High capacities and child giftedness, basic concepts

The High intellectual abilities (AACC) It is the name we refer to encompass people who have different cognitive characteristics from the rest of the population. Its intellectual potential and the capacity for learning is much higher, so they are people who require a series of differentiated educational measures so that their cognitive and emotional development is satisfactory.

Content

• What are high capacities or giftedness
• Prevalence of AACC
• Models and theories about intelligence
  • 1. Performance -based model
  • 2. Intellectual capacity superior to the average
  • 3. A high degree of dedication to tasks
  • 4. High levels of creativity
  • 5. The multiple intelligence model
• Why don't high capacities always detect?
• Do not confuse with other capabilities
  • 1. Talent
  • 2. Creativity
  • 3. Early maturity
  • 4. Genius
  • 5. Brilliance
    • Links of interest
  • Bibliographic references

What are high capacities or giftedness

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a person with high capacities such as "the one that has an intellectual quotient greater than 130", although less and less this scale is used to measure people's intelligence.

The Boys and girls with high capabilities are those who learn very differently, Not especially are learning styles, but to the way of learning that is radically different and that differentiates them from others.

All children are special, and have strengths or virtues in certain areas. However, some children have more advanced skills that require adjustments at home and at school to help them grow and learn. While you observe how your child grows and develops, you may have realized certain skills or different characteristics of children of the same age. For example, your child can:

• Be very curious and observer.
• Use more adult words and reasoning.
• Have different unusual ideas.
• Recognize complex sequences and relationships.
• Give solutions to problems unexpectedly.
• Show a great memory.
• Ask unusual questions.
• Demonstrate advanced talent in certain areas (such as mathematics, science, writing, art, music or interpretation).
• Learn Lyrics or Early Numbers, and read before formal teaching.

Children can show high capacities in different ways, and parents are normally the first to realize their special skills. If you observe a large number of these behaviors in your child, it can be a sign that their development is somehow advanced."

Prevalence of AACC

According to the intelligence or CI scoring ranges observed in the population for years, it is considered that there are approximately 10 and 15%of the population that is above the average, which is known as High intellectual abilities (AACC). And up to 2% of the entire population is at the end of the right of the Gauss bell.

It does not seem much, but the amount is not so low either. It is the first case, for example, if we take into account that in a school it is easy for two classes to be for a school year, which means 25 students per class and 50 per course, we find an average of a gifted by course and school. In a two -line school such as this example, we would have a total of 450 students, of which between 9 and 10 would be gifted (let's not say those considered with high capabilities). In a city with about 100.000 inhabitants, which in Spain usually has 15% of the population between 0 and 15 years, there are already 300 gifted children (and we are leaving aside the adult population). At the level of Spain and in all age stripes, we would be talking about approximately one million minds with AACC.

Models and theories about intelligence

1. Performance -based model

In the United States they have a great experience in the education of students with high capacities. There are currently several recognized models for this type of studies, such as the one created by Dr. Joseph Renzulli, of the Institute for Research for the Education of gifted students (Research Institute for Gifted Education, University of Connecticut, USA).

This specialist establishes the Three Rings Model where the characteristics that the gifted individual must possess to be considered such. A gifted has, according to Joseph Renzulli, the combination of elements of a good information processing system (high intelligence), with high originality and divergent thinking (creativity) and sufficient motivation to guarantee the materialization of its potential (Implication in the task).

2. Intellectual capacity superior to the average

Although they do not have to be extraordinarily intelligent. It is shown that most productive people do not have intellectual quotient scores.

Therefore, A gifted child differs from his classmates not so much by his level of intelligence, but by his ability to learn many things and solve problems through novel responses or for its ease to concentrate on the performance of a task.

The educational experts who deal with gifted children propose that the greatest weight on the forecast of a student's intellectual ability occurs with the evidence of a high level of performance in the school (performance demonstrated during a period of time together with the results of corresponding academic tests).

3. A high degree of dedication to tasks

They dedicate more energy to solve a specific problem or to a specific activity than any other person. Perseverance is a significant characteristic common to most gifted.

Normally, this characteristic is not detected in school, because the tasks that are performed do not force them to be concentrated in something concrete. Parents, however, have many opportunities to observe this type of behavior and contribute numerous examples.

