A National Survey of Programs for Intellectually and Academically Gifted Hearing-impaired Students

This study gathered information about the number and characteristics of existing programs for gifted hearing-impaired students. It also attempted to determine the number of students believed to be gifted in educational programs for hearing-impaired students that do not provide special gifted programs. Questionnaire responses were received from 16 gifted programs serving hearing-impaired school-age students in the United States. Data were analyzed to provide a quantitative assessment of the features of the reported gifted programs. Information obtained in this study suggests that only 15% of the 877 gifted hearing-impaired students reported are enrolled in special programs for the gifted. An unusually high percentage of the reported identified gifted students were residential students who came from families having two deaf parents.