By Susan Assouline and Damien Ihrig
For the 2000 Talent Search (grades 3-6) we sent a questionnaire to each student and parent. Eighty percent (2,088 out of 2,532) of the questionnaires were returned and, thanks to the generous cooperation of our participants and their families, we have a wealth of data about academically talented students.
For this article we focused on the responses parents gave to the question "Have you contacted school personnel to request special academic accommodations for your child?" Parents chose from four responses:
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a) Yes, they contacted the school and the outcome was satisfactory.
b) Yes, they contacted the school and the outcome was NOT satisfactory.
c) No, they did not contact the school even though they felt an accommodation was necessary.
d) No, they did not contact the school because they felt an accommodation was not necessary.
What can we conclude from the table? Overall, there are two major themes that emerge from the data. It is encouraging that, when parents felt an accommodation was necessary, the majority requested one from the school. Parents were not always satisfied with the outcome of the request, but at least when a need was perceived, a request was made. Parents have become better advocates, it seems, for their children. Thus, accommodation requests are based on perceived need rather than simply because a child is gifted. The second theme, perhaps even more encouraging, is that a request for accommodation was tied more to ability than gender. The more able the student in math, the greater the perceived need for an accommodation, regardless of gender. In other words, contrary to some expectations, parents of mathematically able girls requested an accommodation as often as parents of mathematically able boys. We see this theme as encouraging because an educational accommodation should be based on educational need and not other variables such as gender.