From NAGC:

Because gifted children are so diverse, not all exhibit all characteristics all of the time. However, there are common characteristics that many gifted individuals share:

• Unusual alertness, even in infancy

• Rapid learner; puts thoughts together quickly

• Excellent memory

• Unusually large vocabulary and complex sentence structure for age

• Advanced comprehension of word nuances, metaphors and abstract ideas

• Enjoys solving problems, especially with numbers and puzzles

• Often self-taught reading and writing skills as preschooler

• Deep, intense feelings and reactions

• Highly sensitive

• Thinking is abstract, complex, logical, and insightful

• Idealism and sense of justice at early age

• Concern with social and political issues and injustices

• Longer attention span and intense concentration

• Preoccupied with own thoughts—daydreamer

• Learn basic skills quickly and with little practice

• Asks probing questions

• Wide range of interests (or extreme focus in one area)

• Highly developed curiosity

• Interest in experimenting and doing things differently

• Puts idea or things together that are not typical

• Keen and/or unusual sense of humor

• Desire to organize people/things through games or complex schemas

• Vivid imaginations (and imaginary playmates when in preschool)

Reproduced by permission from: Webb, J., Gore, J., Amend, E., DeVries, A. (2007). A parent's guide to gifted children.Tuscon, AZ: Great Potential Press, www.greatpotentialpress.com.

Also, see "Traits of Giftedness" and "Social Emotional Issues"

The bell curve is presented here in relation to IQ scores. The norm for IQ scores is 100. Ninety-five percent of all students fall within 2 standard deviations of the norm (between 70 and 130). Students who score more that two standard deviations below the norm (below 70) qualify for Level 3 Special Education services because their needs are significantly different from those of students in the range of typical scores. Think for a minute about the students who are found in a Level 3 program; the variance in their needs is such that they must have specifically designed education experiences and different support services. Now consider students who score more than two standard deviations above the norm; their variance is equally as extreme as that of students in Level 3 programs; the students who are two or more standard deviations above the norm also need specifically designed education programs and different support services.

It’s a tough time to raise, teach or be a highly gifted child. As the term “gifted” and the unusual intellectual capacity to which that term refers become more and more politically incorrect, the educational establishment changes terminology and focus. Giftedness, a global, integrative mental capacity, may be dismissed, replaced by fragmented “talents” which seem less threatening and theoretically easier for schools to deal with. Instead of an internal developmental reality that affects every aspect of a child’s life, “intellectual talent” is more and more perceived as synonymous with (and limited to) academic achievement. The child who does well in school, gets good grades, wins awards and “performs” beyond the norms for his or her age is considered talented. The child who does not, no matter what his or her innate intellectual capacities or developmental level, is less and less likely to be identified, less and less to be served.

A cheetah metaphor can help us to see the problem with achievement-oriented thinking. The cheetah is the fastest animal on earth. When we think of a cheetah, we are likely to think first of its speed. It’s flashy. It’s impressive. It’s unique. And it makes identification incredibly easy. Since cheetahs are the only animals that can run 70 mph, if you clock an animal running 70 mph, it must be a cheetah!

But cheetahs are not always running. In fact, they are able to maintain a top speed ony for a limited time, after which they need a considerable period of rest. It’s not difficult to identify a cheetah when it isn’t running, provided we know its other characteristics. It is gold with black spots, like a leopard, but it also has unique black “tear marks” beneath its eyes. Its head is small, its body lean, its legs unusually long – all bodily characteristics critical to a runner. And the cheetah is the only member of the cat family that has non-retractable claws. Other cats retract their claws to keep them sharp, like carving knives kept in a sheath; the cheetah’s claws are designed, not for cutting, but for traction. This is an animal biologically designed to run.

Its chief food is the antelope, itself a prodigious runner. The antelope is not large or heavy, so the cheetah doesn’t need strength and bulk to overpower it. Only speed. On the open plains of its natural habitat, the cheetah is capable of catching an antelope simply by running it down.

While body design in nature is utilitarian, it also creates a powerful internal drive. The cheetah needs to run! Despite design and need, however, certain conditions are necessary for it to attain its famous 70 mph top speed. It must be fully grown. It must be healthy, fit and rested. It must have plenty of room to run. Besides that, it is best motivated to run all out when it is hungry and there are antelope to chase.

