[Ohiogift] Are Gifted Children getting lost in the shuffle?

[Margaret DeLacy]

Friends:

Joan Brasher has posted a discussion of an important new study on the Vanderbilt University website.

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/01/gifted-children-study/

The blog reports on a 30-year longitudinal study of 320 profoundly gifted students carried out by David Lubinsky, Camilla Benbow and Harrison Kell, entitled 
“Who Rises to the Top? Early Indicators".

Here is an excerpt from the blog post

Gifted children are likely to be the next generation’s innovators and leaders—yet the exceptionally smart are often invisible in the classroom, lacking the curricula, teacher input and external motivation to reach full potential....

Despite their remarkable success, researchers concluded that the profoundly gifted students had experienced roadblocks along the way that at times prevented them from achieving their full potential. Typical school settings were often unable to accommodate the rapid rate at which they learned and digested complex material. When students entered elementary and high school classrooms on day one having already mastered the course material, teachers often shifted focus away from them to those struggling with the coursework. This resulted in missed learning opportunities, frustration and underachievement, particularly for the exceptionally talented, the researchers suggest.

“There’s this idea that gifted students don’t really need any help,” Kell said. “This study shows that’s not the case. These people with very high IQs—what some have called the ‘scary smart’—will do well in regular classrooms, but they still won’t meet their full potential unless they’re given access to accelerated coursework, AP classes and educational programs that place talented students with their intellectual peers


Here's a link to the original study on which this article was based:

https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Kell-Lubinski-Benbow-20132.pdf