4. High levels of creativity

They are usually original, ingenious, and little currents people. Although, normally, we agree on the things that connote creativity, the difficulty has always been how to measure it. The specific tests that were dedicated to quantifying it have not been very satisfactory or subjective.

However, the type and nature of the works of these gifted students (maps, poetry, scientific experiments, games, dances, costumes, etc.) They are much more reliable indicators of the existence of creativity.

5. The multiple intelligence model

Beyond this rings theory, the multiple intelligences of H is going. Gardner (1983), in which there are three fundamental ideas:

• Intelligence is not a unit dimension, but rather a set of cognitive abilities, talents or skills to which he calls intelligences. According to this author, intelligence is the ability to see problems and create products that can be valued within one or more cultural fields.
• Each of these intelligences constitute its own system and independent of the rest.
• These intelligences interact with each other, so that a subject can exhibit them at a given time, but this situation is fluid and changing.
• This author He does not agree with a model that considers intelligence in a hierarchical and unitary way, nor with the implications of this model in the field of intelligence measure, especially with the CI tests. The theory my was proposed in 1983 and in recent years it has been acquiring relevance, especially in the educational and school field. In this article we want to describe this theory, its strengths and weaknesses within the framework of modern intelligence psychology.

Howard Gardner, has proposed the theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) according to which human cognitive abilities are:

• Linguistic intelligence
• The logical-mathematics
• The corporal-cinesthetic
• The musical
• The spatial
• The naturalist
• and the social, which is divided into two: interpersonal and intrapersonal

Why don't high capacities always detect?

We must know that in traditional studies, By limiting the concept of giftedness to obtaining high scores in intelligence tests, they sometimes confuse the gifted children with those enriched environmentally, That is, those called "awake children", very stimulated by their parents, since traditional tests define only the level of current execution, which can be determined by conditions such as training and not so much by the real capacities of the child.

On other occasions we are not always able to detect a gifted child, since we usually think that they are applied students and a brilliant academic file, while, often, accustomed to overcoming the first courses without effort and dominated by the boredom it involves learning At a faster rate than the rest of colleagues, these children do not develop study habits and it is not uncommon for them to present low school performance due to lack of intellectual stimulation.

In school they feel disconnected from their classmates and misunderstood by teachers, are bored in class and consider the unimportant or stimulating contents. The best known case of this is that of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Albert Einstein, who at age 12 was considered little suitable for study by his teachers.

To all this is added the fact that they can also be problematic children in school, if they reject the authority of the teachers or are too restless and active.

Nor must we forget that Overactable children are characterized by a high intellectual level, but that each one as an individual has their own personality, They are not all the same. This means that while one can reward the fact of being congratulated and admired by their teachers thanks to their academic milestones and always shows themselves to learn, another may have other not -so -academic motivations, it can have a more “passage character "So to speak and focus their qualities on other aspects of life and only their true skills are seen when we realize how quickly knowledge acquires in general or because of the spilled that are shown.

Do not confuse with other capabilities

The giftedness can be easily confused with other intellectual phenomena that, because they are also scarce and extraordinary, lead to the idea that an individual is gifted when it really is not.

Some of these exceptional traits susceptible to confusion can be:

1. Talent

Talent is understood the targeting of a capacity in a cognitive aspect or in a skill for the performance or exercise of an occupation. A talented person pays outstanding in a certain area of ​​knowledge regardless of the work that can be done in other areas. While the gifted has a cognitive structure and information processing capabilities that fit any content, the talented presents a combination of cognitive elements that make it especially suitable for a certain theme. Its intellectual structure would therefore be incomplete relationship to that of the gifted, which has a more universal intellect.

Another significant factor is that for an individual it is considered talented, a socially and culturally accepted and recognized activity must be carried out as of great value.

Talent is subdivided into areas:

• Logical-mathematical and verbal intelligence (which are included in general intelligence or convergent thinking)
• Creativity (divergent thinking)
• Leadership
• Academic skills Specific
• Motor capabilities
• VISUAL ARTS CAPABILITIES and representative
• Artistic capacities

The talented person stands out in one of these areas in an outstanding manner, while the gifted without standing in a striking way maintains constant level.

