Thanks to AI, we just got stunningly powerful tools to decode life itself.
In two recent back-to-back papers,
scientists at DeepMind and the University of Washington described deep
learning-based methods to solve protein folding—the last step of
executing the programming in our DNA.
Why does this matter?
Because proteins are the building
blocks of life. They form our bodies, fuel our metabolism, and are the
target of most of today’s medicine.
Proteins start out as a simple ribbon
of amino acids, translated from DNA, and subsequently folded into
intricate three-dimensional architectures. Many protein units then
further assemble into massive, moving complexes that change their
structure depending on their functional needs at a given time.
And misfolded proteins can be devastating—causing health problems from sickle cell anemia and cancer, to Alzheimer’s disease.
In
today’s blog, we’ll discuss the details of this AI-driven advance and
what it means for the future of biology and medicine. As ourA360 community
has often discussed, the biotech field is accelerating, and the decade
ahead will bring untold breakthroughs and multi-$100-billion-dollar
startups.
Let’s dive in…
(This article originally appeared onSingularityHub by Shelly Fan, adopted by Peter Diamandis for his Abundance Community.)
“A ONCE IN A GENERATION ADVANCE”
One of biology’s grandest challenges
for the past 50 years has been deciphering how a simple one-dimensional
ribbon-like structure turns into 3D shapes, equipped with canyons,
ridges, valleys, and caves.
It’s as if an alien is reading the
coordinates of hundreds of locations on a map of the Grand Canyon on a
notebook, and reconstructing it into a 3D hologram of the actual
thing—without ever laying eyes on it or knowing what it should look
like.
Yes, it’s hard. “Lots of people have broken their head on it,” said Dr. John Moult at the University of Maryland.
It’s not just an academic exercise. Solving the human genome paved the way for gene therapy, CAR-T cancer breakthroughs, and the infamous CRISPR gene editing tool.
Deciphering protein folding is bound to
illuminate an entire new landscape of biology we haven’t been able to
study or manipulate. The fast and furious development of Covid-19
vaccines relied on scientists parsing multiple protein targets on the
virus, including the spike proteins that vaccines target. Many proteins
that lead to cancer have so far been out of the reach of drugs because
their structure is hard to pin down.
With these new AI tools, scientists
could solve haunting medical mysteries while preparing to tackle those
yet unknown. It sets the stage for better understanding our biology,
informing new medicines, and even inspiring synthetic biology down the
line.
“What the DeepMind team has managed to
achieve is fantastic and will change the future of structural biology
and protein research,” said Dr. Janet Thornton, director emeritus of the
European Bioinformatics Institute.
“I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime,” added Moult.
BIRTH OF A PROTEIN
Picture life as a video game. If DNA is
the background base code, then proteins are its execution—the actual
game that you play. Any bugs in DNA could trigger a crash in the
program, but they could also be benign and allow the game to run as
usual. In other words, most modern medicine, like gamers, cares only
about the final gameplay—the proteins—rather than the source code that
leads to it, unless something goes wrong. From diabetes medication to
anti-depressants and potentially life-extending senolytics, these drugs all work by grabbing onto proteins rather than DNA.
It’s why deciphering protein structure
is so important: like a key to a lock, a drug can only dock onto a
protein at specific spots. Similarly, proteins often tag-team by binding
together into a complex to run your body’s functions—say, forming a memory or triggering an immune attack against a virus.
Proteins are made of building blocks
called amino acids, which are in turn programmed by DNA. Similar to the
Rosetta stone, our cells can easily translate DNA code into protein
building blocks inside a clam-shell-like structure, which spits out a
string of one-dimensional amino acids. These ribbons are then shuffled
through a whole cellular infrastructure that allows the protein to fold
into its final structure.
Back in the 1970s, the Nobel Prize
winner Dr. Christian Anfinsen famously asserted that the one-dimensional
sequence itself can computationally predict a protein’s 3D structure.
The problem is time and power: like trying to hack a password with
hundreds of characters suspended in 3D space, the potential solutions
are astronomical. But we now have a tool that beats humans at finding
patterns: machine learning.
ENTER AI
In 2020, DeepMind shocked the entire field with
its entry into a legacy biennial competition. Dubbed CASP (Critical
Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction), the decades-long test uses
traditional lab methods for determining protein structure as its
baseline to judge prediction algorithms.
The baseline’s hard to get. It relies
on laborious experimental techniques that can take months or even years.
These methods often “freeze” a protein and map its internal structure
down to the atomic level using X-rays. Many proteins can’t be treated
this way without losing their natural structure, but the method is the
best we currently have. Predictions are then compared to this gold
standard to judge the underlying algorithm.
Last year DeepMind stunned everyone
with their AI, blowing other competition out of the water. At the time,
they were a tease, revealing little detail about their “incredibly exciting”
method that matched experimental results in accuracy. But the 30-minute
presentation inspired Dr. Minkyung Baek at the University of Washington
to develop her own approach.
Baek used a similar deep learning strategy, outlined in a paper in Science this
week. The tool, RoseTTAFold, simultaneously considers three levels of
patterns. The first looks at the amino acid building blocks of a protein
and compares them to all the other sequences in a protein database.
The tool next examines how one
protein’s amino acids interact with another within the same protein, for
example, by examining the distance between two distant building blocks.
It’s like looking at your hands and feet fully stretched out versus in a
backbend, and measuring the distance between those extremities as you
“fold” into a yoga pose.
Finally, the third track looks at the
3D coordinates of each atom that makes up a protein building block—kind
of like mapping the studs on a Lego block—to compile the final 3D
structure. The network then bounces back and forth between these tracks,
so that one output can update another track.
The end results came close to those of
DeepMind’s tool, AlphaFold2, which matched the gold standard of
structures obtained from experiments. Although RoseTTAFold wasn’t as
accurate as AlphaFold2, it seemingly required much less time and energy.
For a simple protein, the algorithm was able to solve the structure
using a gaming computer in about 10 minutes.
RoseTTAFold was also able to tackle the
“protein assemble” problem, in that it could predict the structure of
proteins, made up of multiple units, by simply looking at the amino acid
sequence alone. For example, they were able to predict how the
structure of an immune molecule locks onto its target. Many biological
functions rely on these handshakes between proteins. Being able to
predict them using an algorithm opens the door to manipulating
biological processes—immune system, stroke, cancer, brain function—that
we previously couldn’t access.
HACKING THE BODY
Since RoseTTAFold’s public release in
July, it’s been downloaded hundreds of times, allowing other researchers
to answer their baffling protein sequence questions, potentially saving
years of work while collectively improving on the algorithm.
