O. Kolyukh 1, Yu. Goryachikh 2
PsychOlogical and pedagogical issues of working with
gifted children
1 Kolyukh Olga – candidate of psychological science, Associate
Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy of
Pavlodar State University named after S. Toraigyrov
2 Goryachikh Yuliya – Assistant Professor, Pavlodar State University
named after S. Toraigyrov
The researches of giftedness
are comparatively young though L. Terman started his researches on it in the
early 20th of the ÕÕ century.
The notions “children’s giftedness” and “gifted children” define ambiguity of
the approaches towards organizing their psychological and pedagogical
activities. On the one hand every child
is “gifted” and our task is to reveal intellectual and creative potential in
every child. On the other hand there is a unique category of children that
differs qualitatively from their peers demanding peculiar attention to the way
they are educated, trained and developed.
Starting from the
ancient times till the XIX century both the science and mundane consciousness
stood on the ground that giftedness could be revealed only in the Art. One of
the first experiments to study deeply the issues of giftedness were made by Renaissance
Spanish doctor - Huarte de San Juan (Juan
Huarte). His work was one of the
first in psychology that studied individual abilities with the purpose of
further professional selection.
The majority of psychologists acknowledges that the level, qualitative
peculiarity and the character of the giftedness development are the results of
complex interactions of heredity features (natural bents) and social environment. But the role of self-development
psychological mechanisms that underlie the forming and manifesting of individual
giftedness should not be underestimated.
So far as giftedness in early childhood can be considered as mental
development potential towards further stages of individual life development,
the complexity of the “gifted child” issue should be dealt carefully. Outstanding
abilities of a child in his/her early childhood can’t be considered as a direct
indicator of his/her achievements in the future.
The development
tempo of a child with its leaps and slowing-downs is rather specific one.
However every age period has its own peculiarities and advantages. It shows
that such notion as “age giftedness” has the right to exist.
Leytes N.S.
singles out that for development of different sides of intelligence age
peculiarities are tightly bound with favorable conditions. He defines
intelligence as “specific mental abilities that define person’s capabilities in
different types of activities” [1, ñ. 59].
While the gifted
children have some advantages over their peers they also encounter with
specific difficulties. Primarily it is connected with the way the parents treat
their gifted child. Some of them, having found early signs of giftedness direct
all their efforts on their development being driven by their own ideas of the
tasks and objectives. And as A.V. Petrovsky underlines, considering their child
to be a wunderkind parents pay attention to the first part of the word focusing
on exceptionality of their offspring and completely forgetting that he or she
is still just a child. If the giftedness manifested itself in a specific area
parents start developing only that area preventing the development of other
capabilities and inclinations of a child in their full value [2, ñ. 129].
Another point for argument is the issue of the quantity for child
giftedness manifestation. There are two
extremely polar points of view on this issue. The first one is that “every
child is gifted” and another one is that “gifted child is a rear spices”. The
indicated alternative can be annihilated by the following position: potential giftedness towards different
types of activities is an inherent feature of many children whereas actual,
genuine giftedness is demonstrated only by a few ones. This or that child can be successful in
wide-range of activities. Moreover even in one and the same activity different
children can reveal their own giftedness towards different aspects.
There are many forms and types of giftedness as mental abilities of a
child are flexible on different stages of his/her developmental age.
Gifted children
in their early ages can be differentiated by the ability to trace cause-effect relations and by making correspondent conclusions; they are
interested in constructing alternative models and systems; and also can be
defined by high level of inquisitiveness and interest to researches. Quick
transmission of neuronal information is a characteristic of gifted children as
their intracerebral system is more ramifying and with large number of nervous
connections.
Psycho-physiological
researches revealed that such children have high biochemical and electric brain
activity. The lack of information that can be learned and processed is taken
painfully by them. That is why the activity limitation can cause negative
reactions of neurotic character.
Thus, psychological peculiarities of gifted children who demonstrate
their giftedness can be taken only as the features accompanying giftedness but not
those that beget it. That is way the presence of indicated psychological
peculiarities can be taken only as a presumption of giftedness but not as its
absolute presence.
It is necessary to underline that the bahaviour of a gifted child don’t
necessarily have to be in conformity with all above-mentioned signs. Behavioral signs of giftedness are diverse
and very often even contradictive in their manifestation as they are strongly
connected with a social context.
Considering all these here we are to mention about the barriers that
arise in the development of gifted children. As we see it, the barriers singled
out by A. Maslow define all the difficulties a gifted child and his family
encounter with. So, A. Maslow defined 5
basic barriers that block personal creativity:
• conformism – it is a desire to be similar to others;
the fear to express his/her opinion, to be ridiculous, to be odd, compromising
attitude;
• outward and inward censorship – it is a deliberate or non-deliberate suppress of
unaccustomed, unusual ideas and
thoughts due to personal superego domination;
• cognitive rigidity – thinking by stereotypes, a
habit to solve typical tasks by standard ways all these can be caused by school
education;
• impulsive
thoughts – the wish to find the answer at once, unreasonable,
inadequate decisions influenced by strong motivation;
• cognitive egocentrism – inability to change angles,
to change cognitive perspective [2, ñ. 344].
In this
connection while talking about the issue of giftedness it is necessary to
indicate several basic directions of psych-diagnostic researches. Apart from applied psychdiagnosis,
diagnostic researches carried out with the purpose of capturing new theoretical
and experimental data on the issue of giftedness also represent the specific area.
These researches can cover wide-range
of diagnostic methods and techniques directed on revealing new regularities and
interconnections between the parameters that characterize giftedness and those
that characterize a subject and his/her environment.
Actually the diagnostics
of giftedness is fulfilled with the purpose of creating special learning
conditions for the children with outstanding abilities in the framework of
specially designed curriculum and developing programs offered by special
educational societies, classes and schools for gifted children. The effectiveness of mastering these
programs by such children is considered by some pedagogues as a quality rating
for a conducted research but the condition of admission into such schools
dictates the techniques and methods of diagnostics: they must be standardized
and didn’t take much time.
The issue of revealing gifted children has a pronounced ethic aspect. To
identify a child as a “gifted” or “ungifted” one at present means to interfere
into his destiny predetermining his/her subjective expectations. The majority
of life conflicts of “the gifted” and “the ungifted” is rooted in
inadequateness of an initial forecast for their future achievements. One
should take into account that child’s giftedness does not guaranty the presence
of talent in adulthood. Correspondently not every talented adult manifested his
giftedness in his/her childhood.
That is why the
signs of a child’s giftedness should be observed and studied in their progression.
To assess the signs of giftedness long-term observance of the changes that occur
in transition from one age period to another is demanded.
Thus, the personality of a gifted child bears vivid evidences of his
outstanding talent as both the level and child’s unique activity are defined by
his personality. To understand personal
characteristics of a gifted child is important in cases there is a sign of
latent giftedness that does not manifest itself till a definite period of time
in successful activity. The peculiar traits of a person that as a rule are
limitedly connected with giftedness make it possible for a teacher or a school psychologist
to assume that such a child has advanced talents.
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4. Thompson
L. A., Oehlert J. The etiology of giftedness [Òext] / L. A. Thompson, J. Oehlert // Learning and Individual Differences. – 2010.
– Volume 20. – Issue 4. – P. 298-307.