Certain populations of gifted and twice-exceptional students historically have been under-identified and underrepresented. Given the recent increased focus on systemic inequalities, taking a fresh look at education — specifically how we identify these students — perhaps has never been more relevant.
The National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE), part of the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program, recently was
awarded five years of funding to expand its research in identifying and serving gifted and talented students who have been traditionally underserved. This population includes “students from economically under-resourced schools such as those in rural areas as well as large urban areas with populations of first-generation students, minority students including African-American and Latinx students, and students who are twice exceptional,” according to representatives at the University of Iowa, which is participating in the program.
The focus of the grant will be improving diagnostic tools for underserved students, and implementing systems for more effective teaching strategies and enhanced student achievement in school and beyond.
“Our field has been plagued by its widespread failure to identify and serve underrepresented populations and limited data documenting ‘what works’ in gifted education,” said the University of Connecticut’s Dr. Del Siegle, the director of the program. “The new NCRGE Center and this remarkable team will be addressing these issues.”
The research team is being assembled from some of the best university programs in the country. In addition to Iowa and Connecticut, the team includes researchers from the Universities of Wisconsin–Whitewater, California–Berkeley and Santa Cruz, and Michigan State University.
“We’ve made huge strides in the field,” said Dr. Susan Assouline, the director of the University of Iowa’s College of Education’s Belin-Blank Center, who has recently joined the collaborative team of research methodologists, economists, and gifted education specialists, “because of a few excellent researchers who have been persistent at telling the story and maintaining the research agenda.”
There is much more work to do, said Assouline, who sees the success in identifying twice-exceptional students as being a matter of refining how we evaluate their abilities. “It’s not so much that we need new tools as much as we need to be more professional in our use of the information provided by the tools we have, as well as to understand the limitations of the tools,” she said.
A consistent criticism of the way schools determine which students will receive the benefits of gifted education is that evaluation techniques do not accommodate for the vast discrepancies of social, economic, cultural, racial, linguistic, personal, and psychological differences among students. In regard to Black and Latino students, in particular, the NCRGE has found that they are “less likely to be identified as gifted and talented,” and therefore have less access to enhanced learning programs during their entire K-12 careers.
[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“We need to have a consistent approach to collaborating with classroom teachers. So, the question is, through professional development, can we raise the awareness of teachers regarding the appropriateness of academic acceleration?”[/perfectpullquote]
The prevalence of twice-exceptionality among gifted students will also be subject to study. Standard measurements of giftedness — often including both ability and achievement metrics — may not be adequate for 2e learners.This students, by definition, have high cognitive ability along with some type of learning, social, or behavioral challenge.
“The traditional ways that we understand the performance on cognitive measures used to identify students who are gifted without a disorder may not work (for 2e students),” said Assouline, who has long been at the forefront of researching twice-exceptionality, specifically gifted students who also have autism spectrum disorder or specific learning disabilities, “because the impairment is often manifest in some of the lower order reasoning skills (such as memory or processing speed), which then means the student is overlooked for gifted education services.”
The NCRGE, as well as the Belin-Blank Center, ultimately will utilize its research by developing interventions designed for teachers to implement a variety of differentiated strategies for gifted and talented students. These strategies would assist teachers both in identifying gifted and 2e students across diverse cohorts, as well as creating opportunities for academic acceleration — including areas such as music and sports and other fields sometimes overlooked or underfunded in traditional schools. Assouline believes that many of these talent areas, “especially with respect to psychosocial aspects, like motivation,” have applications to more academic subjects as well.
The intention of the research is not to find a one-size-fits-all approach to education. As Assouline said, “One would not treat a heart condition by putting a cast on a leg.” Each student is different, and the eventual outcome of the research will impact how tools are used by individual teachers in the classroom.
“Our intervention is really with the teacher,” Assouline said. “We need to have a consistent approach to collaborating with classroom teachers. So, the question is, through professional development, can we raise the awareness of teachers regarding the appropriateness of academic acceleration?”
The researchers need to compile replicable information, even if it’s not “shiny and new,” because this is the data that will result in teachers having a better understanding of “the nuances of their students’ learning needs.”
Toward that end, the NCRGE has a two-phase plan for the next five years. In Phase One, the research team will continue to collect data on gifted and talented programs in several selected schools. This will form the foundation for implementation suggestions in Phase Two.
Although it may be difficult to immediately determine whether the suggested interventions will make a difference or have long-term effects, Assouline believes that “by increasing educators’ awareness of the issues, we increase the positive impact on students.”
“We’re really looking at this from a holistic perspective,” Assouline said. In addition to reducing the bias that currently exists with identification procedures and “casting a very broad net for the creation of talent pools,” Assouline hopes that the main accomplishment of the accumulated research will “increase awareness by educators and parents regarding the needs of all students.”