•If a cheetah is confined to a 10x12 foot cage, though it may pace or fling itself against the

bars in restless frustration, it won’t run 70 mph. Is it still a cheetah?

•If a cheetah is fed Zoo Chow, it may not run at all. Is it still a cheetah?

•If a cheetah is sick or if its legs have been broken, it won’t even walk. Is it still a cheetah?

•And finally, if a cheetah is only six weeks old, it can’t yet run 70 mph. Is it, then, only a

potential cheetah?

A school system that defines giftedness (or talent) as behavior, achievement and performance is as compromised in its ability to recognize its highly gifted students and to give them what they need as a zoo would be to recognize and provide for its cheetahs if it looked only for speed. When a cheetah does run 70 mph, it isn’t a particularly “achieving” cheetah. Though it is doing what no other cat can do, it is behaving normally for a cheetah.

To lions, tigers, leopards – to any of the other big cats – the cheetah’s biological attributes would seem to be deformities. Far from the “best cat,” the cheetah would seem to be barely a cat at all. It is not heavy enough to bring down a wildebeest; its non-retractable claws cannot be kept sharp enough to tear the wildebeest’s thick hide. Given the cheetah’s tendency to activity, cats who spend most of their time sleeping in the sun might well label the cheetah hyperactive.

Like cheetahs, highly gifted children can be easy to identify. If a child teaches herself Greek at age five, reads at the eighth grade level at age six or does algebra in second grade, we can safely assume that this child is a highly gifted child. Though the world may see these activities as “achievements,” she is not an “achieving” child so much as a child who is operating normally according to her own biological design, her innate mental capacity. Such a child has clearly been given room to “run” and something to run for. She is healthy and fit and has not had her capacities crippled. It doesn’t take great knowledge about the characteristics of highly gifted children to recognize this child.

However, schools are to extraordinarily intelligent children what zoos are to cheetahs. Many schools provide a 10x12 foot cage, giving the unusual mind no room to get up to speed. Many highly gifted children sit in the classroom the way big cats sit in their cages, dull-eyed and silent. Some, unable to resist the urge from inside even though they can’t exercise it, pace the bars, snarl and lash out at their keepers, or throw themselves against the bars until they do themselves damage.

Even open and enlightened schools are likely to create an environment that, like the cheetah enclosures in enlightened zoos, allow some moderate running, but no room for the growing cheetah to develop the necessary muscles and stamina to become a 70 mph runner. Children in cages or enclosures, no matter how bright, are unlikely to appear highly gifted; kept from exercising their minds for too long, these children may never be able to reach the level of mental functioning for which they were designed.

A zoo, however much room it provides for its cheetahs, does not feed them antelope, challenging them either to run full out or go hungry. Schools similarly provide too little challenge for the development of extraordinary minds. Even a gifted program may provide only the intellectual equivalent of 20 mph rabbits (while sometimes labeling children suspected of extreme intelligence “underachievers” for not putting on top speed to catch those rabbits!). Without special programming, schools provide the academic equivalent of Zoo Chow, food that requires no effort whatsoever. Some children refuse to take in such uninteresting, dead nourishment at all.

To develop not just the physical ability, but also the strategy to catch antelope in the wild, a cheetah must have antelopes to chase, room to chase them and a cheetah role model to show them how to do it. Without instruction and practice, they are unlikely to be able to learn essential survival skills.

A recent nature documentary about cheetahs in lion country showed a curious fact of life in the wild. Lions kill cheetah cubs. They don’t eat them, they just kill them. In fact, they appear to work rather hard to find them in order to kill them (though cheetahs can’t possible threaten the continued survival of lions). Is this maliciousness? Recreation? No one knows. We only know that lions do it. Cheetah mothers must hide their dens and go to great efforts to protect their cubs, coming and going from the den only under deep cover, in the dead of night or when lions are far away. Gifted children and their families often feel like cheetahs in lion country.

In some schools, brilliant children are asked to do what they were never designed to do (like cheetahs asked to tear open a wildebeest hide with their claws – after all, the lions can do it!) while the attributes that are a natural aspect of unusual mental capacity – intensity, passion, high energy, independence, moral reasoning, curiosity, humor, unusual interests and insistence on truth and accuracy – are considered problems that need fixing. Brilliant children may feel surrounded by lions who make fun of them or shun them for their differences, who may even break their legs or drug them to keep them moving more slowly, in time with the lions’ pace. Is it any wonder they would try to escape? Or put on a lion suit to keep from being noticed? Or fight back?

