Recognizing Mathematically Gifted Children by Using Expert Systems', Teachers', and Psychologists' Estimations

A scientifically approved psychological finding of gift is usually not available to all schools. In order to obtain an accurate and early detection of mathematically gifted children, an intelligent expert system MathGift is proposed to assist teachers in making decision about a child's gift in mathematics in the fourth grade of elementary school. Besides mathematical competencies, the system includes other components while deciding about the giftedness in mathematics, such as cognitive components of gift, personal components that contribute to gift development, strategies of learning and exercising, as well as some environmental factors. A survey was conducted at ten elementary schools where the expert system's, psychologists' and teachers' estimates were obtained for each child in the sample. The paper discusses some differences among the estimations of children's mathematical gift obtained by the ES, psychologists and teachers. The results show that the expert system can be suggested as a methodological tool to assist teachers in making decision about children's gift in mathematics.