Walking on the playground or paying attention to the children at school, we see that they are all different. Someone wears only fives in the diary, while others do not have enough time. But there are other special children who are not like everyone else. It is about them that we will talk now. Let us consider from pedagogy the types of giftedness of children and their signs, and also try to understand why these children live more difficult than everyone else.
The definition of giftedness
Before moving on to the characteristics of the types of gifted children, you should understand the definition of this concept.
So, giftedness is a special quality of the psyche that develops throughout a person’s life. Such people can achieve high results in a certain type of activity, and sometimes in several at once. They have a talent that most people don’t have. A gifted child is immediately visible, since he clearly stands out from the rest. Particularly well, he is given a certain kind of action, where he will definitely be able to surpass any classmate.
Modern psychologists say that giftedness is not only a natural gift or a good heredity. An equally important role is played by the socio-cultural environment of the child, his development and activity. Judge for yourselves: is it possible for a downtrodden and notorious child, with whom no one is engaged at home, to suddenly become the best simply because nature so wanted.
The specifics of children's giftedness
Children's giftedness has its own specific characteristics, which must be taken into account. These points cannot be applied to adult giftedness.
- Sometimes in childhood, giftedness can be confused with rapid development, rapid learning. Each children's age is unique in its own way. Children of preschool and primary school age learn languages ​​incredibly quickly, no adult is able to learn English or German as fast as a five-year-old child can. When they begin to grow up, the ability decreases, but then there is an interest in literature, some teenagers begin to write poetry. And this is normal for their age. For most, this starts immediately after graduation. Such things cannot be called gifted.
- Children grow up, in this period giftedness can fade. At this stage, it is very important not to miss the moment and find out if the child can become a gifted adult or if he left all his talents in childhood. Here we should talk about the level of sustainability of giftedness.
- Another important point is that sometimes children gifted in a certain area do not keep up at all in other areas. For example, a gifted child cannot write or read poorly, but at the age of three he is able to draw a real masterpiece. This point is important not to miss, because quite often giftedness is combined with lag.
- The social status of the family in which the child lives plays a very important role. It is clear that in a good family, parents deal with children, try to invest in them everything that they themselves know, but the child does not always have some special talent. It just develops in good conditions and has everything in order to study well. A child from a dysfunctional family may have talent, but no one does this with him, no one develops his abilities in him, so some teachers immediately put him in the backward. Every child in school should have the same rights and opportunities to show and prove themselves.
Signs of giftedness
Let's look at the types and signs of gifted children. Signs appear in your child’s real activities.
There is a motivational aspect of giftedness and instrumental. The first is how the baby relates to this or that activity, whether he wants to do it, and the second is how well he does it regardless of his desires.
I would like to dwell in more detail on the instrumental aspect, since there are many interesting factors. So, when a gifted child does what is best for him, he can use such techniques and tools that we did not even know. This expresses his particular productivity. There are three levels by which the success of a child’s activity is determined:
- How quickly children can learn new activities and what results they achieve in it in a short period.
- A child can independently find new ways of completing tasks that help him cope with them much faster and better.
- The kid can study the subject more deeply and find his goals, which is why innovative ways to solve the problem appear.
If we are talking about genuinely gifted children, then in their activity, the third level, innovation, should be shown first.
The gifted child: types of giftedness
To begin with, it should be said that scientists distinguish quantitative and qualitative giftedness of children. The latter indicates in what the child’s peculiarity is manifested, in what type of activity he succeeded more than the rest, and the first can tell how well the talent is expressed.
So, there are several criteria by which determine the types of giftedness of preschool children and schoolchildren:
- First, they look at the type of activity in which the baby succeeds, and at those areas of the psyche that ensure its implementation.
- Next, you should pay attention to the degree of formation of abilities to perform this type of work.
- The third criterion is the forms in which giftedness is manifested.
- How widely manifested talent is not only in a certain area, but also in some others.
- And of course, special attention should be paid to the peculiarities of the child's age development.
Already on the basis of these criteria, we can distinguish several types of giftedness of schoolchildren and preschoolers:
- There are talents that manifest themselves in certain crafts, the organization of a practice, or in sports. Such giftedness relates to practical activities.
- There are children who are especially good at studying any sciences. Someone is well given biology, someone physics or chemistry. This is a giftedness in cognitive activity.
- It is impossible not to notice the children who draw incredibly beautifully, can quickly master a musical instrument, succeed in choreography or acting. These are talents from the field of artistic and aesthetic.
- Communicative giftedness is also distinguished - these are child leaders who can lead other groups of people.
- We must not forget about spiritual values, since there are children and adults who can make a significant contribution to spiritual values, serve people and thereby bring great benefit.
If you see a musician in front of you, this does not mean that he has talent only in this area. His talent covers all five criteria. After all, playing his musical instrument, he uses muscles and motor skills, delivers aesthetic pleasure to people, learns notes, which means he has a giftedness in cognitive activity.
The degree of formation of giftedness
The types and types of giftedness of preschool and school children we examined. But now I would like to talk in more detail about the degrees of its formation. They are distinguished by only two: actual and potential.
Actual talent is the level of development of abilities in a child that we can see today. In other words, this is what he has already achieved in a certain direction, the skills and knowledge that he can freely apply in practice. It also examines how far the child was able to overtake his peers in the study of a particular field of knowledge. However, more attention is paid here not to cognitive activity, but to talent.
