Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment bright or gifted?

Yes! Or not knowing a language:

When my father was a boy and came over from Germany to the US, he was administered an IQ test which he failed miserably. Then the testers realized that he didn't know the language. Come to find out, he is profoundly gifted...just didn't know English then.

I'll share too: Dh was raised in a very low socioeconomic neighborhood. He didn't learn English until he went to school (NYC public). I am not aware of there being ESL classes at that time (early 70's), though I don't really know. He actively tried to forget his first language due to the stigma that was attached at that time. His mother believed in the value of education, and pushed him to take the test for Hunter College High School when he was in fifth grade (usual grade). He was accepted, and later went on to become quite successful. I've seen at least one of his standardized test scores and can vouch for his IQ .

Elisa wrote:
"You should know that learning a language has nothing to do with intelligence."

That is not true. It's obvious that it takes a certain level of intelligence to speak a language, and a somewhat higher level to read it and write it. The severely mentally retarded do not read and write well, if at all.

I think that's a violation of civil rights laws. One group scoring below another on average does NOT demonstrate that the test is biased (and should therefore be "adjusted" in the manner you described). I understand that you are describing a practice, not endorsing it.

I was responding to Connie's statement:

"Children of non-English speakers need to be the ones removed from the mainstream classes so that they can get better instruction and so that they don't pull down native speakers and make them appear gifted."

I meant that the fact that some students are learning the language does not make them less intelligent. Non-English speaking students are just as likely to be gifted as the "Caucasian Americans" that Connie compares them to. Since Connie is a non-native English speaker herself, I would think she would be aware of that.

Not if the base test can be shown to be biased using non-verbal IQ tests and longitudinal studies of who does well in school. I think this is the case for some tests.

In addition, many of the tests, like the SAT, do not distinguish very well among the top performers past a certain point.

A number of tests do use scales now. The National Merit exam has the hard score then a separate category for minorities that is scaled within that minority group. You can be 99.0 percentile for all seniors and 99.99% among Hispanic seniors.

Here is why I think there is room to make an adjustment.

I am fortunate to work with some very bright people. Many were born outside the US and English is not their birth language. Few would probably score over 600 on the SAT Verbal, but they are phenomenally smart and easily outperform those with high SAT verbal tests.

A hired hand I once worked with from Mexico, who could barely speak English, could fix anything that ever once worked and he could also play any musical instrument. How do you ID someone like this? He is now 75. When he was a boy, he must have been something else. But his upbringing was a village in Oaxaca. In a different world, he would have gone to Caltech.

One of my friends grew in a tiny village in the middle of no where without running water until he was 13. He went to a formal school about that time and it took off from there culminating with a summa cum laude in Computer Science from a Tier 1 US school. Had he taken the SAT when he was 17 and still on his steep learning curve, he would have scored in the 600s.

In a strict world with hard cutoffs in lieu of thoughtful consideration, he'd still be digging wells with his bare hands.

Obviously, it seems fair to somehow adjust the playing field keeping in mind the need to perform at a high level with other students.

Actually, I think that removing them would make it harder for them to learn English.

My DS10 went to a French immersion school for 4 years (pre-K to grade 2) and now goes to an after-school program for designed for native speakers. He didn't know any French when he started pre-K.

Through kindergarten, the teachers spoke nothing French to the kids for 80% of the day (it was 60% thereafter). They did French worksheets, played French games, and sang songs in French. All the non-Francophones spoke French pretty well by the end of kindergarten. The ones who stay through grade 5 are completely fluent. It's possible that overall IQs there might be a little higher than average, but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure how Spanish-speaking kids are taught English in most US public schools; I know that California doesn't allow bilingual ed. After the practice was outlawed in 1998 in large part because it allowed teachers to speak too much Spanish, Hispanic test scores went up.

When ESL kids interact with English speakers in the classroom and on the playground, they learn lots of English --- just like my son learned French. The Hispanic kids I meet around here speak English with American accents. Some of them are very young (6 or 7; today I met some preschoolers speaking English to each other and Spanish to their parents).

Val

You should look at the research instead of relying only on anecdotes. The College Board did a study "Differential Validity and Prediction of the SAT" http://professionals.collegeboard.c...l_Validity_and_Prediction_of_the_SAT.pdf and it found (Table 3) that the SAT overpredicts the grades of blacks and Hispanics.

Even Hispanics and blacks who grow up in the U.S. and go to integrated schools will get a leg up in college admissions. That's amounts to racial discrimination against my children, and I want it stopped, at least in institutions that are subsidized by the taxpayer, as even "private" colleges are through government financial aid.

The Davidson Young Scholar program does not have different test score cut-offs for different races, nor do talent searches such as that of Johns Hopkins. Do you think those policies should change?

"While they say that it is possible for anyone of any socioeconomic background or heritage to be gifted you know almost all the gifted kids are from one demographic."

I'd like to discuss this statement further with all of you. First, by "demographic" I think this would mean sociodemographic, meaning families above poverty level. I think your statement is true in that respect. It generally takes a knowledgeable parent, and yes, some amount of money to identify and advocate for a gifted child. Of course, teachers who are looking for such students of lower economic opportunity could also assist in this process.

I see kids from every race who are profoundly gifted. But all have committed parents who advocate for them. By advocate I mean getting them placed in a challenging learning situation. That is the whole point of identifying the gifted.

Wether all of this happens along racial lines, I'd like to see the evidence. I personally don't see that played out, only along economic lines, as you suggested.

My son is hispanic. I do think "affirmative action" policies were needed, based on the unequal opportunities for minorities for so long. But it is time for such structure to be phased out.

However, I think funds for children of low income families (citizens of any race) should be readily available. College is still an institution for the privileged and should be available to all who have the drive to succeed.

Fun topic


I'll also clarify that minorities does include low income which is around 60% in our district. Our schools gets $ from the state for every "gifted" kid, so I'd endorse it on that fact alone, our gifted services need the all the help it can get

I think that most tests are going to be biased during the early years but I also think that bias levels off some by high school. My opinion no research or facts
My thoughts are that children from low income families are less likely to have been to a zoo and yet the IQ tests ask analogy questions about animials. They are also less likey to have computers, books, maps, or to have traveled out of their city. I think this lack of early exposure to world gives them a disadvantage, especially on the verbal sections of the tests.

Another thought..
We don't watch sports in our house at all. No reason it's just not our thing.
My DD told me after her IQ test that she was shown a picture of a baseball game and she was supposed to tell the lady what was missing. Little wonder she didn't know. So, according that question my DD may be less gifted than a kid who's family is into sports.