David Lohman is professor of educational psychology at The University of Iowa and lead author of the Cognitive Abilities Test™ (CogAT^® ), Form 6 published by Riverside Publishing.

Traditional procedures for identifying academically gifted students do not admit the variety of children who attend U.S. schools today. Schools are under increased pressure to identify gifted students from underrepresented groups. Some schools have begun administering nonverbal selection tests. Nonverbal tests identify more English language learners (ELL), but identify fewer minority and majority students who have aptitudes for verbal and quantitative reasoning—necessary aptitudes for academically oriented programs. Nonverbal tests also do not identify many of the most academically capable Black students. How, then, should schools identify gifted minority students? This text recommends an aptitude approach.

Aptitude is the degree of readiness to learn and perform well in a particular situation or domain (Corno et al., 2002). Aptitudes for learning from instruction include the abilities to comprehend and follow directions, to apply previously acquired knowledge, and to make good inferences and generalizations. Inaptitudes, which hinder learning, include impulsivity, high levels of anxiety, and prior learning that interferes with new learning. As this list indicates, aptitudes are by no means fixed at birth. Achievements also function as aptitudes, as when reading skills enable new learning from text. Indeed, aptitudes encompass motivation, persistence, interest, temperament, and personality.

How should schools take aptitude into account when identifying academically gifted students? Some suggestions follow:

• Distinguish between two groups of children: high-accomplishment students who currently exhibit excellence in a particular academic domain and high-potential students who demonstrate potential for excellence in a target domain. Many talented minority students fall in the high-potential group because they have not had opportunities to develop academic excellence. High-potential students typically require different programs than high-accomplishment students. Both groups need instruction geared to their current levels of accomplishment and to the learning characteristics that will enhance their success.
• Understand the cognitive and affective requirements of the programs offered by the school as well as the aptitudes and inaptitudes of potential participants. For example, will the program require much independent learning, or will students work in groups? Will instruction build on students' interests, or is the curriculum decided in advance? Typically, the most important predictors of future performance in any discipline are (1) past performance on similar tasks, and (2) the ability to reason well in the symbol system(s) used to communicate knowledge in the discipline.
• In general, emphasize achievement when identifying older students. Emphasize reasoning abilities when identifying younger students and those who have not had opportunities to attain expertise.
• Obtain the most reliable and valid tests of domain-specific achievement and ability for all students. Match the skills tested to the types of instruction offered. Avoid basing selection on composite scores. Rather, obtain measures of the student's (a) domain-specific achievement; (b) ability to reason in the symbol systems required by the gifted program; (c) interest in the subject matter studied in the program; and (d) persistence under similar instructional conditions.
• While it is best to compare achievement test scores to a common standard, it is presumed that students compared on an abilities test have had similar opportunities to acquire the skills measured. Therefore, it is best to compare each student's aptitude scores to those of other students who share similar learning opportunities or background characteristics. In other words, group students by opportunity to learn, and select the highest-scoring students within groups. For example, compare ELL students who have had a similar amount of exposure to English.
• Emphasize that accomplishment is the true evidence of giftedness. Predictions about potential for success are not helpful unless they translate into the student's purposeful striving toward the goal of academic excellence.

The primary goal of programs for academically capable students should be to identify students who currently exhibit academic excellence and to provide appropriately challenging instruction for them. The secondary goal should be to identify students whose current accomplishments are strong and who display aptitude for even higher levels of achievement. Although minority students will be in both groups, more will be found, at least initially, in the latter group. The real challenges, then, are identifying these students and providing the sort of engaging instructional opportunities that will enable more of them to move from the high-potential group to the high-accomplishment group.

This text is excerpted from an article by David F. Lohman entitled, " An Aptitude Perspective on Talent.