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When educational opportunities at any level are not offered as part of the public educational system, then some families will seek them at their own cost and some will not or cannot. This is one of the reasons that educational achievement and family income are so highly correlated—money is often directly linked to access educational opportunity. Families who are aware of supplementary options, can afford them, have the time to seek them out and enroll their children in them, and are willing to do so even when such content is not part of the local school’s curriculum, will take advantage of such opportunities in order to further their child’s learning. Some of this is due to financial capital and some due to cultural capital—the culture of knowing and being willing to challenge the system. All parents would want to provide advanced opportunities to their children, but only some have that option due to financial, cultural, logistical, or political barriers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Our goal in this chapter is to share a sociocultural perspective on gifted education and talent development that addresses the importance of context in children's development. Indeed, we believe context should be the primary concern of educators working with advanced students. We begin by defining our terms, followed by a summary of sociocultural perspectives on talent development. The chapter closes with an examination of the implications of this perspective for educators. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Most theories of giftedness include creativity as a central component. Creativity assessment has a key role, therefore, in measuring giftedness. This article reviews the state of the creativity assessment, from divergent thinking tests (including the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) to the consensual assessment technique to rating scales and self assessments. Despite the many flaws present in every type of creativity measurement, there are compelling reasons for including creativity as part of a gifted assessment battery. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

Significant advances have been made in the education of gifted rural students, especially in the areas of identification and curriculum development. In general, the existing research suggests that culturally-sensitive, creativity-focused identification practices and experiential, community-based curricular efforts provide numerous benefits to bright students living in rural areas. There also appears to be empirical evidence, albeit limited in scope, that providing comprehensive educational and counseling support to gifted rural students, especially those in high school and college, leads to greater academic success. In addition, over the past 20 years, a hallmark of almost every successful program for gifted rural students has been intensive professional development focused on the characteristics and needs of gifted students. Of course, the positive impact of professional development is not surprising: The well-known lack of content on gifted students in most teacher preparation programs, combined with traditional rural attitudes toward giftedness, make it unlikely that many rural educators have had much exposure (or motivation to get exposure) to gifted education issues. Despite the advances in the education of rural gifted students stretching back a couple of generations, the literature on this particular group of students is still marked by collections of presumed best practices, anecdotal evidence, and conceptual analyses. It is worth noting that the flurry of recent publications on gifted rural students focuses primarily either on conceptual analyses or reviews of literature. The lack of program evaluations and empirical studies of specific interventions has delayed progress substantially. The field has a strong foundation from which to proceed, but a great deal of additional work is needed to provide educators with tools for fostering the development of gifted students living in rural communities. Finally, educators and researchers need to keep in mind that the nature of rurality is rapidly changing. Due to broader economic, cultural, and immigration trends (and most probably, interactions among them), describing a prototypical "rural community" has become nearly impossible. For example, numerous languages are spoken in rural areas; in rural communities in Northeast Indiana, one may overhear conversations in English, German, or Spanish. The linguistic, cultural, and racial/ethnic diversity in rural communities is often noted, but rarely directly addressed in the literature on gifted students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

For millennia, scholars and laypersons alike have been fascinated with people of high accomplishment and those who show the potential for great accomplishment. These individuals are typically referred to as "gifted." In trying to answer the question "What behaviors and characteristics make someone gifted?," a variety of theories, or conceptions, of giftedness have been proposed. Until recently, conceptions of giftedness were based on "implicit theories," or the intuitions, impressions, and personal beliefs held by individuals, rather than on "'explicit theories," which are supported by rigorous research investigating the cognitive, ability, and personality variables associated with giftedness. Carefully articulating an evidence-based conception of giftedness carries important implications for educational practice. This is because the way in which a school district conceptualizes giftedness should guide its overall programming for gifted students, including how to identify gifted learners, how to instruct them so that their gifts and academic potential are realized, and how to evaluate whether the identification and instruction were appropriate and relevant to their cognitive characteristics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

