CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS

Presenters : Rose Blackett and Lynn Berresford

BE A DETECTIVE! Identifying the Gifted Student

Identification of gifted students is now a requirement for all schools under NAG 1. A recent ERO report found that one in five schools cater for their gifted students. This result suggests many gifted students are not being identified and many schools are not using appropriate identification procedures.

Lynn and Rose, both practicing psychologists, will discuss how schools can utilise assessment data already collected. They will consider formal and informal assessment tools suitable for identifying gifted students. Participants will leave with knowledge and ideas on how to set up an identification procedure that is multi cultural, multi-categorical, recognises twice exceptional students (gifted with an underlying learning or behavioural difficulty) and those who are underachieving. We will discuss more formal assessment tools, such as the WISC IV and WJIII , but also emphasise that not all gifted students need to have an individual cognitive assessment with an educational psychologist.

In this presentation, I will examine how gifted girls are depicted in popular culture and how they respond to such characterisations.