Buy essay on Identification and Assessment of Nontraditional Gifted Students

Gifted students are defined as those who excel in academic subjects such as reading, science, or math. Some students do exceptionally well in visual art or playing musical instruments, while others exhibit strong leadership qualities. All of these are defined in the America’s School Act of 1994.
The term “gifted and talented” when used in respect to students, children or youth means students, children or youth who give 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 (Ryser, McConnell, 2004).
Gifted children are sometimes called “asynchronous” due to their physical/emotional growth not corresponding to their intellectual growth. Traditionally, gifted students have been under-served or go unidentified due to schools being unable to provide advanced placement or the lack of curriculum for these students. If a student shows signs of boredom, lack of interest or diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, the score of such student may not have reflected their true potential. Times have not changed in regard to this type of students. Many of these students are still in regular classrooms without the opportunity of advanced placement, specific gifted classrooms or additional discovery classes to service their needs. The Federal No Child Left Behind Act has left little room for helping these students attain their full academic and/or talent goals. Combining these factors with the gifted children who are not identified due to not being able to perform well on standardized tests, or a low socioeconomic culture and those with learning disabilities that accompany their giftedness presents a dilemma for most school districts (Lardner, 2004). However, the first step for developing curriculum for schools is the identification process.
1. Problem statement
This paper is meant to examine the problems and research that has been done in the area of identifying the students that may show extreme giftedness in one subject and perform low in another, those who may be overlooked due to cultural, linguistic or ethically diverse backgrounds and those students who may not score well on standardized tests; to include twice exceptional students.
Identification and low representation of culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse (CLED) students have been a concern with researchers and educators in our country: (Lohman, 2005), (Pierce et al., 2007). Considering the changing demographics within schools and pressure from the government and funding issues, educators must examine “how to change identification procedures and services to adequately recognize and develop these students’ talents” (Briggs, 2008). Even though cultural diversity has become more prominent in education, CLED students are more identified in the remedial classes and underrepresented in gifted and talented programs (Briggs, 2008).
National surveys show that only 10% of those students performing at their highest level are CLED students even though they represent 33% of the school population (Gallagher, 2002). The issues of identifying and assessing such students are highly important due to various reasons, but first of all because the absence of proper educational approach and environment hinder the development and future success of a great number of people, which undermines the very mission of education. Researching methods and approaching for identification and assessment of nontraditional gifted students will help to address this deficiency of our educational system.
2. Literature review on identification and assessment of nontraditional gifted students
Assessing the nontraditional gifted student has become a growing problem in school districts across America. While doing a review of existing literature on the problem of identification of gifted students, one can outline 3 major types of nontraditional gifted students. Each type of such students, its identification and relevant research will be described below.
2.1. Gifted students missed by testing
Various identification methods are used to identify gifted learners. There are those who still believe that IQ tests can be the way to measure intelligence; Schroth and Helfer (2008) refer to Gottfredson who states that “proponents of traditional instruments for measuring IQ believe that such tests are not biased against blacks, other ethnic minority groups who are English speaking, or other native born people in the United States predicting well for all subgroups”.
Schroth and Helfer (2008) reference Ford (2003) who believes that the same groups along with low-SES students are discriminated against by standard tests because such tests are “biased against process that is “color blind or culture blind, Eurocentric, monolithic and narrow” (Schroth & Helfer, 2008). The authors go on to support the models referenced in Renzulli & Reis (2007), and Sternberg (2002,2003), regarding those who believe in utilizing multiple measures for identifying gifted students. Such measures include portfolios, observations, teacher, parent or peer nominations and test scores and may be used to identify gifted students as well as to identify those students who “may be missed using only traditional tools” (Schroth & Helfer, 2008).
There are many factors that influence identification and availability of gifted programming to CLED students. The assessment tools that are used, educator bias, the “perception of cultural behaviors, quantity and quality of teacher preparation for working with CLED students, and degree of variety of instruction strategies” influence the identification and services provided for CLED students (Briggs, 2008). Language barriers, non-stimulating environments, fear of not “teaching to the test” and the belief that few gifted students can be found in CLED students also influence under-identification of these groups (Briggs, 2008).
Unfortunately, tests play a major role in identification, referral, and placement of gifted students. Due to students not scoring well on standardized tests, teachers need to create and use tests and assessments that are culturally responsive (Ford, 2010).