This metaphor, like any metaphor, eventually breaks down. Highly gifted children don’t have body markings and non-retractable claws by which to be identified when not performing. Furthermore, the cheetah’s ability to run 70 mph is a single trait readily measured. Highly gifted children are very different from each other, so there is no single ability to look for, even when they are performing. Besides that, a child’s greatest gifts could be outside the academic world’s definition of achievement and so go unrecognized altogether. While this truth can save some children from being wantonly killed by marauding lions, it also keeps them from being recognized for what they are – children with deep and powerful innate differences as all-encompassing as the differences between cheetahs and other big cats. That they may not be instantly recognizable does not mean that there is no means of identifying them. It means that more time and effort are required to do it. Educators can learn the attributes of unusual intelligence and observe closely enough to see those attributes in individual children. They can recognize not only that highly gifted children can do many things which other children cannot, but also that there are tasks which other children can do that the highly gifted cannot.

Every organism has an internal drive to fulfill its biological design. The same is true for unusually bright children. From time to time the bars need to be removed, the enclosures broadened. Zoo Chow, easy and cheap as it is, must give way, at least some of the time to lively, challenging mental prey. More than this, schools need to believe that it is important to make the effort, that these children not only have the needs of all other children to be protected and properly cared for, but that they have as much right as others to have their special needs met.

Biodiversity is a fundamental principle of life on our planet. It allows life to adapt and to change. In our culture, highly gifted children, like cheetahs, are endangered. Like cheetahs, they are here for a reason; they fill a particular niche in the design of life. Zoos, whatever their limitations, may be critical to the continued survival of cheetahs; many are doing their best to offer their captives what they will need to eventually survive in the wild. Schools can do the same for their highly gifted children.

Unless we make a commitment to saving these children, we will continue to lose them, as well as whatever unique benefit their existence might provide for the human species of which they are an essential part.

Exceptionally capable learners are children who progress in learning at a significantly faster pace than do other children of the same age, often resulting in high levels of achievement. Such children are found in all segments of society. Beginning in early childhood, their optimal development requires differentiated educational experiences, both of a general nature and, increasingly over time, targeting those domains in which they demonstrate the capacity for high levels of performance. Such differentiated educational experiences consist of adjustments in the level, depth, and pacing of curriculum and outside-of-school programs to match their current levels of achievement and learning rates. Marked differences among gifted learners sometimes require additional and unusual interventions. Additional support services include more comprehensive assessment, counseling, parent education, and specially designed programs, including those typically afforded older students.

Rimm (1992) assembled her thoughts on ability grouping by comparing the issue to bike riding with her husband and youngest daughter – both of whom needed a faster pace and longer ride to obtain a suitable fitness experience. Thinking analogically about children of varying abilities in the same classroom, she imagined not 3, but 23, bike riders and posed nine questions. As you read the following list, think first about your answer to each biking question; then think of the answer as though you were a student in a classroom:

1. Was the main purpose of our biking social or physical fitness? While social fitness is important, the primary purpose of school is not social, but educational, fitness.

2. Would it have been possible for us to meet our social and physical fitness goals with the same activity? We cannot meet all students’ social and educational fitness needs with the same activities; they can be better met with grouping for some parts of the curriculum and not grouping for others.

3. How would my husband and daughter have felt if I asked them to slow their pace for me or to spend most of their time teaching me to bike better? Students who need more challenge may resent teachers and other students who slow their learning process. They feel bored in class and tend to feel superior to other kids if they spend their time teaching instead of learning.

4. How would I feel about myself if the more able bikers were to spend most of their time teaching me or slowing down to wait for me? Slower students hesitate to ask questions or to volunteer and discuss if they feel they are slowing other students. Believing they are slowing others is not good for self-esteem.

5. Would the better bikers enjoy biking with persons of similar skills, strength, and endurance? Very capable students enjoy learning with intellectual peers and often miss the stimulation when peers are unavailable.

6. How could I feel good about my physical fitness activity even though I was slowest? All children experience satisfaction in learning if they feel they are making progress. Setting and reaching personal goals is important for children at all levels.

