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Identifying Hispanic Gifted Children: A Screening
Rural Special Education Quarterly, Winter 2004 by Brice, Alejandro, Brice, Roanne
Abstract
Identification of Hispanic children tor gifted programs, particularly those in a rural environment, has been problematic. The question still remains as to what are effective identifying procedures to screen Hispanic students. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between standardized test scores and teacher ratings of student behaviors. Thirty-two Mexican-American students and 23 general education teachers from a small, rural school district in South-Central Florida served as the study participants. Fourteen correlations were calculated involving Stanford Reading and Stanford Math scores with the teacher ratings. Nine correlations were significant (9/14=64%). The Academic Checklist scores and Intellectual scores from the teacher ratings correlated the highest with the Stanford Math scores. The Math portion of the Stanford test may be less linguistically biased. Almost one fourth of the teacher rating items seemed to reflect an Anglo-American bias. Those items which seemed to reflect cultural or linguistic bias are discussed.
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Introduction
As the Hispanic population of the United States continues to dramatically increase, education professionals repeatedly face the challenge of how best to provide services for those whose primary language is Spanish. As of 1999, 32 million individuals identified themselves as being Hispanic (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Hispanics are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States (Valdivicso & Davis, 1998). It should be noted that Hispanic children are the fastest growing culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student population (U.S. Department of Education, 1995). It is predicted that by the year 2005 Hispanics will become the largest CLD ethnic group in the U.S. (Valdivieso & Davis, 1998). Thus, the need for a Rill understanding of bilingualism and its effect upon the education of children, particularly those students who may speak both Spanish and English, is warranted by the changing U.S. demographics.
Rural schools make up 49% of all U.S. schools (Harmon, 2001) and almost 40% of where all teachers work. Currently, rural communities are experiencing a shortage of teachers for math, science, and particularly special education (Harmon, 2001). In addition, a national shortage of qualified special education teachers with bilingual education backgrounds who are willing to work in rural settings is critical (Sealander, Eigcnbcrger, Peterson, Shcllady & Prater, 2001 ). The National Education Association (1998) states that teachers in rural communities "tend to be less educated, slightly less experienced, younger, and less likely to belong to a minority group" (p. 3). Rural schools are also less likely to provide adequate bilingual or English language learning (ELL) services, although one in five children in rural schools belongs to a minority group (National Education Association, 1998). Rural schools are also likely to use narrow identification procedures for identifying gifted students (Aamidor & Spickler, 1995; Obi & Obiakor, 2000).
There is a tremendous undcr-rcpresentation of Hispanic students in programs for the gifted and talented (Bcrmudez & Marquez, 1998; Castellano, 1998; Cohen, 2001 ; Cohen, 1988; De Leon & ArgusCalvo, 1997; Forsbach & Pierce, 1999; Irby & LaraAlecio, 1996; Kloosterman, 1997; Masten, Plata, Wenglar, & Thedford, 1999; Schwartz, 1997) Donovan and Cross (2002) found that Hispanics are under-represented when compared to White (non-Hispanic) students yielding an odds ratio of 0.48 (the number of Hispanic gifted children divided by the number of White gifted children). This figure indicates that Hispanic children are identified by approximately half as much as White students. In addition, children from rural cultural backgrounds may also experience these same difficulties (Aamidor & Spickler, 1995; Obi & Obiakor, 2000). Research indicates that this may be the result of currently used practices to identify gifted students, that is, there is an overuse and reliance upon use of LQ. tests (Frasier, 1987; Irby & Lara-Alccio, 1996; Ortiz, 1989). The use of these tests represent a biased approach to identifying gifted behaviors in children from CLD backgrounds, e.g., Hispanic students (Frasier, 1987; Irby & Lara-Alecio, 1996; Ortiz, 1989). Lewis (2001 ) states that, "These kind of tests are frequently biased in favor of white, middle to upper class suburban and urban children" (p. 123). Frasier (1987) recommends the use of checklists, rating scales, and teacher nominations to accommodate cultural differences in the identification process. Without a change in the identification procedure, Hispanic children "may not move beyond the beginning screening process" (Irby &Lara-Alecio, 1996; p. 122). This point is reiterated by Lewis (2001) when she stated that children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds typically do not make it past the screening process. Hence, as teachers rely more on use of checklists and scales, it becomes more important to have "accurate denning characteristics upon which to screen diverse populations" (Irby & Lara-Alecio, 1996; p. 123). This includes screening children from rural backgrounds.
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