Gifted and Talented
There is no simple or all-inclusive definition for identifying which students in a given student body are the gifted and talented children. Children learn, grow, and mature emotionally at different rates and at different stages of childhood. Slow starters may excel later, just like Albert Einstein, who didn't speak until he was more than two years old but his name is now synonymous with the utmost level of intellectual genius.
In 1916, all gifted and talented children were thought to have exceptionally high IQ scores. The one measure was thought to be a reflection of all the individual's capacities. Nowadays, however, controversy surrounds the very idea of IQ scores and their validity is in question.
Later researchers and psychologists have determined that being gifted and talented means more than mere intellect as measured on a test. All the standard versions of IQ tests measure, by design, only mathematical and verbal acumen while leaving out other areas of emotional and academic achievement altogether.
The newer approach to determining which students are gifted and talented to a measure above the norm is by reviewing a broader scope of the students'talents and abilities. The broader approach is thought to provide a more comprehensive analysis of an individual's abilities.
In 1978, Joseph Renzulli suggested a "three-ring" approach to determining how gifted and talented an individual is. Instead of relying entirely on an IQ score, as had been traditional until that time, he chose to examine three interrelated but separate components of an individual's nature - the ability to learn and accomplish tasks at an above average level, a very high level of commitment to a given task, and creative excellence.
Once gifted and talented children were identified according to Renzulli's multifaceted approach, it became clear that these children required a very wide scope of educational opportunities in order to achieve their fullest potential. The standardized system of public education did not live up to the needs of these exceptional students. Identifying need, however, doesn't necessarily mean alternative methods of learning became immediately or widely available to such students.
In many cases where a child has been identified as gifted and talented, his or her parents feel compelled to find alternative sources of education, outside the standard public school classroom, where the child can learn and prosper in an environment more suited to his or her special needs.