Who are the gifted and talented?
The Department of Education adopts the Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent developed by Françoys Gagné (2008) to underpin its policy and inform practice in Western Australian public schools, whereby the terms ‘giftedness’ and ‘talent’ are identified as,
“Giftedness designates the possession and use of outstanding natural abilities, called aptitudes, in at least one ability domain, to a degree that places a person at least among the top 10% of age peers.”
Professor Gagné defines six domains of giftedness: intellectual, creative, social, perceptual, muscular and motor control.
“Talent designates the outstanding mastery of systematically developed abilities, called competencies (knowledge and skills), in at least one field of human activity to a degree that places a person at least among the top 10% of age peers who are or have been active in that field.”
These terms have been reproduced with the permission of Françoys Gagné. More information about this model can be seen on the following page.
Gagné defines the fields of competency/talent development as: academic, technical, science and technology, arts, social service, administration/sales, business operations/ games, sports and athletics.
Said differently, the concepts of giftedness and talent are synonymous with the following pairs of concepts: aptitude vs. achievement, potential vs. performance, natural traits vs. systematically trained ability, or origin vs. outcome.
These definitions allow us to conceive talent development as the progressive transformation of outstanding natural abilities (gifts) into outstanding knowledge and skills (talents) in a specific occupational field. Outstanding natural abilities (gifts) from one or more domains may be viewed as raw materials in the talent development process. Two sets of catalysts, intrapersonal and environmental support or hinder the talent development process.