In this chapter, the integrative model of talent development (IMTD), and especially its differentiating model of giftedness and talent (DMGT) component, will serve as the conceptual framework to answer the five following questions: (1) How does the DMGT distinguish gifts from talents? (2) How does the DMGT describe the talent development process? (3) Where do gifts come from; are they innate? (4) How can we best foster academic talent development? (5) What makes the DMGT/IMTD unique? (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Gifted people have a special responsibility to use their talent to participate in finding out novel solutions to the challenges of our century. This chapter focuses on the practices of talent support actions that may foster contemplation, creative; deep thinking; and deliberative discussions of gifted people. Importantly, the chapter links these practices to the development of wisdom, as an emergent property of mind that can be obtained by the successful integration of life experiences, where success means a balanced, impartial, and independent life and is guided by universal love—as explained in the next section. Summarizing three case studies of talent support programs, this chapter shows that developing deep thinking and wisdom is an important, but heretofore not well-developed, aspect of gifted education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Athletic talent development typically follows a similar path (often conceptualized as a pyramid) regardless of the sport of interest. At the base, we find children engaged in play or recreation, with local clubs and high school sports typically forming the next level. Some young athletes are identified for entry into elite programs, such as traveling teams or Olympic development programs. From there, athletes join regional or college teams. Next may come a pre-elite level. Finally, the tip of the pyramid is the elite level comprised of professional and Olympic athletes. To understand effective talent development, it is important to first take a critical look at this traditional pathway. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The neural bases of giftedness will be examined in this chapter by focusing on a construct within giftedness: high levels of intelligence. Intelligence is very difficult to define, and in fact, there is little consensus among scientific researchers as to what is meant by intelligence. A general definition provided by Sternberg and Salter (1982) that we will use is "goal-directed adaptive behavior". Intelligent behavior is adaptive in that it changes to confront and successfully meet challenges. Because it is not enough for intelligent behavior to simply be adaptive, it is also thought to be goal-directed or purposeful. However, it is the adaptive nature of intelligence that will be the primary focus of this chapter. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Definitions of high ability exist in context. When education in the 19th and 20th centuries primarily valued the rapid and accurate learning of a well-defined sequence of knowledge and skills, IQ and achievement tests predicted success. Cognitive qualities of giftedness were readily defined in terms of speed, accuracy, good memory, and even a predilection to work alone. Cognitive qualities of giftedness were closely tied to these views of the nature of education. The new values, especially since the 1980s, focus on inquiry-based learning and teaching and represent a major shift in the underlying assumption about what teaching, learning, and schools should be like, in the goals of education, and in the roles of teachers and learners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Unfortunately, an approach to talent identification that suggests that individuals either are or are not gifted fails to recognize the complex nature of cognitive abilities and the many factors that influence the development of those abilities in children and adolescents. Although talent search programs do require certain scores for eligibility for their programs, the purpose of the talent search assessment is not to determine who is gifted, but to provide insight into students’ abilities so that academic needs can be met in school and elsewhere through appropriate programmatic options. There is much in this approach to talent identification and development that schools might replicate as they seek to address the needs of students who exhibit advanced academic abilities and/or achievement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

An unfortunate feature of much research is the tendency to attract attention—such as increased citations—by advocating extreme positions on difficult questions, the nature-nurture issue decidedly among them. The downside of this practice for our understanding of giftedness is that the complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors tend to get overlooked. Worse yet, in minimizing the function of one or the other side of the debate, proponents of single-factor explanations tend to vastly oversimplify the supposed operation of the neglected factor. That oversimplification is certainly apparent in the advocates of deliberate practice as the sole factor in talent development—a point that I wish to elaborate in this chapter. As will be seen below, the genetics of genius, talent, or giftedness is far more complex and nuanced than these extremists realize. I begin by showing that any innate gift or talent for a given domain must be defined in terms of deliberate practice for the definition to feature any scientific validity. I then focus specifically on the genetics side of the foregoing demonstration, showing that nature most likely operates in a far more complex and dynamic manner than often realized. A gift or talent does not work anything like the inheritance of eye color or even height. After these two arguments are presented, I close by discussing some implications for practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Over the past several years, media attention directed toward autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has increased substantially, not only in relation to the rising prevalence rate, but also through the portrayal of individuals with ASD in movies and television shows. Misconceptions abound; for example, many erroneously believe that a large percentage of individuals with ASD are savants, or that everyone diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome is gifted. Neither statement is true. However, research does demonstrate that there are individuals with ASD who are intellectually gifted, although the prevalence rate remains unknown. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 2012), 1 in every 88 children is currently diagnosed with an ASD. Given this astounding number, educators undoubtedly will work with individuals on the spectrum at some point during their careers. To do so requires a comprehensive understanding of ASD, as well as an awareness of the potential for giftedness. To fully understand this group of twice-exceptional students, clarification of terminology and diagnostic criteria must first be addressed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

