Analysis Of Resources And Services To Support Gifted Education In Australia Homework Answer

Answer :

Introduction

Gifted and talented children are found to be present across all types of social groups. Being gifted and talented is irrespective of various common factors such as culture, socio-economic status, ethnicity, physical aspects, and other cognitive differences. The potential of being gifted or talented begins early in childhood. While the reasons are assumed to be a genetic endowment, exact information and assessments are yet to find by neuroscience (Montgomery, 2013). This report aims towards providing an analysis of the available resources and services to support gifted education in Australia. However, the entire report will focus on a given case study where Lily is the prime subject. For this purpose, this report will include identifying the resources and series, applying early childhood perspectives to analyse the resources' suitability, assessing the suitability and availability, and identifying the barriers in between. Lastly, this report will conclude by echoing some recommendations for improving gifted education support services.  

Overview of the Case Study

In the given case study, it has been found that Lily is 18 months old and attends child care three days a week. As far as now is a concern, Lily has started biting other children while attending child care assessments every week. In this regard, the other parents are processing upset behaviour with the institution. They have started threatening the child care unit to remove their children from the centre after Lily bit their children. For this purpose, Lily’s parents started acknowledging consultation from a psychologist (Case Study). The psychologist echoed that she believes Lily is gifted and recommended that she be moved to the 2-year-old room. After acknowledging this assessment, Lily’s parents found that she has stopped biting. However, Lily's mother started feeling overwhelmed and alone and started to figure out how Lily can be supported and engaged with her family again. For this purpose, Lily's mother also wants to meet others to understand what she feels and help her fight the issues and this circumstance (Case Study). Further, this report will solely focus on echoing all types of education and care available for such children in Australia. 

Identification of the resources and services available to support the education of young gifted and talented children in Australia

The services and resources available to support young gifted and talented children in Australia include Early Childhood Gifted Educational segments. This focuses on facilitating intellectual engagement and meaningful activities for these young individuals. For this purpose, a specific type of framework is used to design a high-quality early childhood education system in Australia (Kaplan and Hertzog, 2016). It is found to be significantly helping gifted individuals enhance their capabilities and potential to learn more comprehensively. The resources and services are found to be activity-oriented, through which children might become proficient at accessing and exploring the world by playing while learning. The current scenario of the resources and services to support young gifted and talented children in Australia is standard-based. It focuses on designing a test-driven curriculum for kindergarten children. As echoed by Miller and Almon in their international research, the gifted and talented young individuals have got all the right to select learning via activities rather than imposing didactic lessons in early childhood learning and care (Beisser, Gillespie and Thacker, 2013). 

Further, it has also been found that these types of young individuals like Lily require intellectual environments to support child-initiated explorations. In this regard, the play-based activities included in the curriculum play an essential role in project exhibitions, artistic expressions, and developing a sense of discipline (Kaplan and Hertzog, 2016). Thus, these services and care for education help gifted and talented children explore and enhance their creative and artistic capabilities. In this regard, these children's curriculum is acknowledging the concepts of fostering development via ideas generated from Piaget, Dewey, Martinson, Vygotsky, and Italy (Wellisch, 2016). However, the early childhood settings for these young individuals are inspired by a pedagogy that plays an essential role in identifying the strengths and perspectives for early childhood gifted education. In the classrooms specially designed for such individuals, giftedness manifests as a potential need for the children. In this regard, the informal and on-going assessments help identify talented young individuals' strengths and abilities. 

Applying early childhood perspectives to analyse the suitability of gifted education resources and services for young children

It has been found that the focus of the Australian gifted children education system focuses more on assessing the learning needs and mastery that are based on early childhood perspectives. However, it has also been found that identification and assessments can be treated as a controversial aspect of gifted education for such institutions and education settings. For this purpose, a broad range of tools and measures are used to develop and establish a gifted and talented child (Cao, Jung and Lee, 2017). These tools include ability tests, high-level assessments, achievement tests, performance-based evaluations, and creating student portfolios. Besides, all the assessments in this regard must be treated as the idea for evaluating intelligence and genetics. Several research pieces have echoed teachers and educators' role in assessing the accuracy of gifted children and their learning resources (Kivunja, 2014). That is why it is essential to acknowledge and apply early childhood perspectives to evaluate the suitability of gifted education resources and services for young children in Australia. 