“When there’s a breakthrough like this, two years later, everyone is doing it as well if not better than before,” said Moult.
Meanwhile, DeepMind is also releasing (for open and free use) their AlphaFold2 code—the one that inspired Baek.
In a new paper in Nature, the DeepMind team described their approach to
the 50-year mystery. The crux was to integrate multiple sources of
information—the evolution of a protein and its physical and geometric
constraints—to build a two-step system that maps out a given protein
with stunningly high accuracy.
First presented at the CASP meeting,
Dr. Demis Hassabis, founder and CEO of DeepMind, is ready to share the
code with the world. “We pledged to share our methods and provide broad,
free access to the scientific community. Today we take the first step
towards delivering on that commitment by sharing AlphaFold’s open-source
code and publishing the system’s full methodology,” he wrote, adding
that “we’re excited to see what other new avenues of research this will
enable for the community.”
With the two studies, we’re entering a
new world of predicting—and subsequently engineering or changing—the
building blocks of life. Dr. Andrei Lupas, an evolutionary biologist at
the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, and a CASP judge, agrees: “This will change medicine. It will change research,” he said. “It will change bioengineering. It will change everything.”
FINAL THOUGHTS
This breakthrough demonstrates the impact AI can have on scientific discovery.
And if we couple AI’s solution to the
protein folding problem with the anticipated breakthroughs in quantum
computing—another technology poised to disrupt medicine and
healthcare—we’re not far from a world where individually customized,
precision medicine will move from science fiction to the standard of
care.
Nowhere is the convergence of exponential tech bringing greater breakthroughs than in healthcare.
Gifted education (also known as gifted and talented education (GATE), talented and gifted programs (TAG), or G/T education) is a broad group of special practices, procedures, and theories used in the education of children who have been identified as gifted or talented.
The main approaches to gifted education are enrichment and acceleration.
An enrichment program teaches additional, related material, but keeps
the student progressing through the curriculum at the same rate as other
students. For example, after the gifted students have completed the
normal work in the curriculum, an enrichment program might provide them
with additional information about a subject. An acceleration program
advances the student through the standard curriculum faster than normal.
This is done through many different approaches.
There is no standard global definition of what a gifted student
is; multiple definitions exist. Most definitions select the students who
are the most skilled or talented in a given area, e.g., the students
with the most skill or talent in music, language, logical reasoning, or
mathematics. The percentage of students selected varies, generally with
10% or fewer being selected for gifted education programs. However,
since students vary in their aptitudes and achievements, a student who
is not gifted in one area, such as music, may be considered gifted in
another, such as language. Consequently, even if all programs agreed to
include only the top 5% of students in their area, more than just 5% of
students would be identified as gifted.
Forms
Attempts
to provide gifted education can be classified in several ways. Most
gifted students benefit from a combination of approaches at different
times.
Acceleration
Pupils
are advanced to a higher-level class covering material more suited to
their abilities and preparedness. This may take the form of skipping grades
or completing the normal curriculum in a shorter-than-normal period of
time ("telescoping"). Subject acceleration (also called partial
acceleration) is a flexible approach that can advance a student in one
subject, such as mathematics or language, without changing other
studies, such as history or science. This type of acceleration is usually based upon achievement testing, rather than IQ.
Some colleges offer early entrance programs that give gifted younger students the opportunity to attend college early. In the U.S., many community colleges allow advanced students to enroll with the consent of school officials and the pupil's parents.
Acceleration
presents gifted children with academic material from established
curricula that is commensurate with their ability and preparedness, and
for this reason is a low-cost option from the perspective of the school.
This may result in a small number of children taking classes targeted
at older children. For the majority of gifted students, acceleration is
beneficial both academically and socially.
Whole grade skipping is considered rapid acceleration. Some advocates
have argued that the disadvantages of being retained in a standard
mixed-ability classroom are substantially worse than any shortcomings of
acceleration. For example, psychologist
Miraca Gross reports: "the majority of these children [retained in a
typical classroom] are socially rejected [by their peers with typical
academic talents], isolated, and deeply unhappy. Children of IQ 180+ who are retained in the regular classroom are even more seriously at risk and experience severe emotional distress." These accelerated children should be placed together in one class if possible.
Research suggests that acceleration might have an impact long after
students graduate from high school. For example, one study shows that
high-IQ individuals who experienced full-grade acceleration earned
higher incomes as adults.
Cluster Grouping
Cluster grouping
is the gathering of four to six gifted and talented and/or high
achieving students in a single classroom for the entire school day.
Cluster teachers are specially trained in differentiating for gifted
learners. Clusters are typically used in upper elementary grades.
Within a cluster group, instruction may include enrichment and
extensions, higher-order thinking skills, pretesting and
differentiation, compacting, an accelerated pace, and more complexity in
content.
Colloquium
Like acceleration, colloquium provides advanced material for high school students. In colloquium, students take Advanced Placement
(AP) courses. However, colloquium is different from AP classes because
students are usually given more projects than students in AP classes.
Students in colloquium also generally study topics more in depth and
sometimes in a different way than students enrolled in AP classes do.
Colloquium is a form that takes place in a traditional public school. In
colloquium, subjects are grouped together. Subjects are taught at
different times of the day; however, usually what is being taught in one
subject will connect with another subject. For example, if the students
are learning about colonial America in History, then they might also be
analyzing text from The Scarlet Letter
in English. Some schools may only have colloquium in certain subjects.
In schools where colloquium is only offered in English and History,
colloquium students usually take Advanced Placement courses in math and science and vice versa.
Compacting
In
compacting, the regular school material is compacted by pretesting the
student to establish which skills and content have already been
mastered. Pretests can be presented on a daily basis (pupils doing the
most difficult items on a worksheet first and skipping the rest if they
are performed correctly), or before a week or longer unit of
instructional time. When a student demonstrates an appropriate level of
proficiency, further repetitive practice can be safely skipped, thus
reducing boredom and freeing up time for the student to work on more
challenging material.
Enrichment
On
the primary school level, students spend all class time with their
peers, but receive extra material to challenge them. Enrichment may be
as simple as a modified assignment provided by the regular classroom teacher, or it might include formal programs such as Odyssey of the Mind, Destination Imagination or academic competitions such as Brain Bowl, Future Problem Solving, Science Olympiad, National History Day, science fairs, or spelling bees.
Programmes of enrichment activities may also be organised outside the
school day (e.g. the ASCEND project in secondary science education).
