SENG & GDC Professional Development Course: New Ways to Identify Twice-Exceptional Learners on the WISC-V

Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) and Gifted Development Center (GDC) Present:

A series of professional development courses for psychologists, school counselors, administrators, and examiners of gifted and twice exceptional children. The series will generate APA Continuing Education Units (CEUs). Others may take the courses without earning APA CEUs. 

NEW WAYS TO IDENTIFY TWICE EXCEPTIONAL LEARNERS ON THE WISC-V

Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D.

Not all parts of an IQ test have equal ability to identify advanced ability. Subtests loaded in abstract reasoning reveal the stunning cognitive power of the gifted mind. There are now new ways to identify gifted and twice exceptional (2e) children that provide more accurate estimates of the abilities of gifted children than the Full Scale IQ. According to the NAGC Position Statement, “Use of the WISC-V for Gifted and Twice Exceptional Identification,” 7 different composite scores should be acceptable for selection to gifted programs, provided that the score falls within the confidence interval of the selection criterion. A gifted lens is needed to obtain accurate assessments of twice exceptional children. The most important diagnostic question is, “To what extent does the discrepancy between the child’s strengths and weaknesses cause frustration and interfere with the full development of the child’s abilities?”

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will learn about new index scores of the WISC-V and their benefit in the identification of twice exceptional students.

2. Participants will become familiar with the NAGC Position Statement, “Use of the WISC-V for Gifted and Twice Exceptional Identification.”

3. Participants will learn how to interpret the strengths separately from the weaknesses in complex WISC-V protocols of twice exceptional students.

About the Presenter:

Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D., licensed psychologist, is the founder and director of Gifted Development Center/ISAD (GDC). Since 1979, GDC has assessed more than 6,500 children, most of whom are twice exceptional. After receiving her Ph.D. from USC in Special Education/ Educational Psychology, under the direction of Dr. Leo Buscaglia, she served on the faculty of the University of Denver in counseling psychology and gifted education. Linda has been studying the assessment, psychology and education of the gifted and twice exceptional since 1961. She has over 300 contributions, including Counseling the Gifted & Talented, Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner, Advanced Development: A Collection of Works on Gifted Adults, and Giftedness 101.  She founded Advanced Development, the only juried psychological journal on adult giftedness. With her colleagues, she created the Checklist for Recognizing Twice Exceptional Children. The checklist is available to all participants in this session, along with the National Association for Gifted Children Position Statement, "Use of the WISC-V for Gifted and Twice Exceptional Identification," which is the basis of this session.

Readings:

For Everyone:

Silverman, L. K. (in press). The overlooked role of modalities in twice exceptional children. 

For APA CEUs:

Silverman, L. K. (2013). Giftedness 101. New York: Springer. (Available for purchase in the SENG Store)

Silverman, L. K. (2018). Assessment of giftedness.  In S. Pfeiffer (Ed.), Handbook of giftedness in children: Educational theory, research, and best practices (2nd ed., pp.183-207). New York: Springer Science. 

Silverman, L. K. (2009). The measurement of giftedness.  In L. Shavinina (Ed.).  The international handbook on giftedness (pp. 947-970).  Amsterdam:  Springer Science.

Cost: $200 

When you register for this course, you will receive a link to a Google Drive folder containing all necessary materials. In order to receive your APA CE credits, you must watch the course recording and read all mandatory readings. Once you have done so, you must then complete the Course Quiz (passing with a grade of 80% or better) then complete the Course Evaluation. Once you have completed both the Quiz and the Evaluation, you will receive a certificate of completion from the SENG staff within 5-7 business days. If you have any questions, please contact trent.cash@sengifted.org.