Students in kindergarten through 5th grade are eligible to be screened for Gifted and Talented (GT) through a nomination and screening process.
Students may be identified through the screening process in one or more of the following areas:
- GT STEM (science and mathematics)
- GT Humanities (language arts and social studies)
In order for a student to be identified as GT in Austin ISD, data from several quantitative and qualitative criteria are collected over a three-week period and reviewed by the campus GT Decision-Making Committee.
Nomination & Testing Process:
Nomination Google Form
The first step in the process is to nominate your child during the nomination window by completing a Google Form. You will provide your child’s name, teacher name, and grade.
Parent & Teacher Checklists
The parent, teacher, and student checklist identify characteristics of giftedness based on the Purdue Academic Rating Scales; Frasier’s Traits, Aptitudes, and Behaviors Scales; and Javits’ Gifted Characteristics Checklist for Underrepresented Populations.
Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT)
The Cognitive Abilities Test measures learned reasoning and problem-solving skills in three areas: verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal. CogAT does not measure such factors as effort, attention, motivation, and work habits, which contribute to school achievement as well.
- The Verbal Reasoning section measures a child’s ability to remember and transform sequences of words, to understand them, and to make inferences and judgments about them.
- The Quantitative Reasoning tests the child’s understanding of basic quantitative concepts and relationships that are essential for learning mathematics. Tasks measure both the understanding of relational concepts and the student’s ability to discover relationships and to figure out a rule or principle that explains them.
- The Nonverbal Reasoning measures reasoning using pictures and geometric shapes and appraises the student’s ability to use cognitive resources in new situations.
Student Common Assessment (Grades K-5)
Interdisciplinary and thematic lessons designed specifically to serve as work samples for student portfolios.
Decision Making Committee
The GT Decision Making Committee will review the parent and teacher checklists, CogAT test scores, and the student’s common assessment to make a decision to identify the student GT.
