The main goal of the research is the conceptualization of gifted and talented children, which has been interpreted in a wide range of ways across the world. To date, there is no international consensus on the definition of giftedness and talent. The extent to which a child has to outperform his or her peers to be classified as gifted or talented depends on subjective attitudes.

In this paper the situation in education of gifted and talented children in Lithuania is analyzed. Very often, gifted children are given too little attention, they are left to self -sufficiency, and left to make their own decisions. However, young people could achieve more if they were noticed in time, given the necessary support, and encouraged. In the past, it was thought that talents are innate, and some had a lot while others less, and that gifted ones do not need to try as they will learn everything anyway. However, modern research shows that talents can be developed, and it will never be a finite process.

The OECD says that between 3 and 10% are the most talented. A comparative study of 30 members of the Eurydice network shows that gifted children in different European countries make up from 3 to 10%. There is currently no registration of gifted students in Lithuania. According to Ministry of Education, about 330,000 pupils are studying in general education schools in Lithuania. If we count 3% from the total number of pupils, it would be about 9900 talented and gifted children.

The identification of a gifted student is complicated not only because of the variety of talents, but also because of the expensive methodology that is only available to professionals. Cognition is related to a complex study that requires a lot of investment, the findings of which are not stable and long-term. Therefore, the main goal of society should be that every person can have a possibility to discover and fulfill their capabilities.

The possibilities to apply the multi-criteria analysis methods for the gifted children identification are investigated. It is suggested to create the hierarchy structure of the giftedness criteria. In this paper the simple hierarchy structure was developed by splitting the giftedness criteria into two groups - qualitative and quantitative criteria. On its base and by application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) procedures, the numeric values of the giftedness criteria ranks were detected. To achieve the goals of the research, the pair-wise comparison method and the special compiled questionnaires are suggested to be implemented. The possibilities of applying the statistical methods to increase the degree of the consistency of the respondent’s judgments (in this paper – group of experts) is discussed also.

Keywords: Education, gifted, talented, school.