A major review of research from 1951 to 1982 on parents and families of students with gifts and talents identified the following themes in the research literature—(a) family characteristics, (b) parental attitudes and values, (c) family problems with gifted children, (d) achievement and underachievement, (e) role of parents in identification, (f) parental encouragement and provision of enrichment activities, and (g) parents and schools. Although the focus of research has narrowed over time, parents' expectations of services and programming and parents' perceptions of their child's giftedness consistently have remained a focus of study. The distinctive challenges that parents of gifted children face should be of interest to researchers as well as to teachers, parents, and the gifted children themselves. Awareness of these challenges can help faculty to design appropriate educational experiences for preservice and in-service teachers who work with students with gifts and talents, can ameliorate some of the isolation felt by parents of gifted learners, and can help gifted individuals to understand and come to terms with their own family environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Musical giftedness is a topic characterized by multiple perspectives and definitions. Scholars and researchers in music education have investigated the nature of giftedness from a variety of viewpoints resulting in numerous terms used to identify students who may be considered musically gifted, along with various methods for identifying, teaching, and assessing these students. The following chapter includes an overview of the terms, common theories, and modes of assessment related to musical potential followed by definitions, theories, and assessment tools for musical achievement. Musical potential and achievement are then addressed in relation to models for fostering musical giftedness and implications for educators hoping to work with musically gifted students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Grouping used by teachers to address the diverse needs of their students and with aim to close the achievement gaps has become more popular recently and is one set of education strategies. Grouping can be used in schools to meet the needs of students with gifts and talents without incurring additional cost. However, grouping, and specifically, ability grouping, has been the subject of much and heated debate during the past three decades. Researchers from both sides of the ability grouping debate continue to discuss the pros and cons of its application in schools. As such, not all educators support the use of grouping, and further, not all forms of grouping strategies bring about the same results. For grouping strategies to appropriately meet the needs of students with gifts and talents, there are more factors to consider than simply putting students of similar levels of academic achievement together. Namely, curriculum and instruction has to be adjusted to accommodate the needs of these students, and care must be taken to ensure that other students receive appropriately enriched instruction and interesting curriculum so that they have a high-quality education that promotes academic growth and achievement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Paula has been teaching for more than 30 years at a school specializing in gifted education. She loves working with her students, who are quick and dedicated learners. In 2016, the school was taken over by a new consortium, which decided to adopt a more contemporary school approach to replace the existing one that had been in force for more than 30 years. The consortium appointed Paula to put together an Innovation Team to oversee the transition to the new structure. Paula happily accepted. In this chapter, we will report Paula's initial thought processes. She was fully cognizant that the efficiency and success of the Innovation Team would depend on the quality of her preparatory work. Along with carefully monitoring and analyzing her school and conducting a thorough examination of the relevant literature, she also consulted several experts from various backgrounds. These included experts in gifted education (representatives from other gifted schools and researchers), experts in administration and governance, parents of gifted students, and organizational psychologists and sociologists. She also consulted specialists, such as the program director of a mentoring program and the head of a school specializing in self-regulated learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Both qualitative and quantitative longitudinal studies of school-wide enrichment model (SEM) gifted programs demonstrate positive outcomes in cognitive, affective, and social development of participating students. The participants increased their college and work aspirations, and maintained interests and creative productive work that begin in gifted programs after they finished college and graduate school. It is our hope that more schools and districts will continue to implement talent development programs based on the SEM in the years to come, whether as part of gifted or enrichment programs, magnet or theme schools, or as a part of a general education program. During the last decade, several Renzulli Academies, schools based on the SEM using the SEM-based strategies and methods described in this chapter, have been developed, focusing on the pedagogy described in this chapter for high-potential students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Giftedness is a social construct that comes with a wide range of interpretations, as there is not a typical gifted learner. The term gifted has been, at times, considered antiquated as educators, policy makers, and scholars address a history of intellectual elitism and the underrepresentation of children from diverse backgrounds in gifted programs across the country. Gifted learners are artists, musicians, engineers, teachers, dreamers, trendsetters, problem solvers, and activists. Frasier and Passow (1994) referred to general attributes of gifted learners, or traits, aptitudes, and behaviors identified across the research as being common elements of giftedness. It is important to recognize that giftedness manifests differently in every child and the presence of the noted diverse traits will vary for each learner based on his or her passion area, type, and level of giftedness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Our economy and quality of life increasingly depend on innovative ideas and products, and businesses and society in general are calling for more creativity in our communities. This is being seen in schools, with an emphasis on problem solving and creativity in the curriculum, such as can be found in efforts to focus K–12 education on 21st century skills (Plucker, Kaufman, & Beghetto, 2015). Although there are increasing amounts of research on how to enhance creativity in the classroom, teaching for creativity is not a common practice in most K–12 schools (Sternberg, 2015). For example, Schacter, Thum, and Zifkin (2006) found on average that teachers perform very few creative behaviors. Many teachers know little about how to implement interventions for creativity enhancement, and they may even feel reluctant to learn how to approach the topic. In this chapter, we review the major theoretical work that underlies intervention efforts, review specific techniques and strategies for fostering creativity, and examine broader policy issues that may impact creativity enhancement efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)