Identifying Giftedness in the Hearing Impaired: the Effectiveness of Four Nomination Forms

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of four nomination forms in identifying intellectually gifted, hearing-impaired children. All subjects in the study were between the ages of 5 and 20 years, had hearing losses greater than 70 decibels in the better ear, and were in attendance at the Alberta School for the Deaf. Group I consisted of students nominated as gifted by teachers; Group II, the comparison group, consisted of age-matched students who had not been nominated as gifted. The results demonstrated that 1) the nominated group (Group I) had a higher mean IQ percentile and a higher mean score on the nomination forms than Group II; 2) there was no relationship between IQ percentile and nomination form scores, and 3) all four nomination forms were significantly correlated for Group I, while three were correlated for Group II. Qualitative data gathered from teachers of the hearing-impaired indicated that perceived characteristics of giftedness in this population are essentially the same as those observed in hearing children except that gifted hearing children are likely to be working above grade level, whereas gifted hearing-impaired children are more apt to be working at grade level.