A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. This study compared the gifted program performance of 121 economically disadvantaged students identified by using the Research-Based Assessment Plan (RAP) and 166 students who were not economically disadvantaged identified through traditional identification methods. The study also compared the RAP-identified students' attitudes toward school to the attitudes of the traditionally identified students and compared the attitudes of parents of RAP-identified students toward the gifted program and the attitudes of parents of traditionally identified students. Results showed that RAP-identified students and traditionally identified students displayed significantly different performances and attitudes. On teacher ratings of performance, RAP-identified students received higher ratings on their interaction with others, while traditionally identified students had higher ratings on critical thinking. On the student attitude instrument, RAP-identified students were rated higher on: (a) helping teachers plan, (b) learning outside the classroom, (c) sitting with friends, and (d) working on special things. No significant differences were found in parent attitudes, which were generally found to be positive. Appendices include descriptions of gifted characteristics, pilot study instrumentation, the Frasier Talent Assessment Profile (which was used to record all assessment information), a scale for rating students' participation, and a parent questionnaire on students' performance. (Contains 25 references.) (Author/CR)