7. How would I feel if an outsider insisted that I keep up with the faster bikers? Children feel pressured if they are rushed beyond their capacity.

8. How would I feel if others did not see the value of my physical fitness activity for me? Children who are not viewed as achieving by parents and teachers do not feel good about themselves. All students should experience a sense of accomplishment and “worthwhileness” of effort.

9. How would I feel if my fitness and strength improved, but I was forced to continue to ride at my same speed and distance? It is important to show children paths for movement between groups, particularly upward mobility through effort.

A bike ride provides physical fitness only when all riders are encouraged to exercise to their abilities. P.S. Yes, we are still riding for physical fitness in 2009.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about giftedness. …the gifted have special needs. …Exceptional children of all types are significantly different from the norm; therefore, they fail to thrive without modifications. The purpose of special provisions for exceptional children, whether educational or counseling, is to respond to their unique needs. Although it is relatively clear that children in every other branch of special education have unique needs, this assumption has not been widely endorsed for the gifted and has to be made explicit. …the unique needs…increase in direct proportion to the degree of exceptionality.

The situation is further complicated by unconscious hostility in society toward children who are thought of as “intellectually advantaged”. Resentment toward gifted children on the part of administrators, psychologists, counselors, and teachers has been well documented. Whereas other exceptional children receive sympathy, often the gifted are targets of antagonism, which increases their emotional vulnerability…

…perennial charge of “elitism”. It is ironic that football heroes and Olympic medal winners are exempt from this charge. Athletically advanced youth are the pride of the nation; no one would dream of holding them to the level of their less talented peers as a part of a misguided program of egalitarianism. The accusation of “elitism” has been misdirected at the gifted -- elitism is actually a function of socioeconomic class rather than of intellectual differences. There is no evidence that grouping gifted children fosters snobbery. On the contrary, a false sense of one’s importance is more likely to result from being “top banana” in one’s class all the way through school with no equally able peers and no need to study because the work is too easy. Grouping gifted children together usually cures any illusions of superiority.

…The result is that the educational needs of the gifted and highly gifted are usually neglected, which in turn affects their morale, motivation, social relationships, aspirations, sense of self-worth, and emotional development. Counseling for the gifted is needed to help these students cope with society’s attitudes toward them, as well as to help them find their way through an educational system that is not designed to optimize their progress. Counselors can provide emotional support to individual students and their parents, institute preventive counseling groups, work with individual teachers to obtain curricular modifications for gifted students, or work at the building level to establish appropriate programs.

In addition to helping gifted students deal with the impact of the external conditions listed above, the counselor must be sensitive to the unique internal conditions of this group. These internal variables – for example, intensity, sensitivity, and perfectionism – …[it is important to understand] the complex inner life of the gifted throughout the life span, as well as their differentiated counseling needs.

3. When parents fail to recognize a child’s gifts, teachers may overlook them as well. Rita Dickinson (1970) found that half of the children she tested with IQs of 132 or above were referred for behavior problems and not seen as gifted by their teachers or parents…

8. Gifted girls and gifted boys have different coping mechanisms and are likely to face different problems. Gifted girls hide their abilities and learn to blend in with other children. In elementary school they direct their mental energies into developing social relationships; in junior high school they are valued for their appearance and sociability rather than for their intelligence. Gifted boys are easier to spot, but they are often considered “immature" and may be held back in school if they cannot socialize with children their own age with whom they have no common interests.

9. Gifted children are asynchronous. Their development tends to be uneven, and they often feel out-of-sync with age peers and with age-based school expectations. They are emotionally intense and have greater awareness of the perils of the world. They may not have the emotional resources to match their cognitive awareness. They are at risk for abuse in environments that do not respect their differences.

13. Gifted children have better social adjustment in classes with children like themselves. The brighter the child, the lower his or her social self-concept is likely to be in the regular classroom. Social self-concept improves when children are placed with true peers in special classes.

14. Perfectionism, sensitivity and intensity are three personality traits associated with giftedness. They are derived from the complexity of the child's cognitive and emotional development. …these traits—…are indicative of potential for high moral values in adult life. The brighter the child, the earlier and more profound may be his or her concern with moral issues. But this potential usually does not develop in a vacuum. It requires nurturing in a supportive environment.

