Abstract
Significant numbers of children in our schools are being labeled “gifted” and are being streamed into special accelerated or enriched academic programs. An even larger number of children are being implicitly labeled “not gifted” and are not being given the opportunity to participate in these programs. Two issues are raised in this paper in connection with the processes used in identifying these children. The first concerns the adequacy with which the giftedness construct is defined in applied settings. Certain deficiencies in that respect are discussed. The second issue concerns the adequacy of the validation data available for these gifted identification procedures. Weaknesses respecting construct validity and predictive validity are identified. The paper concludes with a discussion of some positive developments relating to definitions of the giftedness construct and validation efforts.
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