This work is done in addition to, and not instead of, any regular
school work assigned. Critics of this approach argue that it requires
gifted students to do more work instead of the same amount at an
advanced level. On the secondary school level sometimes an option is to
take more courses such as English, Spanish, Latin, philosophy, or science
or to engage in extracurricular activities. Some perceive there to be a
necessary choice between enrichment and acceleration, as if the two
were mutually exclusive alternatives. However, other researchers see
the two as complements to each other.
Full-time separate classes or schools
Some gifted students are educated in either a separate class or a
separate school. These classes and schools are sometimes called
"congregated gifted programs" or "dedicated gifted programs."
Some independent schools have a primary mission to serve the
needs of the academically gifted. Such schools are relatively scarce and
often difficult for families to locate. One resource for locating
gifted schools in the United States can be found on the National Association for Gifted Children's
"Resource Directory" accessible through their home page. Such schools
often need to work to guard their mission from occasional charges of
elitism, support the professional growth and training of their staff,
write curriculum units that are specifically designed to meet the
social, emotional, and academic talents of their students, and educate
their parent population at all ages.
Some gifted and talented classes offer self-directed or
individualized studies, where the students lead a class themselves and
decide on their own task, tests, and all other assignments. These
separate classes or schools tend to be more expensive than regular
classes, due to smaller class sizes and lower student-to-teacher
rations. Not-for-profit
(non-profit) schools often can offer lower costs than for-profit
schools. Either way, they are in high demand and parents often have to
pay part of the costs.
An
umbrella term encompassing a variety of educational activities
conducted at home, including those for gifted children: part-time
schooling; school at home; classes, groups, mentors and tutors; and unschooling. In many US states, the population of gifted students who are being homeschooled is rising quite rapidly,
as school districts responding to budgetary issues and standards-based
policies are cutting what limited gifted education programs remain in
existence, and families seek educational opportunities that are tailored to each child's unique needs.
Pull-Out
Gifted students are pulled out of a heterogeneous classroom to spend a portion of their time in a gifted class.
These programs vary widely, from carefully designed half-day academic
programs to a single hour each week of educational challenges.
Generally, these programs are ineffective at promoting academic
advancement unless the material covered contains extensions and
enrichment to the core curriculum. The majority of pull-out programs
include an assortment of critical thinking drills, creative exercises,
and subjects typically not introduced in standard curricula. Much of the
material introduced in gifted pull-out programs deals with the study of
logic, and its application to fields ranging from philosophy to mathematics.
Students are encouraged to apply these empirical reasoning skills to
every aspect of their education both in and outside of class.
Self-pacing
Self-pacing methods, such as the Montessori Method,
use flexible grouping practices to allow children to advance at their
own pace. Self-pacing can be beneficial for all children and is not
targeted specifically at those identified as gifted or talented, but it
can allow children to learn at a highly accelerated rate. Directed
Studies are usually based on self-pacing.
Summer Enrichment Programs (United States)
These
offer a variety of courses that mainly take place in the summer. Summer
schools are popular in the United States. Entrance fees are required
for such programs, and programs typically focus on one subject, or
class, for the duration of the camp.
Within the United States, in addition to programs designed by the
state, some counties also choose to form their own Talented and Gifted
Programs. Sometimes this means that an individual county will form its
own TAG program; sometimes several counties will come together if not
enough gifted students are present in a single county. Generally, a TAG
program focuses on a specific age group, particularly the local TAG
programs. This could mean elementary age, high school age, or by years
such as ages 9 through 14.
These classes are generally organized so that students have the
opportunity to choose several courses they wish to participate in.
Courses offered often vary between subjects, but are not typically
strictly academically related to that subject. For example, a TAG course
that could be offered in history could be the students learning about a
certain event and then acting it out in a performance to be presented
to parents on the last night of the program. These courses are designed
to challenge the students to think in new ways and not merely to be
lectured as they are in school.
Identifying gifted children
The
term "Gifted Assessment" is typically applied to a process of using
norm-referenced psychometric tests administered by a qualified
psychologist or psychometrist with the goal of identifying children
whose intellectual functioning is significantly advanced as compared to
the appropriate reference group (i.e., individuals of their age, gender,
and country). The cut-off score for differentiating this group is
usually determined by district school boards and can differ slightly
from area to area, however, the majority defines this group as students
scoring in the top 2 percentiles on one of the accepted tests of
intellectual (cognitive) functioning or IQ. Some school boards also
require a child to demonstrate advanced academic standing on
individualized achievement tests and/or through their classroom
performance. Identifying gifted children is often difficult but is very
important because typical school teachers are not qualified to educate a
gifted student. This can lead to a situation where a gifted child is
bored, underachieves and misbehaves in class.
Individual IQ testing is usually the optimal method to identify
giftedness among children. However it does not distinguish well among
those found to be gifted. Therefore, examiners prefer using a variety of
tests to first identify giftedness and then further differentiate. This
is often done by using individual IQ tests and then group or individual
achievement tests. There is no standard consensus on which tests to
use, as each test is better suited for a certain role.
The two most popular tests for identifying giftedness in the school-age population are the WISC IV and the SB5. The WIAT III is considered the most popular academic achievement test to determine a child's aggregate learned knowledge.
Although a newer WISC version, the WISC V, was developed in late
2014, the WISC IV is still the most commonplace test. It has been
translated into several languages including Spanish, Portuguese,
Norwegian, Swedish, French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Korean,
and Italian. The WISC-IV assesses a child's cognitive abilities, with
respect to age group. Coupled with results from other tests, the WISC
accurately depicts a child's developmental and psychological needs for
the future.
The SB5 is an intelligence test that determines cognitive
abilities and can be administered to persons in virtually any age group.
It assesses a series of intelligence indicators including fluid
reasoning, general knowledge, quantitative reasoning, spatial
processing, and working memory. The SB5 makes use of both verbal and
nonverbal testing.
The WIAT-III cannot assess all components of learned knowledge,
but does give an understanding of a child's ability to acquire skills
and knowledge through formal education. This test measures aspects of
the learning process that take place in a traditional school setting in
reading, writing, math, and oral language. Although the WIAT-III tests a
wide range of material, it is designed primarily to assess children's
learning before adolescence.
Versions of these tests exist for each age group. However it is
recommended to begin assessment as early as possible, with approximately
eight years of age being the optimal time to test. Testing allows
identification of specific needs of students and help to plan an
education early.
Out-of-group achievement testing (such as taking the SAT or ACT early) can also help to identify these students early on (see SMPY)
and is implemented by various talent search programs in use by
education programs. Out-of-group testing can also help to differentiate
children who have scored in the highest percentiles in a single IQ test.
Testing alone cannot accurately identify every gifted child.
