Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Giftedness Can't be Identified Until Third Grade?

On another forum I visit (not related to gifted topics), there's a thread about gifted children and schooling. Someone recently posted that "most researchers" agree that true giftedness can't be identified until third grade... I'm really wondering about that claim. Anyone have information supporting or denying it?

Since there isn't really one definition of "true giftedness," I would immediately question the validity of that statement.

Agreed! It just drives me bonkers when people go spouting that sort of thing off.

Here's a related official example from our district:

http://www.seattleschools.org/UserF...ssionid=387f1c9b56ba0467eec5adaf9a4e1c92

(I'm not endorsing any of the viewpoints above)

Dr Hertzog is a professor at the University of Washington. There's no research data for any of her points in this presentation but maybe it can serve as a starting point if your looking for more info.

While I agree there isn't really one definition of "true giftedness", the poster on the other forum may have been trying to convey "gifted" as distinguished from "hothoused" or "tiger-parented".

It is my understanding that research studies on "IQ stability" inform the view that some hold about gifted identification in 3rd grade (typically 8-9 years old in US public schools).

There are other threads on this forum which question the related saying that children "even out" by third grade (an idea debunked in this explanatory article by Carol Bainbridge for About.com)

In some cases, precocious children with especially large vocabularies and stilted form of expression may be diagnosed with ASD and/or given a 2e label when testing is conducted at this age.

Ah, the generic appeal to "research" without any supporting references. Gotta love rigorous arguments.

People should at least have the decency to name a school of thought, institute, or researcher behind the claim. If not, it is likely opinion masquerading as "evidence".

My layperson's understanding is that IQ stabilizes at 8 or 9 - so it may be more convenient or economical for a school district to screen at that age.

That said my son was ID'd at age 3. I was skeptical but we have gone ahead with a program for gifted kids. He is very happy and socially well adjusted. Waiting till age 8 would have been very harmful for us.

I was told by my local school district that the appropriate age for giftedness testing were between the ages of seven and nine years old - which is the age at which the results would be "reliable". If there were no other concerns, they wait until kids are 8 years old in the 3rd grade to test. For a lot of kids with none to low exposure to reading and language, it is true that testing might be better after a few years of schooling.

In our case, we tested earlier privately because we did not want to wait for the system to work for our child.

I think the issue is similar to the reason that oftentimes students with LDs aren't identified until 2nd-3rd grade: there is a huge spectrum of developmental timeframes in young children. Some children learn to read early, some children (even some pg children) don't begin reading until they are 6 years old. Third grade is a typical point at which the impact of differing developmental milestones no longer will hide LDs or giftedness, and similarly it's a point at which achievement differences will start to be less present in situations such as a child who perhaps learned to read or do math early or was given the advantage of early preschool exposure to concepts that perhaps another child didn't have. On the flip side, it's sometimes difficult to know if the reason a student is struggling with reading or whatever because of an LD or just because they aren't developmentally ready yet until 2nd or 3rd grade.

Re giftedness, from my limited sample of kids I've known - you could see intellectual giftedness at a young age - through conversation and the thoughts that the children shared. It didn't necessarily show up in the type of academic skill sets that schools are focused on (although it did sometimes).

The other thing that is perhaps perceived to be beneficial from a school's standpoint in evaluating students is that by 3rd grade, most students will have a bit of past history of teachers who know them and have worked with them. In early elementary, there are often parents clamoring to get their children id'd as gifted, whether the child is or isn't truly gifted.

Those are just my ponderings...

polarbear

When people do cite research about this, they point to longitudinal studies showing that IQ results varies by [insert points here, usually up to twenty or thirty] in a certain quotient [insert something like a third] of the population tested at various points in childhood.

However, even if very few children show as much variation as 20 or 30 points (note the "up to"), a lot of children may show smaller variations. As we all know, up to ten points or so more or less in scored by a child isn't even that significant: could be a bad day, bad rapport with the tester, variations in testing emphasis, an intellectual growth spurt or plateau...stuff that does get rarer after third grade, simply because kids have been exposed to a lot of testing situations until then. And as pointed out by polar bear, if academic achievement is taken into account, variation in exposure to academics evens out as children progress through grade school.

