Poppy Field picture with Gifted Education text

All About Gifted

Understanding and Defining Giftedness

Giftedness includes specific traits related to intellectual ability, physical skills, creative thinking, and strong curiosity. A student may show exceptional ability in areas such as logic, leadership, math, performing arts, reading, or writing. Students are usually identified for gifted services based on a body of evidence reviewed by trained educators. This evidence may include surveys, parent feedback, cognitive assessments, academic achievement assessments, and other information.

There are no medical diagnosis criteria for giftedness, although you may hear giftedness described as high intelligence. This description has some limits because many factors contribute to our understanding of giftedness, not just IQ. The Colorado Exceptional Children’s Educational Act (ECEA) and the Colorado Department of Education have established requirements that public schools use to determine which students qualify for gifted services (see Gifted Identification & Resources).

Westgate Community School recognizes that giftedness affects a person as a whole: mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Giftedness exists in all populations and can appear in many different ways. Through our school model, we help students grow by providing rich learning experiences that support independence and high achievement. Westgate’s Whole Child approach to education supports this unique group of students. Learn more on our Whole Child Education page.

In our gifted education program, we follow the State of Colorado’s definition of giftedness (below) and Adams 12 Five Star Schools processes to determine whether students qualify for gifted services.

A Deeper Dive into Giftedness

In recent years, what we know about giftedness has changed quickly. Research has shown that the bodies and brains of gifted individuals may differ from those of their peers (Reuwsaat et al., 2026). For example, gifted individuals may have:

Faster and more efficient brain processing because of differences in brain structure;
Strong connections between areas of the brain that support complex thinking, such as abstract reasoning, problem-solving, memory, language, planning, and attention;
Intense and complex brain activity, even when they are not working on a difficult mental task;
Specific talents that may develop through focused practice and training;
Brain processes related to complex thinking that may develop earlier or in different ways than expected.

In other words, giftedness involves differences in how a person’s brain processes information, as well as unique patterns of brain development throughout life. These differences in the brain may also be connected to physical differences. Research suggests that giftedness may be connected to sensory processing, certain hormones, and some gastrointestinal and autoimmune disorders.

Defining Giftedness in Colorado Law

The Exceptional Children’s Education Act (1CCR 301-8, Section 12) defines gifted and talented children as

Those persons between the ages of four and twenty-one whose abilities, talents, and potential for accomplishment are so exceptional or developmentally advanced that they require special provisions to meet their educational programming needs. Gifted and talented children are hereafter referred to as gifted students. Children under five who are gifted may also be provided with early childhood special educational services. Gifted students include gifted students with disabilities (i.e. twice exceptional) and students with exceptional abilities or potential from all socio-economic and ethnic, cultural populations.

Gifted students are capable of high performance, exceptional production, or exceptional learning behavior by virtue of any or a combination of these areas of giftedness:

- General or Specific Intellectual Ability,
- Specific Academic Aptitude,
- Creative or Productive Thinking,
- Leadership Abilities, and
- Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Musical or Psychomotor Abilities.