Psychologists are unearthing a wealth of research on the factors that help gifted and talented youth thrive, in particular the finding that accelerating students by grade or course level when they are ready is key to helping them fulfill their potential. When talented children don't get such boosts, their talents will likely remain dormant, research finds.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean educators have been using these insights. First, there is a lack of targeted funding for educating gifted and talented students. Gifted and talented programs receive virtually no federal funds. The Gifted and Talented Children and Youth Education Act of 1988 acknowledges the need for gifted and talented programs and proposes various kinds of support for them, but allocations through the act have been minuscule — a small fraction of 1 percent of the federal education budget.
Meanwhile, at least 30 percent of gifted and talented programs don't receive any state funding, either, and what is available varies widely from state to state, according to a 2014 national survey by researchers at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education.
Besides lack of funding, barriers include competing definitions of giftedness and perceptions that gifted and talented services are too "elitist."
Now, some of that is changing, with psychologists ramping up their efforts to inform educators about the psychological needs of these students and how to help them succeed.
It's important to nurture gifted students' potential because America's role in a global economy requires its citizens to excel, says Frank C. Worrell, PhD, an educational and school psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Policymakers are beginning to acknowledge that our competitiveness on the global stage is driven by students who are gifted and talented," Worrell says. "So finding ways to serve them well in school settings is really important for the nation as it moves forward."
Key findings
One effort that is raising awareness of these students' needs is a new report, "A Nation Empowered: Evidence Trumps the Excuses Holding Back America's Brightest Studentsopens in new window," funded by the University of Iowa's Belin-Blank Center, which focuses on programs, research and advocacy on giftedness at the international level.
The report underscores a central point of psychological and educational research: acceleration — moving children up a grade or providing them with advanced classes in their domain of giftedness, for example — is the most effective way to give gifted and talented students the stimulation they need.
Unfortunately, most schools and educators are leery about using acceleration, thanks to the erroneous notion that placing kids with older cadres could harm them emotionally and socially, says the report's lead editor, Susan G. Assouline, PhD, a professor of school psychology at the University of Iowa. She points to research showing that acceleration tends to support students' social and emotional development by placing them with other like-minded students.
The 2015 report features new material on professional development for teachers and school counselors based on the ideas that this development should be systematic and long-term; that learning communities, including online communities, are an ideal place for this development to take place; and that professional development should include a depth of information on acceleration research so teachers and counselors can make informed recommendations about using this intervention.
The report also contains new research showing that the benefits of acceleration extend into gifted students' careers. People who went through accelerated programs are more productive, work in more prestigious occupations, and enjoy greater success and earnings than nonaccelerated peers of similar ability, according to chapter author Katie McClarty, PhD, a social and personality psychologist who heads the Center for College and Career Success at Pearson's Research and Innovation Network.
"Not only are accelerated students more successful than same-age, nonaccelerated peers of similar ability, they actually have an advantage over older nonaccelerated peers of similar ability who began their careers at the same time as the accelerated students," McClarty says.
In addition, the report provides a tool to help educators, parents, administrators and others decide whether to move a child up. The tool considers the child's current performance, cognitive ability and projected future performance in the accelerated class or grade.
This kind of precise analysis is exactly what psychologists can offer in the quest to help gifted and talented children succeed, Assouline contends.
"Psychologists can give a longer-range perspective that includes not only issues related to children's development — the understanding of typical development and how that varies for kids who are gifted and talented," she says, "but also how that translates into making decisions about curricula and thinking about what students need."
Advancing the agenda
The report dovetails with the efforts of two groups that also are exploring the needs of gifted and talented children.
One is a federal effort funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education's research arm. Called the National Center for Research on Gifted Education, it's headed by educational psychologist Del Siegle, PhD, of the University of Connecticut, and focuses on underserved kids who are gifted and talented in math and reading achievement.
This team of researchers will conduct a two-year study to better understand how schools identify gifted and talented youth; the instructional approaches, curricula and content that schools use with these youngsters; and the ways in which teachers, parents, policymakers and other stakeholders contribute to the likelihood that gifted and talented students will fulfill their academic potential, says Worrell, one of the center's investigators.
On a similar front, APA's Center for Psychology in Schools and Education aims to generate public awareness, advocacy, clinical applications and cutting-edge research ideas that enhance the achievement and performance of children and adolescents with gifts and talents in all domains. A central project involves organizing a coalition of APA divisions that work together to advance knowledge about how gifted and talented youth can fulfill their potential in various domains. Called the Coalition for the Psychology of High Performance, the group brings together psychologists who study performance excellence who might not have come together otherwise. The group's goals are to examine how high performance in youth is manifested, studied, measured and discussed in academic and professional psychology; to study how psychology contributes to high performance; and to identify the generalizable psychological principles of high performance that can be applied across domains and to the talent development of children and youth.
"It's very exciting for all of us because now we have a whole community of people who are looking at high performers, not only in more obvious areas like sports, but also in music, art, business, education and other arenas," says Rena Subotnik, PhD, who directs the APA Center for Psychology in Schools and Education.
The group, funded by the American Psychological Foundation's Esther Katz Rosen Foundation and co-chaired by the University of California's Worrell, includes members from APA divisions 3 (Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science), 7 (Developmental Psychology), 10 (Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts), 14 (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology), 16 (School Psychology), 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology), 19 (Society for Military Psychology) and 47 (Society for Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology).
Members are compiling literature summaries in several areas that will be turned into teaching modules for K through 12 teachers, counselors and school psychologists. The first one is due out in 2016. The topics include:
- Tapping into the positive aspects of competition and avoiding or reducing its negative impacts for children and youth.
- Creating psychosocial strategies to help talented youth become confidently creative adults, for example by practicing strategic risk-taking and promoting persistence through setbacks, as well as triumphs.
- Determining how people who vet creative products — journal editors, sports judges and artistic directors, for instance — choose what enters the public sphere.
The group also plans to create teaching modules to accompany each summary, with the first one on competition due out in 2016.
Continuing research
Meanwhile, several studies are underway to continue to better understand the needs of gifted and talented children. The APA center, for example, is analyzing results from a study it conducted with University of Virginia researchers on teens who attended selective STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) high schools or who were part of a science talent search in regular high schools. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study found that about 50 percent of those who graduated from these schools and 53 percent of those discovered in talent-search programs went on to earn a college degree in a STEM discipline — a much higher rate than regular high school graduates.
The analysis also found that graduates of selective science schools were 37 percent more likely to complete a STEM-related major if one or both parents worked in a STEM field, compared with those whose parents didn't work in a STEM field. (See "Staying power" in the December 2013 Monitor for more.)
Using the same data, the team is examining factors that might prompt students without a parent in STEM to nevertheless complete a STEM university degree. That's important because these kids need extra attention if they are to persist, Subotnik says. In fact, what influenced them to complete a STEM degree was having mentors or teachers who encouraged their confidence in college-level science, and who guided them to meet academic challenges in part by exploring their interests in scientific topics of their own choosing, she says.
In addition, several other studies support the argument that using specific gifted and talented policies and programs can reap long-term benefits. A longitudinal study by McClarty reported in the January issue of the Gifted Child Quarterlyopens in new window, for instance, found that students who had skipped at least one grade before eighth grade performed better on the math sections of the PSAT, SAT and most of the ACT, and earned higher high school grades than matched peers who had not been accelerated. They also earned higher grades in college.
Such findings underscore the importance of supporting kids whose talents are above the norm, adds the University of Iowa's Assouline.