Teacher and parent nominations are essential additions to the objective
information provided by grades and scores. Parents are encouraged to
keep portfolios of their children's work, and documentation of their
early signs of gifted behavior.
Studies of giftedness
The development of early intelligence tests by Alfred Binet
led to the Stanford-Binet IQ test developed by Lewis Terman. Terman
began long-term studies of gifted children with a view to checking if
the popular view "early ripe, early rot" was true. The Terman Genetic
Studies of Genius longitudinal study has been described by successor
researchers who conducted the study after Terman's death and also by an
independent researcher who had full access to the study files.
Modern studies by James and Kulik conclude that gifted students benefit least from working in a mixed-level class, and benefit most from learning with other similarly advanced students in accelerated or enriched classes.
Definition of giftedness
Educational authorities differ on the definition of giftedness: even when using the same IQ
test to define giftedness, they may disagree on what gifted means—one
may take up the top 2 percent of the population, another might take up
the top 5 percent of a population, which may be within a state,
district, or school. Within a single school district, there can be
substantial differences in the distribution of measured IQ. The IQ for
the top percentile at a high-performing school may be quite different
from that at a lower performing school.
Dr Peter Marshall
Dr
Peter Marshall obtained his doctorate in 1995, for research carried out
in this field in the years from 1986. At the time, he was the first
Research Director of the Mensa Foundation for Gifted Children. His work
challenged the difficult childhood hypothesis, concluding that gifted
children, by and large, do not have any more difficult childhoods than
mainstream children and, in fact, that where they do, their giftedness
probably helps them cope better than mainstream children and provided the material for his subsequent book Educating a Gifted Child.
In Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide, Susan
K. Johnsen (2004) explains that gifted children all exhibit the
potential for high performance in the areas included in the United
States federal definition of gifted and talented students:
The term 'gifted and talented' when used in respect to students, children, or youth means [those who show] evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities.
— P.L. 103–382, Title XIV, p. 388
The National Association for Gifted Children in the United States defines giftedness as:
Gifted individuals are those who
demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude (defined as an exceptional
ability to reason and learn) or competence (documented performance or
achievement in top 10% or rarer) in one or more domains. Domains include
any structured area of activity with its own symbol system (e.g.,
mathematics, music, language) and/or set of sensorimotor skills (e.g.,
painting, dance, sports).
The development of ability or talent is a lifelong process. It can be
evident in young children as exceptional performance on tests and/or
other measures of ability or as a rapid rate of learning, compared to
other students of the same age, or in actual achievement in a domain. As
individuals mature through childhood to adolescence, however,
achievement and high levels of motivation in the domain become the
primary characteristics of their giftedness. Various factors can either
enhance or inhibit the development and expression of abilities.
This definition has been adopted in part or completely by the
majority of the states in the United States. Most have some definition
similar to that used in the State of Texas, whose definition states:
[The phrase] 'gifted and talented
student' means a child or youth who performs at or shows the potential
for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment when
compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment, and who:
exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area;
possesses an unusual capacity for leadership; or
excels in a specific academic field.
— 74th legislature of the State of Texas, Chapter 29, Subchapter D, Section 29.121
The major characteristics of these definitions are (a) the diversity
of areas in which performance may be exhibited (e.g., intellectual,
creative, artistic, leadership, academic), (b) the comparison with other
groups (e.g., those in general education classrooms or of the same age,
experience, or environment), and (c) the use of terms that imply a need
for development of the gift (e.g., capability and potential).
Reliance on IQ
In her book, Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide,
Susan K. Johnsen (2004) writes that schools should use a variety of
measures of students' capability and potential when identifying gifted
children. These measures may include portfolios of student work,
classroom observations, achievement measures, and intelligence scores.
Most educational professionals accept that no single measure can be used
in isolation to accurately identify every gifted child.
Even if the notion of IQ is generally useful for identifying
academically talented students who would benefit from further services,
the question of the cutoff point for giftedness is still important. As
noted above, different authorities often define giftedness differently.
History
Classical era to Renaissance
Gifted and talented education dates back thousands of years. Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BCE) advocated providing specialized education for intellectually gifted young men and women. In China's Tang Dynasty (580-618 CE), child prodigies were summoned to the imperial court for specialized education. Throughout the Renaissance, those who exhibited creative talent in art, architecture, and literature were supported by both the government and private patronage.
Francis Galton
Francis Galton
conducted one of the earliest Western studies of human intellectual
abilities. Between 1888 and 1894, Galton tested more than 7,500
individuals to measure their natural intellectual abilities. He found
that if a parent deviates from the norm, so will the child, but to a
lesser extent than the parent. This was one of the earliest observed examples of regression toward the mean. Galton believed that individuals could be improved through interventions in heredity, a movement he named eugenics. He categorized individuals as gifted, capable, average,
or degenerate, and he recommended breeding between the first two
categories, and forced abstinence for the latter two. His term for the
most intelligent and talented people was "eminent". After studying
England's most prominent families, Galton concluded that one's eminence
was directly related to the individual's direct line of heredity.
Lewis Terman
At Stanford University in 1918, Lewis Terman adapted Alfred Binet's Binet-Simon intelligence test into the Stanford-Binet test, and introduced intelligence quotient
(IQ) scoring for the test. According to Terman, the IQ was one's mental
age compared to one's chronological age, based on the mental age norms
he compiled after studying a sample of children. He defined intelligence as "the ability to carry on abstract thinking". During World War I
Terman was a commissioned officer of the United States Army, and
collaborated with other psychologists in developing intelligence tests
for new recruits to the armed forces. For the first time, intelligence
testing was given to a wide population of drafted soldiers.
After the war, Terman undertook an extensive longitudinal study of 643 children in California who scored at IQ 140 or above, the Genetic Studies of Genius,
continuing to evaluate them throughout their lives. Subjects of these
case studies were called "Termites" and the studies contacted the
children in 1921, and again in 1930, 1947, and 1959 after his death.
Terman's studies have to date been the most extensive on
high-functioning children, and are still quoted in psychological
literature today. Terman claimed to have disproven common
misconceptions, such as that highly intelligent children were prone to
ill physical and mental health, that their intelligence burned out early
in their lives, or that they either achieved greatly or underachieved.
Leta Hollingworth
A professional colleague of Terman's, Leta Hollingworth
was the first in the United States to study how best to serve students
who showed evidence of high performance on tests. Although recognizing
Terman's and Galton's beliefs that heredity played a vital role in
intelligence, Hollingworth gave similar credit to home environment and
school structure. Hollingworth worked to dispel the pervasive belief that "bright children take care of themselves"
and emphasized the importance of early identification, daily contact,
and grouping gifted children with others with similar abilities.