Further, IEP (Individualized Education Program) helps evaluate students' suitability who require support for their education. It significantly helps young children to echo their unique learning requirements (Cao et al. 2017). This helps to reflect a major perspective for early childhood settings and helps to analyse the suitability of gifted education resources and services for young talented children. It also helps to analyse the students with additional needs by minimising the risk of disengagement. For this purpose, there are four perspectives that an IEP include while echoing the suitability for children like Lily. These include the level of educational performances, goals, short-term outcomes, and specially designed outcomes (Dai and Chen, 2013). In this regard, the three essential theoretical perspectives of early childhood development include maturationsist, environmentalist, and constructivist or interactionist. For this purpose, a broad range of tools and measures are used to develop and establish a gifted and talented child. 

Assessing suitability, accessibility and availability of the resources and services

For assessing the suitability of the resources and services available for young gifted children in Australia, a broad range of tools and measures are used. These tools include ability tests, high-level assessments, achievement tests, performance-based evaluations, and creating student portfolios (Jung and Worrell, 2017). For this purpose, the IEP (Individualized Education Program) has been echoed in the above section to evaluate the suitability for students who require support for their special education (Tait, 2017). The resources and services are found to be activity-oriented, through which children might become proficient at accessing and exploring the world by playing while learning. Lastly, to assess the suitability, various strategies are also applied to promote higher-order thinking capabilities. 

Similarly, for assessing the accessibility of the resources and services available for young gifted children in Australia, various programs must be analysed on a priority basis. In this regard, gifted and talented children provide a new learning experience and help children enhance their skills and development processes normally. These programs are running both inside and outside the care institutions and include private musical classes, sports academies, and museum holiday programs (Callahan and Azano, 2021). The accessibility of children depends upon the curriculum that parents have opted for and granted. However, these programs provide an enlarging opportunity for talented and gifted children; parents defend and protect their children to get exposed to outside activities as the risk of harm is always there. 

The current scenario of the availability of the resources and services to support young gifted and talented children in Australia is standard-based. These are highly focused on designing a test-driven curriculum for children like Lily (Blackett and Webb, 2011). However, there are various rights to the authority of the Australian government gives such children. These include civil rights, safety, family life, health, living standards, education, leisure, and cultural activities. However, there are separate commission rights for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, but the curriculum design follows a similar structure (Sanders, 2012). Concerning these children's availability, various institutions provide care and education settings for young gifted and talented children in Australia. 

Identification of the barriers that may prevent parents and children from using the resources and services 

It has been found that every gifted child is different and thus requires diversified treatments. But the most common barrier in this regard that prevents parents and children from using the resources and services includes the educators' proficiency. Most of these educators are not trained sufficiently and require a certain level of understanding to help young gifted and talented children (Chaffey et al. 2015). Some of the other aspects that reflect barriers include the threat of being judged and discriminated against based on various factors. These factors not only include the fact of being gifted or talented but also include factors such as capabilities, understanding, colour, intelligence, and perspectives. 

Further, it has also been found that out of 37 universities in Australia that provides education for young gifted and talented children, only three are equipped with sufficient resources and programs to support high education and development qualities (Pfeiffer and Wechsler, 2013). This echoes as a major barrier that prevents parents and children from using the resources and services through TAFE quality standards. However, in the Australian demographic territory, some various norms and legislations support young gifted and talented children from getting discriminated against in society. Still, the threat of being harmed by children like Lily replicates everywhere in this world.

Recommendations for improvement of gifted education support services, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and families

Below are some relevant recommendations that might help to improve the quality of gifted education support services, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and families – 

1. Developing an advanced perspective:

Education settings must provide significant training to their educators and staff members to develop a sense of how gifted children think. This might help them in assessing and designing programs more comprehensively (Peters and Jolly, 2018). 

2. The utilisation of talents and interests:

While the young children gifted with talent and intelligence share a common roof, evaluating and exploring more might help fasten the development processes. This could be significantly done by utilising their talents and areas of interest (Kronborg, 2018). Every year, annual exhibitions and cultural programs should be arranged where the parents and families can participate with their children. 

3. Exploring real-world application:

Since these young individuals do not have relevant access to the outside world, helping them explore the real world entity might access their vulnerability (Fraser-Seeto, 2013). For this purpose, the educators must seek help from additional resources and outside mentors to better understand the requirement for the same. 

Conclusion

This report aimed to provide an analysis of the available resources and services to support gifted education in Australia. In this regard, this report has focused on the given case study where Lily was the prime subject. Further, this report has included identifying the resources and series, applying early childhood perspectives to analyse the suitability of the resources, assessing the suitability and availability, and identifying the barriers in between. Lastly, this report has ended, echoing some recommendations for improving gifted education support services. These recommendations were reflected, keeping in mind, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and families in Australia. The process and symptoms of being gifted begin early in childhood. That is why such children a special type of education with proficient resources and capabilities to teach and help them throughout the development process. While the reasons are assumed to be a genetic endowment, exact information and assessments are yet to find by neuroscience.