You can distinguish different types of talented people depending on the field in which it stands out:

• Talented subjects in the variable "general intelligence" (Convergent thinking). They are characterized by a good general academic adaptation (capacity for concentration, work method, solid structuring of knowledge, etc.). The level of socialization is medium and usually show normal emotional evolution for their age and social class.
• Talented subjects in the variable "creativity" (divergent thinking). They have an irregular school profile and tend to be well considered by their classmates, although they can often present abrupt behavior. They usually have good ideas but they lack methodology to develop them.
• Talented subjects for leadership. They are people with a marked leader character, social intelligence that allows them to establish relationships with great ease.
• SUJetos with specific academic skills. They show high performance in one or more specific areas. They also have problems socially and emotionally mature couple their classmates.
• Subjects with psychomotor skills. They are usually people with great sports skills or with a special capacity for dance. They stand out in traits such as flexibility, strength, resistance, rhythm, coordination ... Regarding performance in intellectual and academic tasks so that it cannot be generalized. In most cases they show a very acceptable level of socialization and are highly valued by their peers.
• Subjects with artistic skills. Despite having normal academic performance its socialization is irregular, always depending on the type of artistic talent that develops.

2. Creativity

Creativity is defined as the human power to identify, raise or solve a problem in a relevant and divergent way.

One of the pioneers who developed a study on creativity was J.P Guildford. In the 50-60 decade of the twentieth century, it made, from the scientific point of view, a true theorization on the subject and differentiated four variables that are the most frequently used to measure creativity:

• The fluidity refers to the ability to generate a considerable amount of ideas or responses to established approaches.
• Flexibility It refers to the faculty of formulation of responses that belong to different categories, causing a broader or more broadly different search and vision of what was always had.
• The elaboration It consists of adding elements or details to ideas that already exist, modifying some of its attributes. Requires managing skills and a lot of information.
• The originality It is the most outstanding aspect of creativity since it implies thinking of ideas that had not occurred before or visualizing the problems differently.

The concept of creativity is one more characteristic that the gifted. You can be creative without being gifted, but not vice versa. To be qualified as a person with high intellectual capacity, creativity must be possessed.

Art is not only the only vehicle of expression of this capacity, since there are other equally valid forms through which to channel this potentiality.

3. Early maturity

Outdrained children mature faster than the rest of their peers who are the same age and show behaviors that are typical of older children.

Many times Early development does not have to identify as gifted because in most cases children end up matching those of their age, or their difference is specified in some area, identifying as talent.

4. Genius

Identify individuals with great intellectual superiority who make very relevant contributions to society. The gifted have this faculty and rise above the intellectual medium level.

They perceive the intimate relationships between things, gather and combine the materials wisely, invent or discover creating and anticipating their time promoting a new point of view that exceeds those already established.

5. Brilliance

The term is understood as a quality that an individual has a high degree of intelligence, compared to the other environmental subjects.

A brilliant person shows greater academic performance and is able to memorize a greater number of data, etc ..

Informative video about high children's capacities:

Links of interest

OUTDOED CHILD DETECTION QUESTIONNAIRE. (34 years)
OUTDOED CHILD DETECTION QUESTIONNAIRE. (5 - 8 years)
OUTDOED CHILD DETECTION QUESTIONNAIRE. (9 - 14 years)

Bibliographic references

• Castejón, j. L., & Gairín, J. (2012). High capacities: a literature review. Education Magazine, 357, 343-367.
• García-Ros, r., & Martínez-Monteagudo, M. C. (2010). High intellectual abilities: definition, identification and characteristics. Psychodidactic Magazine, 15 (2), 209-226.
• González-Pienda, J. TO., Rodríguez, c., & Fernández, and. (2002). High intellectual capabilities: definition, identification, evaluation and intervention programs. Education Magazine, 327, 117-144.
• Martínez-González, a. AND. (2016). High intellectual capacities: definition, identification and intervention programs. Psychodidactic Magazine, 21 (1), 23-34.
• Roselló, b. (2013). High capacities in inclusive school. Psychology writings, 6 (1), 5-13.