But as most kids identified as gifted (if we go with the usually accepted definition of scoring over 130 on a recognised IQ test, for whatever it's worth) will score closely above the 130 threshold, where 10 points more or less on two different occasions can make all the difference in a gifted/not gifted dichotomy, a very large proportion of kids is affected by even very small variations in the results, even though the variation meh not have any real significance. Which then gets generalized, by educators, to sayings such as the above.

This is a statistical phenomenon that rarely applies to the HG+ kids represented on this board, simply because even larger variations in iQ scores do not affect "gifted status" as long as the score does not drop below 130...however, once educators have accepted a generalization, good luck trying to explain distinctions.

Even if measured IQ is highly variable before 3rd grade (I'd have to review the research on this), this is not a strong argument against identifying students in K, 1, and 2, as long as you also identify students in 3rd and later grades. Having multiple entry points should not be problematic, but whether students identified as gifted in 1st grade should also be assessed in later years and possibly removed from a gifted program is a difficult question. The Johns Hopkins talent search requires students who qualify by doing well on the SCAT in elementary school to do well on the SAT, ACT, Advanced SCAT, or Spatial Test Battery in 7th grade to maintain eligibility for various programs.

There's an entire chapter on this topic in the book "Nurture Shock". Here's a brief summary
http://nurtureshockmoment.blogspot.com/

I agree, Bostonian.

While it may be true that most moderately gifted children who have not been particularly exposed to academics aren't especially harmed by the practices embraced in late evaluation/identification as a philosophy--

the outliers who are HG/HG+ are disproportionately harmed very greatly by the practice. A child who spends the first three years of school learning NOTHING in that environment has spent all of those hours of mandated attendance learning other things instead.

Dr. Hertzog is also the director of the Robinson Center at UW, home of one of the original early college programs for radically-accelerated gifted youth in the USA.

It may also provide some perspective if one understands that the backstory to early childhood gifted ID is that CLD and SES minorities are grossly underrepresented, so that trainings such as the one cited above are focused on casting the net wide enough to capture those whose gifts have not had the same supportive early environment.

If the slots are filled early with those with all the advantages, then some who need the services at least as urgently may be excluded.

Note: I am in favor of early ID, when warranted, but conscious of the risks of inequity.

Agreed, aeh. A great many children do not have a lot of enrichment and exposure, and those children who do not have a lot of books available in their homes are certainly less likely to attain literacy early (just as one example).

Programs that pull on the basis of achievement testing are especially prone to over-estimating the ability of children who begin school having come from backgrounds with substantial academic preparation. When that is also a proxy for high SES (and it's a rough correlation-- but an imperfect one, obviously)-- then the children who are identified late also tend to be those who most desperately need enrichment THROUGH the free public school system, because they will not be getting those opportunities at home.

A fair and appropriate system has to identify children on the basis of what they have been taught, and how well they've learned it, and how rapidly. For a lot of children, that is best done later-- but for outliers, it needs to happen a lot sooner. Still, I really do think that most teachers are going to see HG to PG children for what they are by around Christmas, without anyone telling them a thing. At least if there aren't 2e issues getting in the way, and if the teacher genuinely understands what gifted children actually look like-- and doesn't look for perfect compliance and perfect seat work as evidence of it.

I know that I've told this story before-- but DD, at six, was SO clearly an outlier, even on the limited data that our charter school had of her (she had been homeschooled, and we had a single CAT-5 battery, slightly out of level, that we had administered at home)-- they immediately placed her in 3rd grade. They NEVER evaluated her, and did an additional grade skip after that-- all with no formal evaluation of her ability. It was simply that obvious.

I know that isn't always the case with children who are gifted-- but for the ones that are, it's truly a no-brainer.

I also still believe that calling gifted services "Special Education" would go a very long way to leveling things with clamoring parents. It's true, anyway, and frankly, it shouldn't be seen as a negative or positive thing to have a child who needs special educational services. Besides, that REALLY improves things for 2e and (3e, etc) students who need services all over the map in special education.

And prestige seeking parents maybe won't be quite so keen when they have to explain that no, Janey isn't in "Special education" classes because she is BEHIND grade level, but ahead of it.