Hollingworth performed an 18-year-long study of 50 children in New York
City who scored 155 or above on the Stanford-Binet, and studied smaller
groups of children who scored above a 180. She also ran a school in New
York City for bright students that employed a curriculum of student-led
exploration, as opposed to a teacher providing students with a more
advanced curriculum they would encounter later in life.
The Cold War
One unforeseen result of the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union was the immediate emphasis on education for bright students in the United States, and this settled the question whether the federal government should get involved in public education at all. The National Defense Education Act
(NDEA) was passed by Congress in 1958 with $1 billion US to bolster
science, math, and technology in public education. Educators immediately
pushed to identify gifted students and serve them in schools.
Students chosen for gifted services were given intelligence tests with a
strict cutoff, usually at 130, which meant that students who scored
below 130 were not identified.
Marland Report
The impact of the NDEA
was evident in schools for years after, but a study on how effective
education was meeting the needs of gifted students was initiated by the United States Department of Education in 1969. The Marland Report,
completed in 1972, for the first time presented a general definition of
giftedness, and urged districts to adopt it. The report also allowed
students to show high functioning on talents and skills not measurable
by an intelligence test. The Marland Report defined gifted as
"Children
capable of high performance include those with demonstrated achievement
and/or potential ability in any of the following areas, singly or in
combination:
The report's definition continues to be the basis of the definition of giftedness in most districts and states.
A Nation at Risk
In 1983, the result of an 18-month-long study of secondary students was published as A Nation at Risk,
and claimed that students in the United States were no longer receiving
superior education, and in fact, could not compete with students from
other developed countries in many academic exercises. One of the
recommendations the book made was to increase services to gifted
education programs, citing curriculum
enrichment or acceleration specifically. The US federal government was
also urged to create standards for the identification and servicing of
gifted students.
Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act
The Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act was passed in 1988 as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Instead of funding district-level gifted education programs, the Javits Act instead has three primary components: the research
of effective methods of testing, identification, and programming, which
is performed at the National Research Center on the Gifted and
Talented; the awarding of grants to colleges, states, and districts that
focus on underrepresented populations of gifted students; and grants
awarded to state and districts for program implementation.
Annual funding for grants must be passed by US Congress, and totaled $9.6 million US in 2007, but the money is not promised. While he was President, George W. Bush
eliminated the money every year of his term, but members of Congress
overrode the president to make sure the grant money was distributed.
No Child Left Behind
The most recent US federal education initiative was signed into law in 2002. The goal of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is to bring the proficiency of all students to grade level
but critics note it does not address the needs of gifted students who
perform above grade level. The act imposes punishments on schools,
administrators, and teachers when students do not achieve to the plan's
designs, but does not address any achievement standards for
high-functioning students, forcing schools and teachers to spend their
time with low-achieving students. An article in The Washington Post
declared, "The unmistakable message to teachers -- and to students --
is that it makes no difference whether a child barely meets the
proficiency standard or far exceeds it." Gifted services have been recently eroding as a result of the new legislation, according to a 2006 article in The New York Times.
Public gifted education in Australia varies significantly from state to state. New South Wales
has 95 primary schools with opportunity classes catering to students in
year 5 and 6. New South Wales also has 17 fully selective secondary
schools and 25 partially selective secondary schools. Western Australia has selective programs in 17 high schools, including Perth Modern School, a fully selective school. Queensland has 3 Queensland Academies catering to students in years 10,11 and 12. South Australia has programs in 3 public high schools catering to students in years 8,9 and 10, including Glenunga International High School. The Victorian Government commissioned a parliamentary inquiry into the education of gifted and talented children in 2012.
One recommendation from the inquiry was for the Victorian Government to
list the schools with programs, but the government has not implemented
this recommendation. Some private schools have developed programs for
gifted children.
The Centre for Talent and Potential Development (CEDET) is a special education center created by Zenita Guenther in Lavras,
MG, Brazil, in 1993. CEDET is run by the Lavras School System with
technical and civil responsibility delegated to the Association of
Parents and Friends for Supporting Talent (ASPAT). Its main goal is to
cultivate the proper physical and social environment for complementing
and supplementing educational support to the gifted and talented
student. At present, there are 512 gifted students age 7 to 17 enrolled
at CEDET, around 5% of Lavras Basic School population. The students come
from thirteen Municipal Schools, eight State Schools and two private
schools, plus a group of students from nearby communities brought in by
their families.
Canada
Queen Elizabeth High School in Calgary offers the GATE Program to both Division 3 and 4 (in total, Grades 7-12)
In Alberta, the Calgary Board of Education
(CBE) has various elementary, middle and high schools offering the GATE
Program, standing for Gifted and Talented Education, for Grades 4-12,
or Divisions 2–4. The program for students, who, through an IQ test,
ranked in the Very Superior Range; falling into Gifted or Genius. For
each of the three divisions, there are 2 schools offering GATE, one for
the North Side of the city (CBE Areas I, II and III) and one for the
South Side (CBE Areas IV and V). For Division 2, or Grades 4–6, it is
available at Hillhurst Elementary School for the North and Nellie
McClung Elementary School for the South. For Division 3, or Grades 7–9,
it is available at Queen Elizabeth High School
for the North and John Ware Junior High School for the South. For
Division 3, or Grades 10–12, Queen Elizabeth High School, which is a
joint Junior High-Senior High offers it for the North and Henry Wise Wood Senior High School
offers it for the south. GATE classes go more in-depth and cover some
curriculum for the following grade level, with tougher assignments and a
faster learning pace. Students benefit from being around other students
like them. These students attend the school alongside regular students
and those in other programs (e.g. IB and AP.)
In the 2014–15 school year, students from Grades 4–7 in the south will
be attending Louis Riel Junior High School, already home to a science
program, and students in the regular program there will be moved to
Nellie McClung and John Ware. Students at John Ware will be phased out:
eighth grade GATE will end in June 2015, and ninth grade GATE will end
in 2016, while GATE will be expanding to Grade 9 at Louis Riel by
September 2016. Prior to John Ware, the GATE program was housed at
Elboya. A large number of teachers from Nellie McClung and John Ware
will be moving to the new location, which was picked to deal with
student population issues and to concentrate resources. Notable alumni of the CBE GATE Program include the 36th mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, from Queen Elizabeth High School.
