GIFTED, CREATIVE AND EDUCATIONALLY BACKWARD CHILDREN

 

GIFTED CHILDREN

         Gifted child, any child who is naturally endowed with a high degree of general mental ability or extraordinary ability in a specific sphere of activity or knowledge. The designation of giftedness is largely a matter of administrative convenience. In most countries the prevailing definition is an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 130 or above. Increasingly, however, schools use multiple measures of giftedness and assess a wide variety of talents, including verbal, mathematical, spatial-visual, musical, and interpersonal abilities.

• Children are gifted when their ability is significantly above the norm for their age.

   Giftedness may manifest in one or more domains such as; intellectual, creative, artistic,      

   leadership, or in a specific academic field such as language arts, mathematics or science.

• Children who possess a superior intellectual potentiality.

• Those whose performance is consistently remarkable in some potentially valuable activity.

• Who possess outstanding abilities or potential in the area of general intellectual capacity, specific academic aptitude, creative or productive thinking, leadership ability, visual or performing arts and psychomotor activity.

"Children who give evidence of high-performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership capacity, or specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities”.

Biological characteristics

• The gifted child seems to have an increased cell production that also increases synaptic activity. This all adds up to an increased thought process.

• The neurons in the brain of the gifted child seem to be bio-chemically more abundant and, as a result, the brain patterns that develop are able to process more complex thought.

• There seems to be more prefrontal cortex activity in the brain, which leads to insightful and intuitive thinking.

• Gifted children have more alpha wave activity in the brain. They not only get more alpha wave activity faster than the typical child, but they also sustain it longer. This allows for more relaxed and focused learning with greater retention and integration.

• The brain rhythms of the gifted child occur more often, and this allows for concentration, attention, investigation, and inquiry

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS

The gifted child may be:

• Self-disciplined, independent

• sense of humor

• More adaptable and more adventurous

• Greater tolerance for ambiguity and discomfort

• Little tolerance for boredom

• Preference for complexity, asymmetry, open-endedness

• High in divergent thinking ability

• High in memory, good attention to detail

• Broad knowledge background

• Need think periods

• Need supportive climate,

• Need recognition, opportunity to share

• High aesthetic values, good aesthetic judgement

• lack of stereotypical male/female identification.

• Longer attention span and intense concentration

• Learn basic skills quickly and with little practice

• Asks probing questions

• Wide range of interests (or extreme focus in one area)

• Highly developed curiosity

• Interest in experimenting and doing things differently

• Keen and/or unusual sense of humor

• Desire to organize people/things through games

• Vivid imaginations (and imaginary playmates when in preschool)

• Unusual alertness, even in infancy

• Rapid learner; puts thoughts together quickly

• Excellent memory

• Unusually large vocabulary and complex sentence structure for age

• Advanced comprehension of words and abstract ideas

• Enjoys solving problems, especially with numbers and puzzles

• Often self-taught reading and writing skills as preschooler

• Deep, intense feelings and reactions

• Highly sensitive

• Thinking is abstract, complex, logical, and insightful

• Idealism and sense of justice at early age

• Concern with social and political issues and injustices

1.      GIFTED STUDENTS……

ü  Asks many questions and is very curious

ü  Possesses a large amount of information

ü   Has a good memory

BUT….

ü  Easily gets "off task" and "off topic “

ü   Is impatient when not called on in class

2.      THE GIFTED STUDENTS….

ü  Learns new information quickly

ü  Retains information easily

ü   Masters reading skills earlier

ü   Demonstrates strong abilities in math

ü   Displays unusual academic achievement

ü   Finishes classwork quickly

BUT….

ü  Is easily bored.

ü   Can become disruptive in class.

ü  Shows strong resistance to repetitive activities and memorization.

3.       THE GIFTED STUDENT....

ü  Is interested in many things.

ü  Becomes involved in a variety of activities.

ü  Is motivated to try new things.

ü  Enjoys a challenge.

              BUT….

ü  May resist working on activities apart from areas of interest.

ü   Leaves projects unfinished.

ü  Takes on too much and becomes overwhelmed.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES FOR THE GIFTED CHILDREN

1. Separate schools or special schools-In some of the advanced countries of the world, separate schools have been provided for such students

2. Ability grouping or separate classes-The gifted pupils may be placed in special group for all or part of school day. The purpose of ability grouping is usually to provide for enrichment of student’s experiences in both depth and breadth, and to permit the children to stimulate one another

3.  Acceleration –acceleration offers opportunity for gifted pupils to move at a pace appropriate to his ability and maturity and to complete an educational programme in less than ordinary amount of time. It involves advancing the gifted children rapidly from grade to grade in school so that he enters college early than others

4.  Double promotion-if a child shows an extra ordinary achievement in one class, he may be given a double promotion. The aim of this promotion is to place the gifted student to sit in the standard most suitable for him. But as occasions such promotions prove to be very detrimental to the child.

5.  Enrichment programmes

• General exploratory activities such as projects that allow students to find out about topic on their own interest.

• Group training activities such as games and simulations to promote creativity and problem-solving skill

• Individual and small group investigations of real problem such as writing books or newspaper, interviewing elderly people to write oral histories and conducting geological and archeological investigations

6. Summer schools-these schools may be planned during summer vacations. Academically talented students are selected from different parts of the country on the basis of psychological tests, interview and previous school records and are brought together for special educational programmes.