Heck, maybe it's nice when there isn't an awkward silence when other parents use the term to describe their children who are in the 3rd percentile in literacy, either.


Anyway. That's a soapbox for another day entirely, I fear.

Our Board is struggling with this question now, and I have been searching for compelling evidence.

So far, I am finding pretty consistent expert opinion that WISC scores are, overall, highly stable from age 6 up, which doesn't support the "wait till grade 3 argument". What I haven't yet found is a couple of well-designed, compelling and easily understood pieces of research that back up that expert consensus. Also, most of what I can find addresses the stability of IQ scores generally, but not specifically their use in gifted identification.

In anyone can point me at some research, it could have a lot of impact in a current Board discussion.

Thanks!

ETA: Sorry HK - Gifted is Spec Ed around here, and the fights over elitism continue to run amok. We gotta name it something really unpleasant...

Thanks for sharing your perspective, aeh! I completely understand and am also concerned with the issue of missed students. What confuses me is the flip to "no one can be identified as gifted before third grade." It's so unfortunate that the system is largely designed to have a specific number of slots, versus making spots for ALL children who should be getting faster-paced, differentiated education at their levels.

ITA with that. Every kid is supposed to have a "slot" that fits.

Agree on multiple entry points. That should be a requirement of any successful gifted program... not only because children within your own community could have previously been missed, but also because community members come and go, and an incoming child may have come from an area where gifted services are lacking, and no prior opportunities for identification had been available.

Disagree on the difficulty of the question of reassessment. As you said, Johns Hopkins requires periodic reinforcement of qualifications. My state gifted program has a similar provision, in which G/T students have an annual end-of-year IEP review with parents and faculty, and a requirement to re-evaluate students for eligibility at least every three years, though that requirement can be waived if both parents and faculty agree it's not necessary. In practice, this means that if every evidence is that the student is not falling behind or seeming overwhelmed in G/T, they stay in the program without re-evaluation. So there's two examples of the question being answered rather easily.

3rd grade is too late to identify. By that time, students who could have used the services in the younger grades may have already started to tune out and develop poor attitudes towards school. By third grade, some of these students may be underachieving because they did not get services at a younger age when they needed them.

Out of the mouth of my younger DYS (who is not "old enough" yet to test for gifted services): "Why do I have to go to school? I don't learn anything!" Not the attitude for school I was hoping for, but the grade-age school DOES seem to be a huge mismatch for him (sigh). Socially, he is very happy (gets along well with older and same-age children...quite the chameleon). Academically, it is a mess.

I completely agree that the number of slots should change every year to meet the number of students who need services. Actually, to our schools' credit - they do it this way.

I also agree with multiple entry points. I do think, however, that once a student is deemed eligible for services, the bias should be that this child will need services for the entire time they are in school (I can envision exceptions to this, but not many). Part of my bias here, though, is that services in our schools require jumping through QUITE a number of hoops and I have a hard time envisioning a student who successfully jumps through all of these hoops ever not needing gifted services.

Honestly, my experience is that it all boils down to money.

My state has some loose (very loose) guidelines in that each school system gets to set their own bar for giftedness. There is no rubric that everyone uses. They can use whichever tests they want (poor district will cheap out and not do extensive testing that costs them money) and richer districts with populations that might be chock full of engineers will have a higher bar for test scores because of limited space in a classroom.

We literally moved from one district that had an 85% score on a Stanford test that only offered pull-outs to one that had a 96% requirement that has a TAG teaching team. The other school just didn't have the money. And VA does provide some state funding for gifted programs along with other funding they provide that's earmarked for certain things (like textbooks, for example).

Identifying gifted kids earlier than 3rd grade increases the costs. It's easier for schools to pretend they don't exist or need special services.

By the way, I did find an Otis-Lennon that was done by that school on my now 14 year old in Kindergarten. Off the charts! But, they did not offer services til 3rd grade and they say they tested her again then and she did not get identified (but could not provide me a copy of those tests). She eventually got identified much later in 7th grade after we pushed. But in all honesty, they would not have done much, if anything, for her in elementary anyway.

I don't know why schools don't at least ability group at the very least. Meet everyone where they are and allow them to move around as necessary.

