Of The Socioaffective Impact Of Acceleration And Ability Grouping

In the article, “The Socioaffective Impact of Acceleration and Ability Grouping: Recommendations for Best Practice,” Maureen Neihart (2007) spells out the connection between acceleration of gifted students and the social/emotional trauma that may occur because of this acceleration. Maureen Neihart is a “licensed clinical child psychologist with 30 years’ experience working with children with special needs and their families” (“About me”). Working in various service occupations ranging from secondary teacher and gifted program coordinator to clinical and consulting psychologist, she is now an associate professor and deputy head of psychological studies at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. She holds numerous degrees in education

At the time, Neihart was already serving as a professor at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. Neihart is a very qualified individual to speak about the gifted education programs in schools. She had been in the field for a considerable amount of time when this article was published. Her ideas have also been recognized internationally, which reiterates her expertise in this field. However, her heavy interest in the gifted education programs, the degree in which she earned her masters, may color the rest of her work to promote gifted education programs. She is heavily invested in promoting gifted education programs, based on her position on not one but three editorial boards for gifted children periodicals. These leanings should be taken in account when addressing the issues of the reputability of the article, especially since Neihart’s voice is the only one heard in this article. However, because Neihart is doing research on behalf of a university instead of an organization, her research may not be as biased as it could

In the US, there was much emphasis on trying to bring low-achieving individuals’ test scores up. Consequently, many gifted and talented programs’ funding had decreased dramatically. Because schools spent their funds mainly on low-performing individuals, the amount of federal funding spent on gifted education declined from “$11.3 million [in 2001] to $7.6 million in 2007 alone” (Beisser, 2008, p. 1), not accounting for the decrease in state spending. While the gifted and talented programs were being overlooked by state and government budgets, many studies were being done to show the need for gifted education programs in the US. However, some educators questioned the need for gifted education and what effects it might have on the students. Neihart (2007) mentions this opposition when she says, “In spite of the well-documented academic benefits of acceleration and peer ability grouping, there is ongoing resistance to increasing the use of either in many public schools” (p. 330). Because gifted education has been around for quite some time, the article is fairly new to the debate on gifted education, giving a fresh look at the debate on gifted