In British Columbia, the Vancouver Board of Education's gifted
program is called Multi-Age Cluster Class or MACC.[1] This is a
full-time program for highly gifted elementary students from grades 4 to
7. Through project-based learning, students are challenged to use
higher order thinking skills. Another focus of the program is autonomous
learning; students are encouraged to self-monitor, self-reflect and
seek out enrichment opportunities. Entrance to the program is initiated
through referral followed by a review by a screening committee. IQ tests
are used but not exclusively. Students are also assessed by
performance, cognitive ability tests, and motivation. There are 4 MACCs
in Vancouver: grade 4/5 and grade 6/7 at Sir William Osler Elementary,
grade 5/6/7 at Tecumseh Elementary, and a French Immersion grade 5/6/7
at Kerrisdale Elementary.
At a lower scale, in Ontario, the Peel District School Board operates its Regional Enhanced Program at The Woodlands School, Lorne Park Secondary School, Glenforest Secondary School, Heart Lake Secondary School and Humberview Secondary School
to provide students an opportunity to develop and explore skills in a
particular area of interest. Students identified as gifted (which the
PDSB classifies as "enhanced") may choose to attend the nearest of these
high schools instead of their assigned home high school. In the
Regional Enhanced Program, enhanced students take core courses
(primarily, but not limited to English, mathematics, and the sciences)
in an environment surrounded by fellow enhanced peers. The classes often
contain modified assignments that encourage students to be creative.
Hong Kong
The Education Commission Report No. 4 issued in 1990 recommended a policy on gifted education for schools in Hong Kong and suggested that a broad definition of giftedness using multiple criteria should be adopted.
Gifted children generally have exceptional achievement or potential in one or more of the following domains:
a high level of measured intelligence;
specific academic aptitude in a subject area;
creative thinking;
superior talent in visual and performing arts;
natural leadership of peers; and
psychomotor ability - outstanding performance or ingenuity in
athletics, mechanical skills or other areas requiring gross or fine
motor coordination;
In the heyday of the psychometric and behaviorist eras, it was
generally believed that intelligence was a single entity that was
inherited; and that human beings - initially a blank slate - could be
trained to learn anything, provided that it was presented in an
appropriate way. Nowadays an increasing number of researchers believe
precisely the opposite; that there exists a multitude of intelligences,
quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own
strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at
birth; and that it is unexpectedly difficult to teach things that go
against early 'naive' theories of that challenge the natural lines of
force within an intelligence and its matching domains. (Gardner 1993:
xxiii)
Howard Gardner
initially formulated a list of seven intelligences, but later added an
eighth, that are intrinsic to the human mind: linguistic,
logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, bodily kinesthetic,
intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalist intelligences.
It has become widely accepted at both local and international scales to
adopt a broad definition of giftedness using multiple criteria to
formulate gifted education policy.
The mission and principles of gifted education policy in Hong Kong
The mission of gifted education is to systematically and
strategically explore and develop the potential of gifted students.
Gifted learners are to be provided with opportunities to receive
education at appropriate levels in a flexible teaching and learning
environment.
The guiding principles for gifted education in Hong Kong are:
Nurturing multiple intelligences as a requirement of basic
education for all students and an essential part of the mission for all
schools
The needs of gifted children are best met within their own schools
though it is recognized that opportunities to learn with similarly
gifted students are important. Schools have an obligation to provide
stimulating and challenging learning opportunities for their students
The identification of gifted students should recognize the breadth of multiple intelligences
Schools should ensure that the social and emotional, as well as the
intellectual, needs of gifted children are recognized and met.
Based on these guiding principles, a three-tier gifted education framework
was adopted in 2000. Levels 1 & 2 are recognised as being
school-based whilst Level 3 is the responsibility of the HKAGE. The
intention is that Level 1 serves the entire school population,
irrespective of ability, that Level 2 deals with between 2-10% of the
ability group, and that Level 3 caters for the top 2% of students.
Level 1:
A
To immerse the core elements advocated in gifted education i.e.
High-order thinking skills, creativity and personal-social competence in
the curriculum for ALL students;
B
To differentiate teaching through appropriate grouping of students to
meet the different needs of the groups with enrichment and extension of
curriculum across ALL subjects in regular classrooms.
Level 2:
C
To conduct pull-out programmes of generic nature outside the regular
classroom to allow systematic training for a homogeneous group of
students (e.g. Creativity training, leadership training, etc.);
D
To conduct pull-out programme in specific areas (e.g. Maths, Arts,
etc.) outside the regular classroom to allow systematic training for
students with outstanding performance in specific domains.
Level 3:
E
Tertiary institutions and other educational organizations / bodies,
such as the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education and other
universities in Hong Kong to provide a wide and increasing range of
programmes for gifted students
India
In India, Jnana Prabodhini Prashala
started in 1968, is probably the first school for gifted education. The
motto is "motivating intelligence for social change." The school,
located in central Pune, admits 80 students each year, after thorough
testing, which includes two written papers and an interview. The
psychology department of Jnana Prabodhini has worked on J. P. Guilford's
model of intelligence.
Iran
National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET, also known as SAMPAD,
Persian: سمپاد, which stands for سازمان ملی پرورش استعدادهای درخشان
in Persian) are national middle and high schools in Iran developed
specifically for the development of exceptionally talented students in
Iran. NODET was first established in 1976 and re-established in 1987.
Admission to NODET schools is selective and based on a comprehensive nationwide entrance examination procedure.
Every year thousands of students apply to enter the schools, from
which less than 5% are chosen for the 99 middle schools and 98 high
schools within the country. All applicants must have a minimum GPA of 19
(out of 20) for attending the entrance exam. In 2006, 87,081 boys and
83,596 girls from 56 cities applied, and 6,888 students were accepted
for the 2007 middle school classes. The admission process is much more
selective in big cities like Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad and Karaj in which less than 150 students are accepted after two exams and interviews, out of over 50,000 applicants.
The top NODET (and Iranian) schools are Allameh Helli High School and Shahid Madani High School (in Tabriz), Farzanegan High School located in Tehran, Shahid Ejei High School located in Isfahan, Shahid Hashemi Nejad High School located in Mashhad and Shahid Soltani School located in Karaj. Courses taught in NODET schools are college-level in fields such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and English.
The best teachers from the ministry of education are chosen mainly by
the school's principal and faculty to teach at NODET schools. Schools
mainly have only two majors (normal schools have three majors),
math/physics and experimental sciences (like math/physics but with
biology as the primary course). Even though social sciences are taught,
there is much less emphasis on these subjects due to the lack of
interest by both students and the organization.
Norway
Norway has no centre for gifted or talented children or youth. However, there is the privately-run Barratt Due Institute of Music
which offers musical kindergarten, evening school and college for
highly-talented young musicians. There is also the public secondary
school for talents in ballet at Ruseløkka school in Oslo, which admits
the top 15 dancers. In athletics, the privately-run Norwegian Elite
Sports Gymnasium (NTG) offers secondary school for talents in five
locations in Norway. This account might not be complete.