Some schools do ability group in early elementary to try and make up for this fact. Or at least they did when my kids were in elementary. This is mostly to benefit the struggling students. In the early grades (K-2nd) the kids were grouped in reading & math groups where they received smaller group attention. What this generally meant was the most advanced group would get some "enrichment" work while the struggling kids got extra time with the teacher. Sometimes a parent volunteer would work with the advanced kids. But the advanced students were still supposed to finish the regular work it was just assumed they would do so quickly. And the enrichment work wasn't the same as working a grade or two ahead.

Our district while it has no formal gifted program till 4th grade when my DS was in early elementary did offer gifted clusters. It even stated this on the districts gifted students page. There was no formal testing for these clusters and this group was more highly performing cluster than gifted per say.

Third grade would have been too late for both of my kids. But I definitely have seen some kids who were difficult to pinpoint as gifted in k/1 but look gifted to me now. On the flip side, I know some kids who tested gifted in K who do NOT appear gifted to me at the present time. I think this is really a hard question.

One of my "things" with giftedness, though, is that I would like to see all students screened.

I agree with screening all kids. Maybe some internet billionaire could be recruited to fund a pilot project in a school district to screen all kids at age 4 and 6 or something like that. I don't know if there is an instrument that is cheaper to administer than the full WPPSI-IV (which cost of the better part of $1k to do - totally worth it by the way).

For screening purposes, there are a few brief intelligence measures that are valid for four-year-olds, such as the RIAS, WRIT, and KBIT2. It would certainly be cheaper than the WPPSI-IV or SBV, but not by enough to make it feasible as universal screening. The instruments themselves are about a quarter the price of one of the comprehensives, while the cost in examiner time would be about 1/3 to 1/2.

Currently, public schools are mandated to do universal screening with K students to identify disabilities. One of the best instruments for that is the DIAL4, which does generate standard scores/percentiles in the Big 5 developmental areas from age 2-6 to age 5-11. Granted, it is designed mainly to pick up the low end of the distribution, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to use the concepts and language modules as pre-screeners for the high end, just as they currently are used as pre-screeners for the low end. Every district owns a system similar to this (although not all are equal in quality), and invests 30-45 minutes per entering kindergartner in administering it. The data are already there. Someone just needs to catalog and act on them.

IQ is positively correlated with academic achievement. Our elementary school, like many others, does not give letter grades, but report cards do have marks from 1 to 4 in reading, math, and other subjects. A composite IQ prediction based on "brief intelligence measures" and grades could be created. It will miss high IQ children who are getting bad grades for some reason, but that is better than missing all gifted children in grades 1 and 2 by not screening them.

See page four of this document from a NC school district. They use the DIAL4 and an early literacy assessment as a universal screening instrument for GT/AIG services for every entering kindergartner.

http://www.davie.k12.nc.us/files/2013/7209/9872/2013-16_final_aig_plan_linked.pdf

It can be done.

ETA: Actually, they also don't formally ID GT until 3rd grade, but they do flag K-2 students as GT "candidates".

The district we previously listed in did start screening all 1st graders a few years ago. They used the CoGAT and the ITBS. They also let kids apply to be tested each subsequent year. They also have an exceptionally high bar (must hit 99% with the test one grade up on both tests). Because of the high bar and the tests chosen, most gifted kids still don't get served there.

I think the bar is a little lower now, Aufilia (if I'm remembering your district correctly). But the 1st and 2nd graders aren't served in the full-time program - they are identified, but the regular classroom teachers are told to differentiate for them.

My district uses RIAS (meh) and tests in K (good), but you have to be identified as a testing candidate first through complex and (IMO) biased means (bad).

For my first we were homeschooling 1-3rd grade (he spent age 1-3 in a birth to age three program and 3-5 in an ESE classroom and K in a regular classroom). When he re-entered public school he was nominated for testing by his teacher. Officially placed in sixth grade (took a while to get him tested).

Second son was nominated by me in K and missed the screening score on the KBIT by one question. I nominated him again a year later (required waiting period). Again wheels turned very slowly and he was identified second grade (passed the KBIT the second time and went on to further testing).