L. 1971 the concept of systematic, annual mathematics talent searches was born because the number of talented students found through informal means was insufficient and because the staff of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth wanted to discover how many exceptionally mathematically able students there were within a given locale. Six talent searches were conducted by SMPY from March, 1972, to January, 1979. The first search attracted participants chiefly from the greater Baltimore area, but the fourth one (December, 1976) extended over the Mid-Atlantic region. In 1979 the Johns Hopkins Office of Talent Identification and Development, now called the Center for the Advancement of Academically Talented Youth, was established to conduct the talent searches, seeking not only students with high mathematical ability but also those with high verbal and/or general ability. In 1980 Assistant Provost Robert N. Sawyer of Duke University adopted the SMPY model (Sawyer & Daggett 1982). Sanford J. Cohn also conducts an annual talent search from his center at Arizona State University at Tempe, as does Joyce Van Tassel-Baska of Northwestern University in Illinois. Many other efforts are based at least somewhat on the SMPY-CTY model. The concept of a talent search has spread and has been adopted across the country since 1972. In this way more than 85,000 students have been identifiedas talented. Currently, approximately 70,000 talented students are expected to be identified each year by the talent searches. This necessitates determining the validity andreliability of this identification protocol. The goal of SMPY and of the programs conducting talent searches, however, is not only to identify talented students early but also to provide educational opportunities that makeit morelikely for these gifted students to become effective, productive adults. SMPY’s model is an attempt to capitalize on Zuckerman’s (1977) finding that accumulation of advantages characterized the backgrounds of Nobel Laureates in the United States.

This chapter focuses on means to identify and facilitate the education of gifted children, especially those who reason extremely well mathematically. It emphasizes programs developed at Johns Hopkins by the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and the Office of Talent Identification and Development (OTID), now called the Center for the Advancement of Academically Talented Youth (CTY). These programs cover the Middle Atlantic region. The chapter illustrates that SMPY's educational facilitation of the ablest students it identifies relies heavily on acceleration. Much concern continues to be expressed about the presumed dangers of acceleration, especially with respect to social and emotional development. Because of the many sex differences in ability and achievement in mathematics among its participants, SMPY has attempted to devise suitable ameliorative strategies. It was also of interest to see what effects the sex difference in mathematical reasoning ability might have had for achievement in high school science.

M OST STANDARDIZED TESTS are recommended by their publishers for use in more than one grade. Frequently, some convenient grouping corresponding to a prevalent type of school, such as the senior high, is suggested in the manual of directions. Quite a few tests are recommended for an even wider range, this being particularly true of intelligence scales. Thus presumably the Otis QuickScoring Mental Ability Test (9), Gamma Test, is equally useful anywhere from Grade 9 through Grade 16, while the California Test of Mental Maturity (2), Advanced Form, is designated for Grade 9adult. Thurstone found that "the factorial content of a test will change as it is given to populations that differ in age and schooling" (14, p. 43), and common sense long ago told us that IQ's based upon a children's test administered with a shortened time limit to adults probably do not have the same significance as they would for fifth graders. Perhaps among adults perceptual speed is the important variable, while for youngsters verbal ability may be more critical. Therefore, if the^P and V factors are not very highly correlated, the person who at an early age earns a certain rating on a given test because at that level it demands chiefly verbal ability may score quite differently on the same scale years later even though his verbal "brightness" is unchanged. Age scales, typified by Binet-type tests, are appropriately used in groups markedly heterogeneous with regard to age or grade. On the other hand, point scales (into which category nearly all group tests

If the academic needs of the most profoundly gifted students can be met through the use of existing educational practices, specialists in gifted education can assume that the educational needs of less able, but still academically talented, students can also be met by using some combination of these strategies as well. This paper illustrates the feasibility and effectiveness of utilizing an individualized educational approach with gifted students by highlighting the unique educational paths taken by two of the very ablest math prodigies identified by Dr. Julian Stanley through the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) since its founding in 1971. Interviews with Dr. Terence (“Terry”) Tao and Dr. Lenhard (“Lenny”) Ng, now both highly successful mathematicians, are presented in their entirety, demonstrating that even among the very ablest, strategies can be tailored effectively to the characteristics of each student through a combination of creative planning and the cooperation of parents, educators, and mentors.

For every 4-year college in the United States listed in the 1998 College Handbook of the College Board, the percentages of students graduating within 6 years of entering and of students having high school grade point averages (GPAs) of at least 3.00 were recorded. The authors also obtained the College Board Scholastic Assessment Test I (SAT I) Verbal and Math and the American College Test (ACT) scores at the 25th and 75th percentiles of the distributions of scores of the enrolled freshmen. The SAT I Verbal and Math and the ACT scores at the 25th and 75th percentiles proved to be good predictors of the percentage of students graduating from the same institution that admitted them as freshmen ( rs ranging from .62 to .73), as did the percentage of freshmen having high school GPAs of 3.00 or higher ( r = .49). The correlations of the group percentages and means with the criterion were considerably higher than the predictive-validity coefficients of the SAT I and ACT scores for individual graduation as reported in the literature.

Too little is known about what happens, when they grow up, to youths who reason extremely well mathematically. Few tell their story to specialists in education of the gifted, either in writing or orally. Julian Stanley brought two successful former “radical accelerants” to the November 1993 annual meeting of the National Association for Gifted Children in Atlanta and also provided some information about 12 other mathematically precocious youths. Jane C. Charlton and Donald M. Marolf, the two young adults featured, told the symposium audience about themselves and answered questions. They were amazingly frank, insightful, and humorous about their lives thus far. Both are convinced, and are convincing, that rapid progress through school grades all the way to the Ph.D. degree is the nearly optimal way for persons like themselves to enrich their education and prepare for adulthood. All three speakers agreed, however, that extremely fast educational advancement might not be the ideal curriculum path for some other equally capable boys and girls.

"Expanding the Johns Hopkins Talent Search Model Internationally1." Gifted and Talented International, 16(2), p. 94

This empirical study involves three types of "tests:" values, interests, and cognitive abilities useful for learning science. It also involves three methods of test-battery construction or use: ipsative (forced-choice), non-ipsative ("normative"), and ipsatived (i.e., normative scores changed to ipsative ones). Scores from ipsatively constructed or ipsatively scored test batteries have no overall level; every examinee earns the same total score. Thus, ipsativity creates strange statistics, but sometimes (as in this study) yields interesting results. For the bright seventh-grade students studied, some of the main findings are as follows: The boys' Theoretical evaluative attitude relates best to the eight cognitive tests, whereas the girls' aesthetic evaluative attitude does; the boys are much more Theoretical, Economic, and Political than the girls, and the girls are much more aesthetic, Social, and Religious than the boys (the same findings as for college students); the cognitive test score's intercorrelate surprisingly highly, considering the great selectivity of the samples studied; and there is considerable agreement of scores on the intrinsically ipsative Allport-Vemon-Lindzey Study of Values with those on the normative Holland Occupations Checklist (HOC), and even more so when the HOC scores are forced to become ipsative.

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