There appears to be differing approaches, in modern education, to the identification and development of gifted students, but researchers are beginning to find some cohesiveness through approaches that examine giftedness from within broad views of human cognition and behavior. This paper takes such an approach by considering learning and memory as…

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) is an empirically validated clinical tool for assessing the learning ability of persons with intellectual disabilities and children with autism. An ABLA tester uses standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures to attempt to teach, individually, each of six tasks, called levels, to a testee,…

Differences in joint attention are prominent for some children with autism and are often used as an indicator of the disorder. This study examined the joint attention competencies of young children with autism who demonstrated joint attention ability and compared them to children with developmental delays. A total of 40 children with autism and…

Children with mild developmental disorders sometimes show giftedness. In this study, an original checklist was developed to identify gifted characteristics specific to science learning among twice-exceptional primary school children in Japan. The checklist consisted of 60 items on Attitudes, Thinking, Skills, and Knowledge/Understanding. A total…

Autism is characterized by an uneven profile of cognitive abilities and population studies show that approximately 10 percent of diagnosed individuals possess a skill that is significantly better than would be predicted by global IQ. Recent evidence suggests that individuals with autism who possess special skills may represent a distinct genetic…

The improvised tone sequences of five autistic children, six retarded children, and 11 nonhandicapped children were analyzed for rhythm, restriction, complexity, rule adherence, and originality. Scores of autistic children almost reached the scores of normal children and were significantly higher than those of the mentally retarded children.…

Twenty-four children (ages 27-58 months) with autism were tested on the Bayley, Merrill-Palmer, and Vineland scales. While scores on the different tests were highly correlated, actual test scores varied considerably, with the Bayley tending to produce the lowest IQ scores and the Merrill-Palmer the highest. Implications for selecting pre- and…

Discussion of gifted children with disabilities notes that many such children are excluded from gifted programming due to a deficit in some aspect of development. The concept of global giftedness is critiqued. Examples of gifted individuals with learning, physical, sensory disabilities or with autism are offered and suggestions are given for…

This paper presents three case studies of gifted children with a disability. Emphasis is on the importance of identifying the gifted abilities of such individuals and providing for their special needs. Sarah is a 14-year-old girl with severe athetoid cerebral palsy who has above average mathematical ability and general knowledge. The use of…

These four issues of this quarterly publication on the education of gifted students contain the following featured articles: (1) "Reflections on China: Implications for Gifted Education" (Andrea I. Prejean and Lynn H. Fox); (2) "Differentiating Instruction for Gifted Middle School Students in Heterogeneous Science Classes"…