Institute for the Study of Advanced Development (ISAD)
Created in 1986, Institute for the Study of Advanced Development (ISAD) is a 501 (c) 3 public nonprofit research corporation, dedicated to uncovering the abilities of underserved populations, studying advanced development in children and adults, and fostering undeveloped potential in women.
While giftedness is most often equated with eminence, ISAD redefines giftedness as advanced development throughout the lifespan. In early childhood, it manifests as rapid progression through developmental milestones, unusual capacity for abstract thought, creative imagination and heightened sensitivity.
Advanced development in adults involves the deepening and strengthening of one’s values, broadening of one’s scope of responsibility, consciousness of the meaning of one’s existence, concern for others and commitment to service. GDC is the service arm of ISAD, providing assessment, counseling, and consultation to the gifted community worldwide. The two work in tandem to develop the understanding and advancement of giftedness worldwide.
Accomplishments
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Advanced Development is the first psychological journal on adult giftedness; it publishes articles on theory, research, therapy, case studies of moral exemplars, inner experiences of the gifted, as well as poetry, art and book reviews.
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ISAD has created and validated over 40 instruments to assess gifted children and adults for overexcitabilities, twice-exceptionality, visual-spatial learners, introversion, writing disabilities and many more.
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ISAD organized the first conference on adult giftedness, the Gifted Women's Symposium, the International Dabrowski Congress, a Dabrowski Retreat, the Dabrowski Study Group, annual Dabrowski training workshops on rating overexcitabilities and levels (1990-1996), Leta Hollingworth Commemorative Conference and Summit, several international symposia on the assessment of giftedness, the Child-Centered Collective, the Visual-Spatial Learner Study Group and conferences on visual-spatial learners.
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By 2025, more than 6,600 children had been assessed and parent permissions to conduct research had been obtained for most cases. To date, data on 1,188 cases, each with 212 variables, have been entered in a data analysis program. This database is available for graduate students and researchers.
The President’s Report
Each year, we create a record of our activities during the previous calendar year to serve our mission: study and support of giftedness; training in gifted assessment and teaching strategies; research; publications; presentations; dissemination of information; scholarships and pro bono services.
Meet the Board
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Director
Linda Kreger Silverman, PhD, is a licensed clinical and counseling psychologist. She directs the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development, and its subsidiary, the Gifted Development Center (GDC) in Denver, Colorado, which has assessed over 6,600 children in the last 40 years. This is the largest data base on the gifted population.
She and her colleagues at GDC have developed 40 instruments. For nine years she served on the faculty of the University of Denver (DU), in Counseling Psychology and Gifted Education. She developed a course on Assessment of the Gifted at DU, which was also a short course taught abroad. She has been studying the assessment, psychology and education of the gifted since 1961 and has written over 300 articles, chapters and books, including the textbook, Counseling the Gifted and Talented, adopted at 50 colleges.
Her latest book, Giftedness 101 (Springer, 2013), contains a chapter on assessment. It has been translated into Korean and Swedish.
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Examiner and Editor, Advanced Development journalNancy B. Miller, PhD, is a social psychologist and editor of Advanced Development, a journal on adult giftedness. She does research and testing at the Gifted Development Center in Westminster, Colorado. She has taught sociology at the University of Denver and the University of Akron. For many years, she served as Executive Officer of Sociologist for Women in Society.
She discovered Dabrowski’s theory as a graduate student and developed a coding system to assess levels of emotional development. She has worked and published with Dr. Linda Silverman and Dr. Frank Falk for over 30 years. Her publications focus on emotional development, gender and giftedness, social support and adjustment to stressful life events, and family processes and child outcomes.
In 2019 she published “Research at the Gifted Development Center” in the Polish Journal Psychologiczne Zeszyty Naukowe [Scientific Journal of Psychology] 2/2018: 29-39
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Board Member
Victor Taube, PhD, CPA graduated from Ohio State University in 1958 with a B.S. degree in Business with a major in Accounting. In 2005, an honorary Doctorate of Philosophy was conferred upon him by Stafford University. After graduating from Ohio State University, he taught various accounting and tax courses in the Los Angeles area college system and then started an accounting practice which has spread nation-wide during his residencies in Los Angeles, CA, Raleigh, NC and Phoenix, AZ. Currently, he files taxes for clients in 39 states and has clients in two foreign countries. His practice includes assisting business clients with accounting issues and individuals and companies with tax issues. He has been the outside independent accountant for ISAD for the past two years after giving gratis accounting advice for several years to the organization. Victor has recently been named treasurer of the Board of Directors of ISAD.
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Board Member, Poetry Editor of Advanced Development
Bruce Allen is a graduate of Colorado State University and the University of Colorado. In his 42-year teaching career, he taught students 7th to 12th grade and those at Front Range Community College in Westminster, Colorado. Those years encompass public schools and private, where he was an instructor in English, gifted and talented, interdisciplinary studies, and history.
For the benefit of young gifted, he presents needed curriculum ideas for teachers and students. Near publication, his book, Pearl in a Petri Dish:Poetry, Gifted, and the Visual-Spatial Learner, verifies with student examples the potency of poetry writing for academic success.
He was the Gifted and Talented Coordinator at Northglenn High School in Adams 12, Colorado. His presentations include those at state and national conferences, CAGT and NAGC, and at the International Dabrowski Congress. In hiatus, he hopes to return to volunteer at the Colorado Horse Rescue.
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Board Member
Mindy Solomon, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado, Denver. She is currently the Clinical Program Director for the Eating Disorders Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado and has specialized in child/adolescent and family assessment and treatment since 2000.
Mindy became a Member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Study of Advanced Development in 2010, and has ongoing collaboration with the Gifted Development Center. Her article, “Are Individuals with Eating Disorders More Likely to be Gifted?” written for The GDC Newsletter in March, 2014, received a great deal of interest. She has experience and expertise in the areas of assessment of gifted abilities, gifted development, program development, multi-family group treatment, family-focused therapy for eating disorders, body image, motivation enhancement and cognitive-behavioral interventions. Research includes family correlates and outcomes in eating disorder treatment as well as novel treatments for adolescents with eating disorders.
