Equity in Gifted Education and Neurodiversity

The theme for this year’s symposium is Equity in Gifted Education and Neurodiversity.

This year’s event will take place on December 9, 2023 in the Abraham Campus Center at the University of La Verne. Join us as gifted education experts discuss inequity in gifted education. Our speakers will present new, culture-sensitive methods, such as the Naglieri General Ability Tests, for identifying and supporting historically marginalized students who have long been under-represented in gifted education.

Keynote speakers include world-renowned school psychologist and research professor Jack Naglieri, Ph.D., and gifted education experts and professors Dina Brulles, Ph.D. and Kimberly Lansdowne, Ph.D. In this event, local educational professionals will be engaged in this important conversation and given the skills to create more inclusive, equitable programs.

What are the Naglieri General Ability Tests?

The Naglieri General Ability Tests were developed specifically to provide more equitable assessment of students from diverse cultural, linguistic, or socioeconomic backgrounds. Because they measure thinking, not knowledge, these tests show no gender, race/ethnicity, or parental education differences. In their work, Naglieri, Brulles, and Lansdowne have discovered 1.2 million non-white gifted students who were previously unidentified. Overrepresentation of students of color in special education is directly related to the under-identification of historically marginalized gifted students.

Brulles, Lansdowne, and Naglieri’s 2022 book, Understanding and Using the Naglieri General Ability Tests: A Call for Equity in Gifted Education, is a companion to the Naglieri General Ability Tests and offers new, culture-sensitive methods for identifying historically marginalized students.