajo Code Talkers, a group of American Indians trained and recruited to relay secret messages in battles during World War II.

He was as excited as the 6th graders in the humanities-focused gifted and talented "cluster" at Mayfield Intermediate School in the Manassas City public schools in Manassas, Va.

"Why is this [the code talkers] something we should know about?" he asked the student, after she'd wrapped up.

"It might get forgotten about or lost otherwise," she responded.

Vargas, the district's supervisor of gifted and talented and advanced programs, nodded knowingly.

He understands all too well the importance of recognizing the talent and value of historically underrepresented groups. It's why he's worked diligently over the last four years to increase the number of Hispanic students and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds in the district's gifted and talented program, which skewed white and upper income even as students of color and those from low-income households made up a majority of the district's enrollment.

Under Vargas' watch, Manassas has been dismantling the barriers to entry into gifted programming, revamping screening methods, and training teachers to spot talent and academic promise in students from historically marginalized groups. It's also increased the number of teachers-and the budget-to support the new mission.

Expanding access to gifted programs has long been a lofty goal for school systems focused on equity, yet it's remained elusive for many. While some districts have voluntarily taken steps to increase diversity in special programs, others had to be nudged by lawsuits or compelled by the courts to do so.

Vargas, 33, is demonstrating that deliberate, thoughtful action can yield positive results. The district's gifted program has grown significantly, to 334 students from 240 four years ago. And as the program grew, the number of students from underrepresented groups kept apace. This school year, 41 percent of the students in the gifted program are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, up from 22 percent when Vargas took over. Hispanic students now make up about 41 percent of gifted education enrollment. Nearly 67 percent of the district's overall student body come from low-income families, while 65 percent are Hispanic.

"I love that I can see myself in my students," Vargas said. "I wanted to make a positive change throughout our K-12 programming."

Correcting a mismatch

Vargas immediately noticed the glaring representation gap when he stepped into the newly created position to oversee gifted programming in 2019.

It's a problem that's not unique to Manassas, said Donna Ford, a gifted education expert and a distinguished professor at Ohio State's department of educational studies. Hispanic, Black, and poor students are underrepresented in gifted and talented and Advanced Placement programs nationally, she said.

"That's related to recruiting and retaining students in these programs once identified," Ford said.

Vargas embarked on a massive and multistage undertaking to diversify the program, involving extensive research on equitable practices on how to select students, the kinds of enrichment to provide, implementing evidence-based practices districtwide, and gaining the trust and cooperation of the school community, including the school board.

Parents, who serve on the district's gifted and talented advisory committee, which makes recommendations on all aspects of the program, also played an important role.

The committee's research into disparities in the program helped crystalize the need for an overhaul and gained support from the school board. It became the primary driver for creating Vargas' position.

Rethinking the selection process

Vargas also did his homework. He observed classes, talked to teachers and students, conducted what he called "fly-by frequent" stops, and interviewed colleagues about gifted programming.

"The first real step was getting a full picture of where we currently were. I had to think about: What is the teacher experience? What is the student experience?" he said.

Then he looked at the research, where he saw clear similarities between what he was reading and the obstacles to increasing equity in his own district.

"A major barrier [supported by the research] is teacher inability to see potential in particular groups of students," he said. "We were getting overreferrals for students who were Asian/white middle and upper class and underreferrals from particularly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged groups."

Vargas knew that a major overhaul was necessary, especially in how students were chosen to participate in the program. One of the first changes was redefining "giftedness." Another was eliminating harsh cutoff scores.

"There must be some flexibility to ensure we are making appropriate decisions, especially considering historically excluded students who have testing biases stacked against them," he said.

Vargas oversaw several changes in how the district assessed giftedness. It moved away from solely using strict scores from standardized tests; began administering to all incoming English learners the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, a nonverbal skills assessment; and adopted Scales for Identifying Gifted Students, or SIG-2, which provides teachers with a nationally-normed checklist of traits to use to identify gifted potential in students.