           The main approaches to gifted education are enrichment and acceleration. An enrichment program teaches additional, related material, but keeps the student progressing through the curriculum at the same rate as other students. For example, after the gifted students have completed the normal work in the curriculum, an enrichment program might provide them with additional information about a subject. An acceleration program advances the student through the standard curriculum faster than normal. When gifted students have completed a subject, they advance to the next subject, even though the rest of the class is still working on the first subject.

 

CREATIVE CHILDREN

• Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed.

• Creativity implies the production of a totally or partially novel identity (Stagner and Karwoski).

According to skinner,

        “Creative thinking means that the predictions or inferences for the individual are new, original, ingenious, unusual. The creative thinker is one who explores new areas and makes new observations, new predictions and new inferences.”

NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE CHILDREN

• Creativity is universal

• Creativity is innate as well as acquired

• Creativity produces something new or novel

• Is adventurous and open thinking

• Creativity is a means as well as end in itself

• Carries ego involvement

• Creativity and intelligence do not necessarily go hand in hand.

• Creativity cannot be separated from intelligence.

• Creativity rests more on divergent thinking than on convergent thinking.

• Creativity and school achievement are nor correlated

• Sociability and creativity are negatively correlated

• Creativity and anxiety often go together

• Any creative expression is a source of joy and satisfaction for the creator

Creative thinking involves some steps……

ü  Preparation

ü  Incubation

ü   Inspiration or illumination

ü   Verification or revision

ü   Every gifted child may not be creative but every creative child can be called gifted.

ü   We can label a child creative to the extent to which he is able to demonstrate creative aspect in his thinking, feeling and doing behavior

Identification of creative children

a) Making use of tests of creativity

b) Making use of non-testing devices like observation, interview, rating scale, personality inventory, check list etc.

Tests of creativity

a. Minnesota tests of creative thinking

b. Torrance tests of creative thinking

c. Remote associate tests

d. Wallach and korgan creativity instruments

e. Baquermehdi’s tests of creative thinking

Non-testing devices

• Natural observation

• Situational techniques

• Rating scale

• Check list

• Interview

• Personality inventories

• Interest inventories

CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVITY

• Demonstrates originality in ideas and actions.

• Is more adaptable as well as adventurous.

• Posses good memory and more knowledge background.

• Posses high degree of keenness, attentiveness, alertness, power of concentration.

• Is very curious by nature.

• Little tolerance for boredom.

• Posses foresightedness in abundance.

• Has the capacity to take independent decisions.

• Shows interest in vague and ambiguous ideas.

• Enjoys reputation in having strange and silly ideas.

• Posses high degree of sensitivity towards a problem.

• Can express ideas as fluently as possible.

• Shows flexibility in thinking, feeling and doing.

• Ability to transfer learning or training from one situation to another.

• Have richer fantasy life and greater involvement in day dreaming.

• Show different brain patterns than the less creative.

• More spontaneous and expressive.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES FOR FOSTERING CREATIVITY

o Freedom to respond.

o Opportunity for ego involvement.

o Encouraging originality and flexibility.

o Removal of hesitation and fear.

o Providing appropriate opportunities and atmosphere for creative expression.

o Developing healthy habits among children.

o Using the creative resources of the community.

o Avoidance of blocks to creative thinking.

o Proper organization of the curriculum.

o Reform in the evaluation system.

o Use of specific techniques for fostering creativity.

ü  brain storming.

ü   use of teaching models.

ü   use of gaming technique.

o Providing self-example and ideals.

 

EDUCATIONALLY BACKWARD CHILDREN

   1.“The Backward child is one who is unable to do the work of the class next below that which is

           normal for his age.” BURT

 2. Any child who does not progress at the rate to which his abilities permit him.

 3. A Backward child as the name indicates is one who falls far behind other children of his age in   

       matters of study.

4.In schools, such children remain in the same class for many years and fail to progress upward.   

    This backwardness may be due to physical or mental weakness.

5. Backward children are also called as “Educationally Retarded Children” or” Slow Learner”.

6. Backward children are those who cannot keep pace with the class of their age.

TYPES OF BACKWARDNESS

1-General Backwardness: This is all round backwardness. In such backwardness the child is weak in all subjects.

2-Specific or special backwardness: In this case, the child is weakest in one or more than one subject, but he is not backward in all the subject.

CHARACTERISTICS OF BACKWARD CHILDREN

1.      Low intelligence.

2.      Mental or different complexes.

3.      Dependent behavior.

4.      Slow learner.

5.      Unplanned activities.

6.      Slow growth and development

7.      Feeling of pessimism

8.      Anti-social tendencies

9.      Lack of decision-making abilities

10.   Continuous failure

CAUSES OF BACKWARDNESS

(1) Causes Lying within the Individual Child:

• poor health, physical ailments and chronic diseases etc.

• Child may suffer from some bodily defects like defective vision, faulty hearing, speech defects etc.

• some defects in his brain system or its functioning or on account of some emotional and psychological pressure generated as a result of his personal and social maladjustment.

(2) Causes Lying in the Environment

a) Defective Home Environment.

 b) Defective School Environment

 c) Other Negative Social influences (neighborhood and other social agencies)

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES OR REMEDIAL MEASURES

• Specific Backwardness Treatment.

• Short and Simple Method of Instructions.

• Retention of Self-Confidence.

• Participation in Extracurricular Activities.

• Individual Attention.

• Desired Outcomes Must be known.

• Stimulation of All Senses.

• Teacher’s Patience.

• Special Organization.

• Medical checkup.

• Remedial coaching.

• Multisensory approach.