Gifted is a big basket. Did anyone see Adrian Romoff on AGT? That is a "special" gifted kid, with extraordinary talent, drive and intelligence. I think it would be a little difficult in a regular classroom with peers and he is in school but highly accelerated. Now you get gifted classes with 98th percentile scores through to 99.9. For the last 3 years, DD was in a classroom of kids who were pretty much in the 99th percentile, most 99.5, guessing. Now she is in the 98th and up and she wonders why they are considered gifted. So I defined special as having special needs. I do not lump all gifted kids like that. You said EG school. I think accomodating accelerated subject matter, teaching a little differently but I wouldn't call that special but more differentiated.