It takes diving into the students' work and exploring their thinking beyond what a test can traditionally offer.

Training teachers to recognize 'giftedness'

Before Vargas took up his position, the district relied on parents and teachers to refer students into gifted programming. But parents aren't always objective about their children's abilities and teachers weren't necessarily trained in how to spot gifted students.

To cast a wider net, gifted and talented teachers now conduct "partner" lessons with classroom teachers to show them how to incorporate talent-identification opportunities into routine class sessions.

"We've really pushed teachers to refer kids," said Amanda Jones, the gifted-resource teacher at Mayfield Intermediate School. "We're looking for the kid who seems like an outside-the-box thinker and maybe isn't going to get referred by parents."

There's also a broader emphasis on nonobjective measures, such as reviewing students' portfolios to look at their creativity and passions.

"It takes diving into the students' work and exploring their thinking beyond what a test can traditionally offer," Vargas said. "We now more than ever have a holistic look at each student before we find them eligible."

"What we know is that you can be [gifted and talented] inscience and only science," he added.

That was the case with Grayson, a 6th grader whose mother Keisa Reid grew frustrated when he was put on gifted and talented "monitoring" status rather than admitted to the program because his test scores were slightly below the strict cut-off formerly used to determine eligibility.

Under Vargas' direction, teachers spent more time observing Grayson's abilities, and he later gained entry into the program.

"He's turned out to be a rockstar in the program," said Vargas.

Grayson's mother agreed. "My son has blossomed since then," said Reid, who was in a gifted program as a student in New York.

Increased funding, human capital

Vargas needed money and staff to support the changes, and he successfully lobbied the district for an additional $570,000 over the last two school years to add teachers to the program and to train them.

The staffing changes are having a big impact. High school students can now participate in the program-there was no dedicated staff at that level before Vargas-and 3rd and 4th graders no longer have to travel by bus to a single elementary school to meet with their gifted education teacher.

My thing is: Kids are gifted all day, every day. We need to make sure they're getting what they need and deserve in their regular environment.

The program also now emphasizes student voice, with students playing a major role in selecting topics that are covered in some classes. Rigor, Vargas stressed, is still a hallmark of the program.

"We continue to ask ourselves, 'Are kids accessing the learning at a conceptual level?'" he said. "The bar on expectations is still there."

He's beefed up instructional programming, too. In addition to pulling students out of regular classes for once-a-week lessons, Vargas has ensured that students have access to enrichment activities during their regular classroom periods. Learning has also expanded beyond traditional lessons, with field trips to museums and visiting experts stopping by to speak to students.

"My thing is: Kids are gifted all day, every day," he said. "We need to make sure they're getting what they need and deserve in their regular environment."

Motivated by personal experience

Growing up Black and impoverished in affluent West Chester, Pa., about 45 miles west of Philadelphia, Vargas often felt like an outsider in his community-although he found support from teachers who believed in him.

"I didn't always know if I would have a meal," he said. "It was hard relating [to other students]. However, school was actually a safe space for me. It was a place where I was going to get a meal and where the adults did make me feel comfortable and I did have great connections with teachers. Education became my outlet."

He had a light-bulb moment in 5th grade, when he had a Black teacher for the first time.

"It made me understand that something like [becoming an educator] was accessible to me. Because I didn't see it before," said Vargas, who taught for seven years, including a one-year stint as a gifted education teacher in the district.

He wants to ensure that all students, especially those who remind him of his younger self, have the chance to have these "aha" moments.

"When a teacher believes in you as a student, you can take over the world," he said.

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A Leader Who's Busting Down Barriers to Gifted Education

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Anthony Vargas listened intently as a young student launched into her presentation on the Navajo Code Talkers, a group of American Indians trained and recruited to relay secret messages in battles during World War II. He was as excited as the 6th graders in the humanities-focused gifted and talented "cluster" at Mayfield Intermediate School in the Manassas City public schools in Manassas, Va.