Gifted Identification Considerations

The body of evidence for some students may not lead to formal gifted identification, but data may demonstrate the student should be included in a “talent pool” which should be utilized while you are building the student’s body of evidence to formally identify the child as gifted (or not).

A talent pool is defined as a group of students who demonstrate an advanced or exceptional ability in a particular area, but do not meet the criteria for gifted identification at the moment.  Students in a talent pool should be provided advanced or gifted programming services (as deemed appropriate - think program first, identify later).  As students are presented with additional levels of challenge and rigor, increased achievement may occur perhaps leading to the student meeting the criteria for gifted identification at a later date.

Some of our 2e learners may not always have the full BOE to be identified as gifted, however they exhibit incredible talents/strengths when the opportunity is provided for them.  This is why we want to make sure that programming is available for them to provide opportunities and to "grow their strengths" which may ultimately provide the data that will qualify these students to be identified as gifted.  If the student exhibits strengths, we want to make sure they are not forgotten but kept in a talent pool.  One recommendation among national experts is that the top 5% of your students in each of the identification domains be identified as members of your talent pool. 

With the 2e student, qualitative assessment will more than likely be your driving force in the identification process.  While some people consider that quantitative is considered objective and qualitative is subjective, qualitative assessments can provide interpretive and descriptive information about certain attributes, characteristics, behaviors, or performances that can help determine the child’s eligibility for identification.  Even if your gifted identification team cannot identify a suspected 2e students as gifted at this time, it is still important that the student gets the services that he/she needs. 

Does your school or district program have a talent pool and does it program to develop their strengths/talents?

Optional: If you are interested in how one district created a talent pool, you may see this optional presentation with embedded resources on work being done in Jefferson County with building their talent pool, shared at the CAGT 2020 conference by Jennifer Mulhern, Ginny Grimes and Tonia Heffley see HERE