---
title: "Universal Screening in Gifted and Talented Identification: Implementation and Overcoming Challenges"
description: We’ve been excited to see gifted and talented education in so many popular press articles in recent months. One of the motivators of this surge in interest seems to be a series of research reports by economists, including Card and Giuliano’s 2015 paper “Can universal screening increase the representation of low income and minority students in gifted education?”
---

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# [Universal Screening in Gifted and Talented Identification: Implementation and Overcoming Challenges](https://blog.riversideinsights.com/universal-screening-in-gifted-and-talented-identification)

 Written by [Dr. Joni M. Lakin](https://blog.riversideinsights.com/author/dr-joni-m-lakin) | Jan 28, 2019 8:18:00 PM

We’ve been excited to see gifted and talented education in so many popular press articles in recent months. One of the motivators of this surge in interest seems to be a series of research  
reports by economists, including Card and Giuliano’s 2015 paper “*Can universal screening increase the representation of low income and minority students in gifted education?*” Dr. Lakin was fortunate to be asked to contribute to a special issue of the *Journal of Advanced Academics* where she and Dr. Matthew McBee wrote independent reviews of this paper translated for the gifted research field.

In the original study, Card and Giuliano took advantage of a “natural experiment” where they were able to compare program diversity in a school district that moved from an identification process initiated by teacher or parent referral to a new process that began with every second grade student completing a screening assessment. This is called universal screening. The researchers  
were interested in the proportion of historically underrepresented minorities (such as English learners, Hispanic students, and African-American students) identified with the new program.

[View full post](https://blog.riversideinsights.com/universal-screening-in-gifted-and-talented-identification)

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