‘The research must link in with their lived experience’ International ECHA conference on gifted education returns to DCU this week

The European Council for High Ability Conference (ECHA) returns to DCU this week for the first time since 2018, exploring themes around gifted education, twice exceptionalism and inclusion in education. 

Taking place on St Patrick’s Campus at Dublin City University from August 12th to 15th, a collective of educators, researchers, psychologists, parents and advocates from across the world will discuss issues and opportunities in gifted education. 

Dr Orla Dunne, Assistant Professor at the School of Inclusive and Special Education and conference organiser described the conference as a place where research meets practice ensuring new insights have a real impact on the lives of children who are gifted and/or twice exceptional - a term used to refer to children who excel in one area but may also have a learning difficulty in another area. 

‘One of the things we’re doing for the first time at an ECHA conference is running Centre for Talented Youth Ireland (CTYI) classes for children to attend so that parents can come to our parent’s day on Friday. Their children will be in the classes and parents can attend classes to learn about best practice and ways of supporting their child in those areas in which they excel. 

‘For us we are very much guided by research meets practice, practice meets research and we see it as a symbiotic relationship so all of our research influences research and vice versa. It was really important that this conference represented that. That’s why we have those talks focused on parents and on twice exceptionalism

Dr Dunne added, ‘Parents have childcare responsibilities so running the CTYI classes on the Friday of the conference means we’re enabling parents to attend those lectures because their kids are at the CTYI class. We want to see the research linking in with their own experience.’

DCU is a natural home for the ECHA conference as home to CTYI as well as Ireland’s first postgraduate programme on gifted education - the Graduate Diploma in Gifted Education - for parents, teachers, and advocates of gifted children. 

Among the themes for discussion at this year’s conference are inclusive pedagogy, social and emotional development, twice exceptional students, and AI and technology. 

‘We’re really excited to have it back in Dublin and to feature leading experts such as Dr Joseph Renzulli among the invited speakers this year. The last one was in Greece and before that in The Hague in The Netherlands. It is the largest international conference for gifted education in Europe and one of the largest in the world,’ Dr Dunne said.

‘The first opening keynote is on talent development, ensuring that you have the right environment when it comes to giftedness and so you can fulfill your potential, and for that we have Prof Frank Worrell and Dr Rena Subotnik travelling from University of California in Berkley to talk about that.’

“Dr Aoife Brennan as the Head of School of Inclusive and Special Education at DCU will be talking about inclusion. Dr Jessica Potts will be speaking from a new parent perspective and she runs a parents special interest group, and then Professor Mojca Jurisevic from the University of Ljubljana will be talking about university-based programmes. So the calibre of speakers and depth of insights is phenomenal.”

Other notable guests attending the conference include Founder and CEO of charity AsIAm Adam Harris and Professor Sally Reis from the University of Connecticut among others. 

To learn more about the conference click here.