Serious identification of the gifted started with the work of Lewis Terman early in the 20th century. Terman's model, based largely on IQ, may have made sense in the early 20th century, but it no longer makes sense today. The problems that society needs its gifted individuals to solve in the 21st century require much more than IQ--in addition to…

School psychologists continue to play a critical role in the identification of students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) in schools. However despite decades of research and debate, the field continues to lack consensus on best practice methodologies. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reauthorization in 2004 increased…

Robert J. Sternberg often writes about a lecture-style psychology course he took as a college freshman in which he got a C. "There is a famous Sternberg in psychology," the professor told him at the time, "and it looks like there won't be another." To Mr. Sternberg, the vignette illustrates that conventional assessments do not measure all the…

There is great controversy in the field of learning disabilities (LD) regarding the establishment of criteria for LD identification. The traditional approach to LD identification is to use the IQ-discrepancy. Lyon and colleagues (2001) point out the numerous problems with such an approach, including faulty assumptions about the adequacy of an IQ…

The data compression aspect of 20th century science is evident in the "mass action" concept of brain function embodied in the "g" model of intelligence and academic tests. This paper sketches the history of the devolution of the "g" model into multifactored intelligences, contrasts dynamic process versus static…

Performance on one test captures neither the nuances of intellect nor the criteria for giftedness. The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) greatly enhances discourse on the nature of giftedness. The paper explains MI beyond the linguistic and logical-mathematical traditionally esteemed in schools, highlighting MI theory at one Missouri school.…