Education for the scientifically-gifted in Korea can be traced back to the 1983 government founding of Gyeonggi Science High School. Following three later additions (Korea Science Academy of KAIST, Seoul Science High School and Daegu Science High School),
approximately 1,500, or 1 in 1,300 (0.08 percent) of high school
students are currently enrolled among its four gifted academies. By
2008, about 50,000, or 1 in 140 (0.7 percent) of elementary and middle
school students participated in education for the gifted. In 2005, a
program was undertaken to identify and educate gifted children of
socioeconomically underprivileged people. Since then, more than 1,800
students have enrolled in the program.
Gradually the focus has expanded over time to cover informatics,
arts, physical education, creative writing, humanities, and social
sciences, leading to the 2008 creation of the government funded Korean National Institute for the Gifted Arts.
To pluralize the need for trained professional educators, teachers
undergo basic training (60 hours), advanced training (120 hours), and
overseas training (60 hours) to acquire skills necessary to teach gifted
youth.
Singapore
In Singapore, the Gifted Education Programme
(GEP) was introduced in 1984 and is offered in the upper primary years
(Primary 4–6, ages 10–12). Pupils undergo rigorous testing in Primary 3
(age 9) for admission into the GEP for Primary 4 to 6. About 1% of the
year's cohort are admitted into the programme.
The GEP is offered at selected schools, meaning that these pupils
attend school alongside their peers in the mainstream curriculum but
attend separate classes for certain subjects. As of the 2016 academic
year, there are 9 primary schools which offer the GEP.
Slovakia
The
School for Gifted Children in Bratislava was established in 1998. It
offers education known as APROGEN—Alternative Program for Gifted
Education.
Turkey
The UYEP Research and Practice Center offers enriched programs for gifted students at Anadolu University. The Center was founded by Ugur Sak in 2007.
ANABILIM Schools have special classrooms for gifted and talented
students. These schools apply the differentiated curriculum in the
sciences, mathematics, language arts, social studies, and the arts for
K8 gifted and talented students and enriched science and project-based learning
in high school. There are about 200 science and art centers operated by
the Ministry of Education that offer special education for gifted and
talented students throughout the country. The Ministry uses the Anadolu
Sak Intelligence Scale (ASIS) and the Wechsler Scales to select students for these centers. Four universities offer graduate programs in gifted education.
United Kingdom
In
England, schools are expected to identify 5-10% of students who are
gifted and/or talented in relation to the rest of the cohort in that
school—an approach that is pragmatic (concerned with ensuring schools
put in place some provision for their most able learners) rather than
principled (in terms of how to best understand giftedness).
The term gifted applies to traditional academic subjects, and talented
is used in relation to high levels of attainment in the creative arts
and sports. The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth ran from 2002 to 2007 at the University of Warwick. Warwick University decided not to reapply for the contract to run NAGTY in 2007, instead introducing its own programme, the International Gateway for Gifted Youth in 2008. In January 2010, the government announced that NAGTY was to be scrapped the following month.
United States
In the United States, each state department of education
determines if the needs of gifted students will be addressed as a
mandatory function of public education. If so, the state determines the
definition of which students will be identified and receive services,
but may or may not determine how they shall receive services. If a state
does not consider gifted education mandatory, individual districts may,
thus the definition of what gifted is varies from state or district.
In contrast with special education, gifted education is not regulated on a federal level, although recommendations by the US Department of Education
are offered. As such, funding for services is not consistent from state
to state, and although students may be identified, the extent to which
they receive services can vary widely depending upon a state or
district's budget.
Although schools with higher enrollment of minority or low-income
students are just as likely to offer gifted programs as other schools,
differing enrollment rates across racial and ethnic groups has raised
concerns about equity in gifted education in the U.S.
Gifted education programs are also offered at various private schools. For example, the Mirman School caters to children with an IQ of 138 and above.
Commonly used terms
Source: National Association for Gifted Children—Frequently Used Terms in Gifted Education
Affective curriculum
A curriculum that is designed to teach gifted students about emotions, self-esteem, and social skills.
This can be valuable for all students, especially those who have been
grouped with much older students, or who have been rejected by their
same-age, but academically typical, peers.
Modification of a gifted student’s curriculum to accommodate their
specific needs. This may include changing the content or ability level
of the material.
Heterogeneous grouping
A strategy that groups students of varied ability, preparedness, or
accomplishment in a single classroom environment. Usually this
terminology is applied to groupings of students in a particular grade,
especially in elementary school. For example, students in fifth grade
would be heterogeneously grouped in math if they were randomly assigned
to classes instead of being grouped by demonstrated subject mastery.
Heterogeneous grouping is sometimes claimed to provide a more effective
instructional environment for less prepared students.
Homogeneous grouping
A strategy that groups students by specific ability, preparedness,
or interest within a subject area. Usually this terminology is applied
to groupings of students in a particular grade, especially in elementary
school. For example, students in fifth grade would be homogeneously
grouped in math if they were assigned to classes based on demonstrated
subject mastery rather than being randomly assigned. Homogeneous
grouping can provide more effective instruction for the most prepared
students.
A written document that addresses a student's specific individual
needs. It may specify accommodations, materials, or classroom
instruction. IEPs are often created for students with disabilities, who
are required by law to have an IEP when appropriate. Most states are not
required to have IEPs for students who are only identified as gifted.
Some students may be intellectually gifted in addition to having
learning and/or attentional disabilities, and may have an IEP that
includes, for instance, enrichment activities as a means of alleviating boredom or frustration,
or as a reward for on-task behavior. In order to warrant such an IEP, a
student needs to be diagnosed with a separate emotional or learning disability that is not simply the result of being unchallenged in a typical classroom. These are also known as Individual Program Plans, or IPPs.
Justification
Researchers
and practitioners in gifted education contend that, if education were
to follow the medical maxim of "first, do no harm," then no further
justification would be required for providing resources for gifted
education as they believe gifted children to be at-risk. The notion that gifted children are "at-risk" was publicly declared in the Marland Report in 1972:
Gifted and Talented children are, in fact, deprived and can suffer
psychological damage and permanent impairment of their abilities to
function well which is equal to or greater than the similar deprivation
suffered by any other population with special needs served by the Office
of Education.
