What is gifted?
The definition for highly capable (gifted) used in the State of Washington comes from the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
"Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily
provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities."
provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities."
One of the measures used to identify a gifted student is the score derived from an intelligence measure (aka 'IQ'). The general cutoff for many programs is often placed near the sigma 2 level on a standardized intelligence test with children above this level being labeled 'gifted'.
Moderately Gifted -- 130 to 144 - 2 Standard Deviations (SD's) above the norm
Highly Gifted -- 145 to 159 - 3 SD's above the norm
Exceptionally Gifted -- 160 to 179 4 - SD's above the norm
Profoundly Gifted -- 180 - 5 SD's above the norm
Although the scores from the CogAT7 (one of the tests used by the Bellevue School district to identify students for the gifted program) look similar to IQ scores, they are different. The maximum score on the CogAT7 is 160. As explained by the developers of the CogAT:
"CogAT measures reasoning abilities. Although these abilities are central to all definitions of intelligence, the word intelligence implies much more. However, psychologists have never agreed on the definition of intelligence, so how much more should be included in an intelligence test is often debated. Further, the notion of IQ comes from an earlier set of procedures for indexing the rate of mental development. CogAT does not use these procedures. The SAS scale used on CogAT provides normalized Standard Age Scores for that fraction of the population that attends school."
Moderately Gifted -- 130 to 144 - 2 Standard Deviations (SD's) above the norm
Highly Gifted -- 145 to 159 - 3 SD's above the norm
Exceptionally Gifted -- 160 to 179 4 - SD's above the norm
Profoundly Gifted -- 180 - 5 SD's above the norm
Although the scores from the CogAT7 (one of the tests used by the Bellevue School district to identify students for the gifted program) look similar to IQ scores, they are different. The maximum score on the CogAT7 is 160. As explained by the developers of the CogAT:
"CogAT measures reasoning abilities. Although these abilities are central to all definitions of intelligence, the word intelligence implies much more. However, psychologists have never agreed on the definition of intelligence, so how much more should be included in an intelligence test is often debated. Further, the notion of IQ comes from an earlier set of procedures for indexing the rate of mental development. CogAT does not use these procedures. The SAS scale used on CogAT provides normalized Standard Age Scores for that fraction of the population that attends school."
Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and director of the Gifted Child Development Center in Denver, Colorado, as quoted in William and Mary's Fall 2009 Systems Newsletter, explains why a separate program is essential for our highly gifted and above population:
"The higher the child’s IQ, the more asynchronous the child is likely to be, so that abstract reasoning is far advanced over motor coordination. Highly gifted children need to be taught at the level of their conceptual reasoning, not their eye-hand coordination, which is usually age-appropriate. Speed of performance is not necessarily related to intelligence. They need advanced concepts in mathematics, not Mad Minutes. They do not learn through drill and repetition. They get it the first time. Drill and repetition should be avoided. They are conceptual learners, rather than skill learners."
Bellevue schools attempt to serve the very different needs of gifted and highly gifted students through its multiple gifted programs: Enrichment, Gifted Elementary School Program (GESP), Prism and Gifted High School Program (GHSP).
Additional information:
| Standard Deviations |
| Parent FAQs on the CogAT |