Potential giftedness is observed in those children who have high potential and are able to develop in one direction or another, but due to some circumstances they cannot do this. Why do they not realize themselves? There are many reasons: difficult life circumstances, careless parents who do not have a desire to work with a child, lack of motivation for the child and a desire to do something. Potential giftedness can not always be seen just like that, sometimes it is detected only after certain tests and observations.
Form of giftedness
As mentioned earlier, the forms and types of giftedness in children manifest themselves in different ways. So, distinguish explicit and latent giftedness.
Obvious - it can be noticed quite early, since the talent manifests itself very clearly, nothing depends on the conditions in which the baby lives and whether someone is engaged with him. A psychologist or a specialist in the giftedness of children can accurately determine the obvious inclinations of a child to a particular type of activity, and develop a program of classes with him.
The latent form of giftedness manifests itself in such a way that even if a child has great talent, he will not be visible to others. Quite often it happens that a talented child is simply added to the list of hopeless children and his talent is not disclosed. What is the reason for this? It’s hard to say for sure. Most likely, much depends on the character of the child, on how he was brought up in the family, whether he was encouraged for any achievements, or constantly pointed out helplessness. It is very difficult to identify such children in a team; this is a complex work that requires a lot of time and effort.
Scope of manifestation
The types of giftedness of children of preschool age and school differ in the breadth of manifestation. Allocate general and special talent.
The first is manifested in various types of activities, that is, a child can take up work from different spheres of life and perform it perfectly without any hints and recommendations from adults. General giftedness is the coordinated work of the emotional and motivational sphere. Since the child knows exactly what he wants and in what ways he can achieve a positive result.
The second form is special. It is easy to understand that it manifests itself only in a certain type of activity. For example, a child can excel in drawing or be a good mathematician from an early age. Abilities for certain sciences are more often inherited, but as for creativity, much depends on the child’s perception, his imagination, and the desire to translate his feelings and thoughts into real images. So there are great artists and musicians who transfer all their thoughts to the canvas or stave.
A special kind of special giftedness is social. These are children leaders who achieve high results in politics, occupy high positions in the team. Not every person can speak beautifully and correctly. Maybe for someone it will be a surprise, but for this you need a talent that not everyone has, and this talent needs to be constantly developed.
Early and late giftedness
Here, attention is paid to how the child’s mental development is going, and the age stages at which the first manifestations of giftedness are visible are considered an important indicator. All these observations are carried out in order not to miss the very moment when the baby will show his talent - you can not miss and ruin your abilities. Sometimes children do not immediately manifest themselves, so certain types of giftedness of school-age children can wake up in a teenager, and sometimes in an adult.
Everyone knows the concept of a “child prodigy” - a child who has shown his high abilities at an early age. Usually geeks do not even have time to go to school, as they are already achieving high results in mathematics, dancing, singing or other activities.
Particular attention is paid to babies who already in two or three years show good results in any science. They immediately stand out from the rest, because they are able to quickly memorize poems or numbers, they can add at the level of the third class in their three years. The manifestation of a particular type of giftedness is largely dependent on age. The first to manifest the ability to music, a little later you can notice the talent of the artist. Intellectual abilities can show themselves a little later due to the fact that it takes some time to learn the material, to master all the necessary skills. Judging by the biographies of great scientists, then among the scientific talents, the first is the mathematical, and only later all the others.
Teacher and gifted child
We examined all types of giftedness. Work with gifted children also requires attention, because these guys are unique and require a special attitude to themselves. So, there is a whole list of forms of working with them:
- The teacher should organize creative workshops to develop the talent of children.
- Separate group classes, which are attended by the strongest children from parallel classes, are mandatory in practice.
- The teacher is obliged to conduct additional electives in those subjects that are given to gifted children especially easily.
- Interest schools should be organized at the school, where children can freely realize their potential.
- Together with the child, the teacher should be engaged in research activities.
- To diversify the lives of children, as well as to increase their motivation, various contests, relay races, competitions are held.
- Gifted children should take part in various competitions and conferences.
- If the child really has high achievements in a certain field of knowledge, then it makes sense to develop an individual work plan for him, according to which he will work together with the teacher.
- If really talented children were identified at the school, then joint work with universities of a certain direction is organized. This is necessary so that this child can move on, reach even greater heights and subsequently have the opportunity to receive not only a good higher education, but also a decent job.
Indigo children
Now there is a special kind of giftedness - indigo children. However, this group of children is not recognized by any science. The term exists by itself, but does not have clear definitions. It was first introduced by Nancy Ann Tapp, who claimed that indigo are those children who have super powers.
Modern scientists do not identify any criteria by which it would be possible to determine that a child belongs to this group, however, there are still some conditional differences:
- Children often become isolated and have poor communication skills.
- They are individualists, completely deny the presence of any authority, refuse to obey anyone.
- They are distinguished from other children by a high level of intelligence and creativity.
- They are interested in sciences that have no connection with each other.
- They have a lot of energy, they almost never sit still.
- They are prone to depression, they often change their mood for no apparent reason.
- They are difficult to educate, it can be difficult for parents to cope even with a small child.
- Children have very well developed intuition, they almost always feel the approach of danger.
- They are good at digital technologies, they excel at programming.
This kind of giftedness is manifested in children of primary school age and even earlier.