News Archive

A simple visual memory test - used to help Pitjantjatjara children 30 years ago - is part of a new project to identify gifted Indigenous children.

Peter Merrotsy, Professor of Mathematics Education, is leading the joint project between UWA and Shenton College with $25,000 funding from BHP.

The collaboration is a natural progression of the ongoing Learning Links project with Shenton College.

"By definition, the top 10 per cent of students are gifted," Professor Merrotsy said. "But typically, when you test a group of children, the Aboriginal children won't feature in that top 10 per cent.

"There are lots of reasons why children underachieve and you see it a lot in lower socio-economic communities, migrant and refugee communities. It's usually about kids wanting to hide their abilities to be accepted by the peer group."

Professor Merrotsy, who joined the Graduate School of Education this year after nine years at the University of New England, said he did not want Indigenous children identified by the program to feel they were being singled out and set apart from their peers.

"We want them to be happy while they achieve what they want.  And that doesn't mean they are necessarily destined to be one of Australia's future leaders.  They might want to be a doctor or they might want to become a diesel mechanic. This program is about broadening their choices."

He is working on a community-based program that will be run in three Pilbara communities.

"We will focus on helping the teachers to provide for gifted children.  We also need to invent a culture. We need successful adults from similar backgrounds as models - not just footballers.

"It will be a very carefully-run program of building skills in literacy, numeracy and technology."

Professor Merrotsy has done a lot of research in Australia and overseas in breaking down the barriers that children put up.

"The latest and very successful method of identifying gifted children has five pillars: I will be looking at fine motor skill development; their rate of reading; and their intellectual ability, through their creativity.

"I will apply a long-forgotten trick: a visual memory test which was employed very successfully with Pitjantjatjara children 30 years ago.  It's a simple test to see how much children remember of something you have shown them, and it's very effective in helping to identify bright kids. It always gets the right proportion of children showing up at the top.

"The fifth part is a computer-based test of cognitive ability.  It can be done by children who have never even seen a computer and they don't need to speak English.  They can take a laptop outside under a tree and complete this test."

The project will set up a relationship between the Pilbara schools and Shenton College. "We are not necessarily looking at bringing the Indigenous children here but we aim to give them the opportunity to come to Perth for leadership, social and cultural development while living in their own communities.

"We will also send Shenton students up to the Pilbara to enrich their cultural development."