15. About 60% of gifted children are introverted compared with 30% of the general population. Approximately 75% of highly gifted children are introverted. Introversion correlates with introspection, reflection, the ability to inhibit aggression, deep sensitivity, moral development, high academic achievement, scholarly contributions, leadership in academic and aesthetic fields in adult life, and smoother passage through midlife; however, it is very likely to be misunderstood and “corrected” in children by well-meaning adults.

16. Mildly, moderately, highly, exceptionally and profoundly advanced children are as different from each other as mildly, moderately, severely and profoundly delayed children are from each other, but the differences among levels of giftedness are rarely recognized.

Acceleration

Educational acceleration is one of the cornerstones of exemplary gifted education practices, with more research supporting this intervention than any other in the literature on gifted individuals. The practice of educational acceleration has long been used to match high-level students’ general abilities and specific talents with optimal learning opportunities.

Curriculum Compacting

This important instructional strategy condenses, modifies, or streamlines the regular curriculum to reduce repetition of previously mastered material. “Compacting” what students already know allows time for acceleration or enrichment beyond the basic curriculum for students who would otherwise be simply practicing what they already know.

Grouping

The practice of grouping, or placing students with similar abilities and/or performance together for instruction, has been shown to positively impact student learning gains. Grouping gifted children together allows for more appropriate, rapid, and advanced instruction, which matches the rapidly developing skills and capabilities of gifted students.

Emotional Dimensions of Giftedness

How gifted kids feel on an emotional level doesn’t always match logically with their intellectual capabilities. Brighter doesn’t necessarily mean happier, healthier, more successful, socially adept, or more secure. Neither does brighter necessarily mean hyper, difficult, overly sensitive, or neurotic. In terms of emotional and social characteristics, brighter may not mean anything “different” at all. But while gifted kids don’t have common personality traits, they do have common problems.

Like members of any minority, gifted students may feel insecure just because they’re different from the norm. Teenagers and preteens in particular desperately want to be like everyone else, and any difference, whether positive or negative, is cause for anxiety. But sometimes gifted kids are very different; they may feel isolated, alienated, or “weird” as a result. “They have so many problems connecting with other people,” teachers have said, “there’s a sense of isolation that gets bigger and bigger as years go by, unless some interventions are made.”

The educational community has been quick to dismiss the emotional problems of high-achieving students for many of the same reasons we have dismissed their intellectual needs. Perhaps we have too many other kids with worse problems. Perhaps we think that smart kids don’t need our help. Many of us may not realize that some of our brighter students are, in fact, in quite a bit of trouble. They don’t necessarily look needy; they seem to have it all together.

Accustomed to conquering intellectual problems logically, students themselves may deny their emotional problems by saying, “I’m supposed to be smart. I should be able to think my way out of this.” Or, because they are smart, they can successfully delude themselves or rationalize their behavior.

Finally, many of us may realize that gifted students suffer emotionally, but we aren’t sure how to handle it.

Challenges from Within and Without

Evidence is accumulating that certain challenges to emotional balance may come automatically with exceptional intellectual ability or talent. Challenges may come both from within the person and from without. Challenges from within include being, by nature, highly perceptive, highly involved, super-sensitive, and perfectionistic. Challenges from without come from conflict with the environment. …

Of course, not all students suffer all of the problems described here. Some have few adjustment problems generally and feel fine about life. Others experience difficulty in four or five areas. A student’s needs will depend on his or her maturity level, type of intelligence, environment, and a whole host of other personality characteristics.

Extra Perception

Consider, for instance, the effect that being highly perceptive to stimuli (sounds, sights, smells, touches, tastes, movements, words, patterns, numbers, physical phenomena, people) would make in one’s daily life. …

High Involvement

…gifted students dream repetitively of treasured problems, pictures, patterns, or concerns. They are obsessed with the intricacy or beauty of phenomena at hand. …Gifted individuals perceive greater levels of complexity in the world around them, and they find this complexity interesting and meaningful. …

Super-Sensitivity

…Many gifted students are super-sensitive to ethical issues and concerns that are considered unimportant by their peers. They may be highly moralistic. They may be quick to judge others. …

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is not a good thing… What is good is the pursuit of excellence, which is something quite different. Perfectionism means that you can never fail, you always need approval, and if you come in second, you’re a loser. Ther pursuit of excellence means taking risks, trying new things, growing, changing – and sometimes failing…Gifted people of all ages are especially prone to perfectionism. This may be rooted in the awareness of quality. They know the difference between the mediocre and the superior. Once they see how womething “outght to be done”…they may naturally want to do it htat way. And they may drive themselves (and others!) crazy in the process. This is why gifted students need support to persist despite their constant awareness of “failure.”

