| It is extremely important that parents understand our position as to the meaning of the word. Firstly, it is incumbent upon us to emphasize that opinions differ widely in terms of how to characterize giftedness. Some educators equate giftedness with potential; others believe that gifts become meaningful and therefore identifiable only when children apply them. Dr Joseph Renzulli, a professor of educational psychology and pioneer in the area of tile education of gifted children, is a proponent of the "become meaningful only when children apply them" principle. He prefers to speak of "behavior" rather than "being gifted." We agree with Professor Renzulli in this regard.
In light of the aforementioned statements, we must point out that the Preadmission Screening that we do with children is very much a measure of their "behavior/performance" on assessments of expressive language, receptive language, attention/concentration ability, conceptual knowledge, and verbal intelligence.
We do not claim that the battery of tests that we administer to your child is the "quintessential measure" of gifted behavior. Indeed, we are quite certain that it is impossible to develop such a battery/instrument. We are, however, very much aware of the language, attention, and conceptual abilities that preschoolers must possess in order to succeed in our stimulating, engaging curriculum; these abilities are indeed measured by the tests which make up the Preadmission Screening.
We encourage you to keep these thoughts in mind whether your child is accepted (or not accepted) into our program. If your child is accepted into our program, it is fair for you to assume that he/she has excellent language and attention skills and should, there fore, react quite positively to our curriculum. If your child is not accepted into our program, it simply means that, in our best judgment, he/she does not (at this time) possess those abilities which we believe are critical prerequisites to deriving the maximum cognitive and affective benefits from our program.
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