Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Identifying gifted boys and girls

Hi all,

The number of boys identified as gifted is significantly larger than that of girls. This phenomenon is worldwide. The Israel Ministry of Education announced last week its decision to change the screening test, in order to eliminate the gap between boys and girls. I describe the details here, and would very much like to hear your opinion.

Thanks,
Adva

I have no idea if this is equally relevant in Israel as in the US but my son and his friend were identified because the school insisted they all had ADHD. Neither do, but I now know several boys who were identified as part of an ADHD screening. (Or had parents who insisted it wasn't ADHD and went looking to prove it- like me!)

Dottie,

Is this quite common in the U.S?! So far I have only run across studies that found the opposite ratio or worse, in favor of boys of course, and that - worldwide.

CAMom,

Is there a single test done in the U.S. to identify all exceptionalities? Seems surprising, or maybe I didn't understand. In Israel, all kids pass a screening test for giftedness, but only thise suspected with ADHD (or ADD) are diagnosed for it; and anyway, there is very little awareness of the fact that the "symptoms" may be very similar. Try telling a teacher here that your child bounces because he's bored... :-( You'd have to count on your luck, hope that the specific teacher understands it.

I must say this surprises me. I tried to find now any studies about gender issues in identifying gifted boys and girls in the U.S., but failed to. I only found that in Australia, too, the gap is considerable and favors boys. Perhaps the situation is different in the U.S? That would make the issue much more interesting...

In my grandsons gifted class the girls outnumber the boys 2 to 1.
To be identified as gifted in our school, they generally use a nationally normed achievement test. This is one of the ways our state mandates identification of the gifted. The state and our school will accept other testing, such as IQ testing. I would not be surprised to find that girls achieve at a higher rate compared to boys in the elementary years. Without some intervention for the boys, I can see them falling through the cracks and being identified as 'ADD' instead of gifted.

I wonder if there are more girls in the gifted programs if the program is achievement focused vs. gifted focused?

There's no one individual test done for all exceptionalities. However, my son's Pre-K teacher said that he had a hard time sitting still, was distractable and hard to focus in class. She said requested that we have him evaluated for ADHD because of all of this. I am a teacher (middle school) and didn't see any signs of typical ADHD at home at all. So we took him to an ed.psych to specifically screen out ADHD. He tested HG+ and the ed.psych said she'd never seen a 5 year old with his attention span and there was no need to continue to rule out ADHD.

I believe this is quite common in the US, as the school system begins to take away more and more recess and PE time and focus in more on drill and kill type lessons. I have no statistical data but it's out there if you're looking!

Yeah, if I had to sit still I would look like I had adhd... and why I've always favored environments where I don't have to sit still. And it is crazy for schools to eliminate recess and p.e. Hello, kids learn when they can move! And that is psychologically difficult to sit still, bored out of ones gourd!

In my goddaughters school in CA, in a self-contained gifted program (within a school), her class is/was nearly all girls. I don't know if a boy has since tested into the program and entered the class. I believe they used the Naglieri for qualifying. I think the self-contained class is top 0.1% or perhaps 1% (can't recall which one).

The situation seems to be rather different in the U.S. then. In Israel you cannot find classes with the number of girls exceeding that of boys, and actually, since there are just a few girls, some of them choose to leave the program, and the number drops even more.

About ADHD or quasi-ADHD, I completely agree - not letting the kids move around enough can certainly make anyone seem like a potential ADHD...