Detection of Giftedness in Chile: An Integrative Systematic Review of Clinical Models versus Universal Screening Strategies in Primary Care and Educational Settings

Abstract

The Chilean Congress is currently debating the recognition and promotion of Giftedness (High Ability) through Bill 17295-04. However, this legislative initiative faces a significant operational risk: reliance on individual clinical identification models which, while rigorous at the case level, present serious limitations in scalability and equity when applied to universal public policy. Through an integrative systematic review, this study examines the feasibility of the mechanisms proposed in the bill, contrasting individual diagnosis approaches with international evidence supporting universal screening strategies. The findings indicate that maintaining a reactive model based on referral-by-suspicion and clinical assessment creates operational bottlenecks, overwhelms specialist capacity, and perpetuates socioeconomic and cultural selection biases. In contrast, the evidence supports a proactive and sequential model integrating early detection of accelerated development in primary care (ages 0–5), selective clinical confirmation (ages 5–9), and universal school-based screening using local norms (ages 9+). It is concluded that adopting this three-phase architecture would enhance equity, operational sustainability, and the generation of longitudinal epidemiological data required for evidence-based public policy development in Chile.