(pp. xi-xii)
Three decades later, a similar statement was made by researchers in the field:
National efforts to increase the availability of a variety of
appropriate instructional and out-of-school provisions must be a high
priority since research indicates that many of the emotional or
social difficulties gifted students experience disappear when their
educational climates are adapted to their level and pace of learning." [emphasis added]
Controversies
Controversies
concerning gifted education are varied and often highly politicized.
They are as basic as agreeing upon the appropriateness of the term
'gifted' or the definition of 'giftedness'. For example, does
'giftedness' refer to performance or potential (such as inherent
intelligence)? Many students do not exhibit both at the same time.
Measures of general intelligence also remain controversial. Early
IQ tests were notorious for producing higher IQ scores for privileged
races and classes and lower scores for disadvantaged subgroups. Although
IQ tests have changed substantially over the past half century, and
many objections to the early tests have been addressed by 'culture
neutral' tests (such as the Raven test),
IQ testing remains controversial. Regardless of the tests used to
identify children for gifted programs, many school districts in the
United States still have disproportionately more White and Asian
American students enrolled in their gifted programs, while Hispanic and
African American students are usually underrepresented. However, research shows that this may be not be a fault of tests, but rather a result of the achievement gap in the United States.
Some schools and districts only accept IQ tests as evidence of
giftedness. This brings scrutiny to the fact that many affluent families
can afford to consult with an educational psychologist to test their children, whereas families with a limited income cannot afford the test and must depend on district resources.
Appropriateness of forms of gifted education
This
is the most hotly debated aspect of gifted education. Some people
believe that gifted education resources lack availability and
flexibility. They feel that in the alternative methods of gifted
education, the gifted students "miss out" on having a "normal"
childhood, at least insofar as "normal childhood" is defined as
attending school in a mixed-ability classroom. Others believe that
gifted education allows gifted students to interact with peers that are
on their level, be adequately challenged, and leaves them better
equipped to take on the challenges of life.
Another facet of this controversy is the effectiveness of the
programs dependent upon resources that are pushed more toward students
who are struggling. Gifted Education is not mandated in many states,
making it elective for districts to earmark money for. Many
lower-achieving districts and schools must make crisis decisions on
programs that are not high priorities. As a result, gifted students at
these schools are not served, or not served effectively.
Class and ethnicity
Gifted
programs are often seen as being elitist in places where the majority
of students receiving gifted services are from a privileged background.
Identifying and serving gifted children from poverty presents unique
challenges, ranging from emotional issues arising from a family's
economic insecurity, to gaps in pre-school cognitive development due to
the family's lack of education and time.
In New York City experience has shown that basing admission to
gifted and talented programs on tests of any sort can result in
selection of substantially more middle-class and white or Asian students
and development of more programs in schools that such students attend.
Gender
Another
area of controversy has been the marginalization of gifted females with
studies attributing it to self-efficacy, acculturation and biological
differences in aptitude between boys and girls for advanced maths.
Emotional aspects
While
giftedness is seen as an academic advantage, psychologically it can
pose other challenges for the gifted individual. A person who is
intellectually advanced may or may not be advanced in other areas. Each
individual student needs to be evaluated for physical, social, and
emotional skills without the traditional prejudices which prescribe
either "compensatory" weaknesses or "matching" advancement in these
areas.
It is a common misconception that gifted students are universally gifted in all areas of academics,
and these misconceptions can have a variety of negative emotional
effects on a gifted child. Unrealistically high expectations of academic
success are often placed on gifted students by both parents and
teachers.
This pressure can cause gifted students to experience high levels of
anxiety, to become perfectionists, and to develop a fear of failure.
Gifted students come to define themselves and their identity through
their giftedness, which can be problematic as their entire self-concept
can be shaken when they do not live up to the unrealistically high
expectations of others.
A person with significant academic talents often finds it difficult to fit in with schoolmates. These pressures often wane during adulthood, but they can leave a significant negative impact on emotional development.
Social pressures can cause children to "play down" their intelligence in an effort to blend in with other students. "Playing down" is a strategy often used by students with clinical depression
and is seen somewhat more frequently in socially acute adolescents.
This behavior is usually discouraged by educators when they recognize
it. Unfortunately, the very educators who want these children to
challenge themselves and to embrace their gifts and talents are often
the same people who are forced to discourage them in a mixed-ability
classroom, through mechanisms like refusing to call on the talented
student in class so that typical students have an opportunity to
participate.
Students who are young, enthusiastic or aggressive are more
likely to attract attention and to disrupt the class by working ahead,
giving the correct answers all the time, asking for new assignments, or
finding creative ways to entertain themselves while the rest of the
class finishes an assignment. This behavior can be mistaken for ADHD.
Many parents of gifted find that it is the social-emotional
aspect of their children's lives that needs support. Schools and talent
development programs often focus on academic enrichment rather than
providing time for gifted children to have the social interaction with
true peers that is required for healthy development. National
organizations such as Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) as well as local organizations, have emerged in an effort to meet these needs.
It can also happen that some unidentified gifted students will
get bored in regular class, daydream and lose track of where the class
is in a lecture, and the teacher becomes convinced that the student is
slow and struggling with the material.
Finally, gifted and talented students are statistically somewhat more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder such as bipolar disorder and to become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Gifted and talented students also have a higher chance of co-occurring learning disability. Gifted students with learning disability are often called twice exceptional. These students can require special attention in school.
Test preparation
In
the United States, particularly in New York City where qualifying
children as young as four are enrolled in enriched kindergarten classes
offered by the public schools, a test preparation
industry has grown up which closely monitors the nature of tests given
to prospective students of gifted and talented programs. This can result
in admission of significant numbers of students into programs who lack
superior natural intellectual talent and exclusion of naturally talented
students who did not participate in test preparation or lacked the
resources to do so.
It is virtually impossible to train a child for a WISC test or other gifted test.
Some websites are known for publishing test questions and answers,
although using these is considered illegal since it is highly
confidential information. It would also be disastrous if a non-gifted student was placed in a gifted program.
Reviewing actual test questions can confuse children and stifles their
natural thinking process, however reviewing similar style questions is a
possibility.
Private gifted assessment is usually expensive and educators
recommend that parents take advantage of online screening tests to give a
preliminary indication of potential giftedness.
Another way to screen for giftedness before requesting a psychological
assessment is to do a curriculum-based assessment. Curriculum-based
assessment is a form of achievement testing that focuses specifically on
what the child has been exposed to in their academic career. It can be
done through school or a private educational center. Although this can
determine if a child's performance in school potentially signifies
giftedness, there are complications. For example, if a child changes
school districts or country of residence, the different terminology of
curriculum could hold that child back. Secondly, discrepancies between
school districts, along with public and private education, create a very
wide range of potential knowledge bases.
