Gifted & Talented

Cotton Creek offers extension activities to those students identified as Gifted and Talented (GT). These activities are offered in a small group setting at various times throughout the school year. Students are referred to the GT program by their teacher and/or parent based on observable GT characteristics or behaviors. Students exhibiting such characteristics are tested by the end of the second semester.

What is Gifted and Talented?

"Children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment."
- US Department of Education, 1993

According to the National Society for the Gifted and Talented, here are some characteristics of Gifted Students that parents should use to see if they think their child is gifted:

1. Gifted students are often perfectionist and idealistic.
2. Gifted students may experience heightened sensitivity to their own expectations and those of others.
3. Gifted students are asynchronous
4. Some gifted students are "mappers" (sequential learners), while others are "leapers" spatial learners.
5. Gifted students may be so far ahead of their chronological age mates that they know half the curriculum before the school year begins!
6. Gifted children are problem solvers.
7. Gifted students often think abstractly and with such complexity that they may need help with concrete study and test-taking skills.
8. Gifted students who do well in school may define success as getting an "A" and failure as any grade less than an "A".

For more information on GT and how Adams 12 identifies students, please visit the educational links page.