A description is given of the Gifted Studies Network, established to meet the needs of teachers of the gifted. The purpose of the program is to work with local school districts and local educational agencies in the development and implementation of alternative methods of educating the gifted learner, using programs ordinarily not offered in the…

Controversy surrounding the definition of the gifted student, as enacted through New Mexico's Public School Reform Act of 1986 (S.B. 106) is examined in this study. The Kingdon decision-making model is applied to examine the reasons for the persistence of the policy definition of "gifted," despite continuing controversy. The summary…

Characteristics of 292 youths (269 males and 23 females) identified by high scores (before the age of 13) on the Scholastic Aptitude Test-Mathematics as part of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) at Johns Hopkins University are reported. Several of the students have received Ph.D. degrees at very young ages. The young students…

The purpose of this paper is to provide a philosophy of education for the gifted and place that philosophy within the framework of practical education. The paper sketches the philosophy--language arts must be taught in a way that emphasizes the wholeness of the language experience--and discusses two key points: (1) If language arts consist of…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the attitudes toward teaching as a career of high school seniors who scored in the top 15 percent nationally on the American College Test (ACT) and Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) College Admissions Tests. Six hundred twenty-nine students returned usable questionnaires in which they rated the…

The keynote address from the proceedings of the 1988 Conference on Academic Talent is presented here. The address criticizes the current educational system for its concentration on college preparatory courses that have little or no hands-on experience. It argues that the existing system does not encourage curiosity, a problem seen as so pervasive…

Operational and organizational principles are suggested for guiding the establishment of networks to facilitate ongoing interactions between the practitioner and scholar communities in mathematics, science, and technology. These networks would define problems that need attention, carry out research on the problems, and incorporate the results of…

The paper reviews research in the area of cognition, specifically cognitive controls (information processing habits which tend to function across a variety of content areas). The review addresses information on three research questions: (1) What cognitive factors can reliably measure and describe the differences in levels of academic achievement…

A study investigated the top-down and bottom-up reading skill patterns of 34 kindergarten children who, as precocious readers, were reading at or above the third grade level. The children were administered the reading comprehension subtest of a standardized achievement test, five subtests on an intelligence measure, and a battery of reading skills…

A study to determine the effects of higher level interactive questioning procedures on the cognitive abilities of gifted students was conducted with 14 gifted sixth grade students. The students were selected from a public school enrichment program and randomly assigned to one of two groups that met for five weekly sessions. The control group was…

This report discusses college English preparatory or gifted and honors English classes and describes research conducted with students from four college preparatory English classes in 1974. The study involved 96 academically talented seniors who were asked to respond to two structurally dissimilar novels, a free-verse poem and a short story. The…

The elementary program for gifted and talented students in Willingboro, New Jersey, is called the Program for Academically Talented Students (PATS) and is in its third year of operation. The program is administered by the supervisor of reading/language arts and is taught by each of the ten building reading specialists who received special training…

It is hypothesized that the learning afforded by two kinds of educational experiences, standard coursework and volunteer fieldwork, can be enhanced considerably through their integration into a psychology fieldwork course which includes certain additional features designed to facilitate the synergistic process. These features include…

This study reports the cognitive processing of a Year 8 female student (Kerri) during a test, and during her subsequent homework as she consolidated as part of abstracting; a topic of recent research interest. This case adds to the body of knowledge about how constructing and consolidating can occur simultaneously. The analysis captured the…

The Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) I is designed for use with juniors and seniors in high school as part of the college admissions process. Of the nearly 3 million students who took the SAT I in 1998-1999, more than 130,000 were seventh and eighth grade students (more than 110,000 in 1997-1998). While most of these students take the SAT I as…