Uneven Integration

Challenges to emotional peace can also come from within when a student’s intellectual abilities are out of sync. [Students may be much stronger in one area than another –relative strengths and weaknesses can cause frustration]. …gifted kids can have poor study skills [especially if they haven’t previously had to study to learn/understand material]. …

1. Gifted Students Don’t Need Help; They’ll Do Fine On Their Own

Would you send a star athlete to train for the Olympics without a coach? Gifted students need guidance from well-trained teachers who challenge and support them in order to fully develop their abilities..

2. Teachers Challenge All The Students, So Gifted Kids Will Be Fine In The Regular Classroom

Although teachers try to challenge all students they are frequently unfamiliar with the needs of gifted children and do not know how to best serve them in the classroom. ...58% of teachers have received no professional development focused on teaching academically advanced students in the past few years and 73% of teachers agreed that “Too often, the brightest students are bored and under-challenged in school – we’re not giving them a sufficient chance to thrive. ...not all teachers are able to recognize and support gifted learners.

3. Gifted students make everyone else in the class smarter by providing a role model or a challenge

Average or below-average students do not look to the gifted students in the class as role models. Watching or relying on someone who is expected to succeed does little to increase a struggling student’s sense of self-confidence.2 Similarly, gifted students benefit from classroom interactions with peers at similar performance levels and become bored, frustrated, and unmotivated when placed in classrooms with low or average-ability students.

4. All children are gifted

All children have strengths and positive attributes, but not all children are gifted in the educational sense of the word. The label “gifted” in a school setting means that when compared to others his or her age or grade, a child has an advanced capacity to learn and apply what is learned in one or more subject areas, or in the performing or fine arts. This advanced capacity requires modifications to the regular curriculum to ensure these children are challenged and learn new material. Gifted does not connote good or better; it is a term that allows students to be identified for services that meet their unique learning needs.

5. Acceleration placement options are socially harmful for gifted students

Academically gifted students often feel bored or out of place with their age peers and naturally gravitate towards older students who are more similar as “intellectual peers.” Studies have shown that many students are happier with older students who share their interest than they are with children the same age.3 Therefore, acceleration placement options such as early entrance to Kindergarten, grade skipping, or early exit should be considered for these students.

6. Gifted education programs are elitist

Gifted education programs are meant to help all high-ability students. Gifted learners are found in all cultures, ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic groups...

7. That student can’t be gifted, he is receiving poor grades

Underachievement describes a discrepancy between a student’s performance and his actual ability. The roots of this problem differ...No matter the cause, it is imperative that a caring and perceptive adult help gifted learners break the cycle of underachievement in order to achieve their full potential.

8. Gifted students are happy, popular, and well adjusted in school

Many gifted students flourish in their community and school environment. However, some gifted children differ in terms of their emotional and moral intensity, sensitivity to expectations and feelings, perfectionism, and deep concerns about societal problems. Others do not share interests with their classmates, resulting in isolation or being labeled unfavorably as a “nerd.” Because of these difficulties, the school experience is one to be endured rather than celebrated.

9. This child can’t be gifted, he has a disability

Some gifted students also have learning or other disabilities…it is important to focus on the students’ abilities and allow them to have challenging curricula in addition to receiving help for their learning disability.4

10. Our district has a gifted and talented program: we have AP courses.

While AP classes offer rigorous, advanced coursework, they are not a gifted education program. The AP program is designed as college-level classes taught by high school teachers for students willing to work hard. The program is limited in its service to gifted and talented students in two major areas: First AP is limited by the subjects offered, which in most districts is only a small handful. Second it is limited in that, typically, it is offered only in high school and is generally available only for 11th and 12th grade students...

11. Gifted education requires an abundance of resources.

Offering gifted education services does not need to break the bank. ...beginning a program requires little more than an acknowledgement by district and community personnel that gifted students need something different, a commitment to provide appropriate curriculum and instruction, and teacher training in identification and gifted education strategies.