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Abstract

To increase the proportion of elementary minority students identified as gifted, the System of Multicultural Pluralistic Assessment (SOMPA) was employed with minority disadvantaged children in a large urban school district. A group of African-American students in second through fifth grades became eligible for gifted programming when their IQ scores were adjusted using SOMPA procedures. The performance of these SOMPA students on the Ross Test of Higher Cognitive Processes and other measures did not differ from that of a group of African-American gifted students who were identified on the basis of traditional criteria. There were also no significant differences between the groups in Ross subtest scores seven months later. The SOMPA procedures used to identify these gifted students may provide an alternative method to increase the proportion of minority students in gifted programs; particularly in states that use IQ cut-off scores for placement decisions.

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Use of SOMPA in Identification of Gifted African-American Children

Abstract

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