Best Practices in Gifted Identification and Introduction to the New Gifted Rating Scales (GRS TM 2)

Identification of the gifted has moved beyond simply administering an IQ test and determining if the youngster’s score falls above 130 or a school district’s established cut-score. Psychologist Steven Pfeiffer has spent many years working with high ability youth, including serving as executive director of Duke University’s gifted program, Duke TIP. He is lead author of the Gifted Rating Scales (GRS and GRS™ 2) and has led over 200 workshops in the USA and worldwide on best practices in gifted identification. This workshop, drawing on his experience as a clinician, researcher, and test author, introduces key principles underlying best practices in gifted identification. Steven Pfeiffer will familiarize the audience with his tripartite model of giftedness and discuss what constitutes a comprehensive and defensible gifted assessment test battery. Finally, he will present the new GRS™ 2 and demonstrate how this new, second generation teacher and parent gifted rating scale advances gifted assessment.

• Articulate the key principles of best practices in gifted assessment and understand how they improve on gifted identification decisions, including equity and fairness
• Identify a group of tests and measures—and the underlying constructs that they measure (for example, creativity)—which constitute a comprehensive gifted assessment battery.
• Explain how the new GRS™ 2 can be used as a screener or as part of a comprehensive gifted assessment test battery.

Steven I. Pfeiffer, PhD