A more recent report released by the National Department of Education in 1993 ("National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent") kept the multidimensional definition of giftedness but once again lamented the sorry state of gifted education. In the report, Secretary of Education Richard Riley called gifted education the "quiet crisis."

Various psychologists have put forward their own pet theories of giftedness. Howard Gardner proposed eight independent abilities: verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Robert J. Sternberg proposed a synthesis of wisdom, intelligence, and creativity. Other researchers have added psychosocial traits to the picture. In Joseph Renzulli's Three-Ring definition, giftedness is conceptualized as the interaction of high ability (top 15-20 percent of any domain), creativity, and task commitment. Francoys Gagne's Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT) includes traits such as motivation and temperament as catalysts that help transform gifts (e.g., intellectual, socio-affective) to talents (e.g., academics, social activists).

This all well and good, but what's the reality of the matter? How do states actually define and identify giftedness in the United States? Has anything actually changed since the Terman IQ cutoff-only days?

To look at the current state of affairs, Mary-Catherine McClain and Steven I. Pfeiffer recently conducted a national survey of current state policies and practices (soon to be published in The Journal of Applied School Psychology) to assess how states define giftedness, identify giftedness, and accommodate gifted minority students. This is what they found.

Definitions of Giftedness

Nearly all states (48 out of 50) in the United States today have established definitions of giftedness. The two exceptions are Massachusetts and South Dakota, who have no current definition for gifted and talented students. Even so, states differ quite a bit in how they define giftedness. Some states stick with the label "gifted" whereas others use more broad and expansive definitions including "gifted and talent" or "high ability students". There is also indication of a change: 24 states changes or modified their definition of giftedness over the past decade. For example, Indiana's definition changed from "gifted and talented" to "high ability".

What areas of giftedness are included in state definitions? Here's the breakdown:

As you can see, intelligence and high achievement are two of the big winners. 45 state definitions (90%) include intelligence as an area or category of giftedness, and 39 include high achievement. Interestingly, 27 states include creativity (54%). I didn't expect such a large number of states to explicitly include creativity in their definition of giftedness and was pleased to see this. 28 states include a specific area of giftedness, and 15 states include leadership skills. Motivation and the performing arts are seriously lacking in definitions of giftedness, with only three states thinking either of these were an important part of giftedness.

Looking at the chart, you can also see that there have been some changes in the past 10 years. But I don't think all the changes are necessarily positive. For instance, more schools now include intelligence in their definition of giftedness, and less schools view creativity as a form of giftedness. Some other notable changes: since 2000, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Minnesota developed state definitions for giftedness, Maryland added the category of "leadership" and Georgia removed "leadership" and "artistic" from their state definition.

Identification of Giftedness

So that's how states define giftedness. But what methods do they actually use to identify giftedness? Do they practice what they preach?

Here's the breakdown:

Again, the clear winners are IQ and standardized achievement tests. The biggest losers are tests of creativity, teacher rating scales, indicators of actual performance, and the use of behavior checklists. Compared to earlier reports, there was only a small overall change nationwide with respect to how states identify gifted students.

Interestingly, no state reported using a single IQ score alone to determine whether a student is gifted. This is actually a pretty big deal, and a huge change from just 20 years ago. Most states (54%) use a multiple cutoff or averaging approach. The multiple cutoff model requires that students score above a set score on two or more different measures. The averaging approach is similar to the multiple cutoff approach but the student doesn't have to show the same level of threshold across different domains. Seven states (14%) use a single cutoff: flexible model, in which only one outcome is considered, but school districts can be flexible in terms of which test and threshold is allowable. Sixteen states (32%) report that they do not require, recommend, or adhere to any one specific criteria for identifying gifted students. It should be noted that there is no one best way of identifying gifted students, as each approach has both advantages and disadvantages (more on that in later posts).

Most states (64%) do not use specific tests or cut-off scores for gifted eligibility in their state. With that said, Eighteen states do use a specific cutoff on IQ tests, with 15 of those 18 using specific cutoff scores on standardized tests of achievement and 10 of the 17 using cut-off scores in one or more specific areas of giftedness.