The gifted remain an often misunderstood and underserved population. In this interview, Dr. Pfeiffer discusses these concerns and provides practitioners with timely information on who exactly the gifted are and the various ways in which they are unique. In this reflective conversation, Dr. Pfeiffer, a noted authority on gifted and talented…

Discusses the Japanese approach to gifted education. Describes how the Japanese do not overtly accept the concept of giftedness and hold capable individuals in check for the benefit of the whole. The need for the Japanese to allow their gifted to be educated for excellence is urged. (CR)

Discusses the underrepresentation of culturally different students in gifted programs in South Florida and a pilot project that identifies and teaches primary-age children who appear to have above-average ability, but who are often hindered from achieving their true potential by economic circumstances or cultural differences. (CR)

The Early Development Index (EDI) is a teacher-completed checklist, intended to be a population-level tool to measure children's readiness for school and to alert communities to potential developmental problems in children. In response to the increasing popularity of the EDI, this paper provides a critical and timely evaluation and identifies the…

This project sought to identify and assist third-grade underachieving gifted students in four elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio. The four schools chosen for the project demonstrated a significant discrepancy between ability and achievement test scores among higher ability students within their culturally/economically disadvantaged student…

This article describes a Spanish-speaking gifted child with limited English proficiency. The case study describes behaviors indicating giftedness, the importance of proper placement in school, home and cultural factors, identification of the culturally diverse student, and the development of a second language. (DB)

Project First Step serves potentially gifted student populations at 10 inner-city schools in southeast San Diego (California), in a community comprised of Latino, African-American, and Indo-Chinese families. The program's three components include student readiness, teacher training, and parent involvement. (JDD)

Two data collection activities focused on improvement in the identification of giftedness among Australian aboriginal children. Interviews with urban aboriginal community members were followed by a survey of aboriginal teachers in Queensland. Findings resulted in the modification of Frasier's model of identifying gifted minority and disadvantaged…

Gifted educators are being asked to do more and more with fewer and fewer resources. Among other responsibilities, there is a continued focus on equity and access to gifted programs for poor, minority, and culturally and/or linguistically diverse students. These are groups of students, among others, who have been historically excluded from gifted…

The American Indian Gifted and Talented Assessment Model has as its goal the appropriate, fair, and thorough assessment of gifted and talented Indian students. The model stresses the need to augment standardized instruments with measures that consider individual ability and needs. (CB)

This article reports on a project responding to the need for culturally relevant alternatives to existing assessment practices in the identification of giftedness among rural Mexican Americans in the southwestern United States. Students identified using multidimensional and holistic procedures showed similar cognitive and performance profiles to…

The problems of accurately identifying and serving giftedness are vastly compounded with children of new immigrant families. Linguistic and cultural complications, economic and attitudinal factors, sociocultural peer-group expectations, cross-cultural stress, intergenerational conflict, and school system conflict frequently deflect efforts to…

This study provides a descriptive statistical analysis of the incidence of students who participate in the federal free/reduced lunch program and who are identified for a gifted education program at three Kentucky middle schools. There are 2,000 students enrolled in the three schools and the free/reduced lunch incidence varies from 60 percent to…

The Center for Gifted and Talented Native Hawaiian Children has been developing identification methods congruent with Hawaiian values and traditional talent areas and has increased the number of native Hawaiian students identified and provided with enrichment services. This report describes efforts to combine self-report data and performance-based…

When trying to explain the discrepancy between the numbers of white students in gifted education programs and the number of culturally diverse students in gifted education programs, it becomes apparent that there are multiple factors at play with the most prominent one being the identification process. Most districts begin the identification…