THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER WITHINTHE IDENTIFICATION OF GIFTED STUDENTS

Lola PrietoJoaquín Parra

Carmen FerrándizCristina Sánchez

UNIVERSITY OF MURCIASPAIN

Paper presented at the European Conference on Education Research, University of Crete, 22-25 September 2004

One of the needs that classrooms teachers have is to know the

characteristics of the precocious and gifted students. One of the procedures to

determine the gifted child process is to collect information on his/her behaviour

and delivery through checklist. It is convenient to make some precisions: the

first, although every extremely gifted student is unique, many share the same

characteristics. Second, the studies show that, when the teachers use checklist,

the opportunities of identifying successfully the extremely gifted students are

very big. Third, no child has all the qualities of the list, that we will explained as

follows, but it is true that many of the skills in the list remind us the typical

behaviours the children are capable of.

The aim is to make an screening with the purpose of selecting the

children that show theses high skills, in order to do that , we use a teachers

checklist for knowing the most relevant characteristics, that according to the

experts’ judgement (Renzulli, 1977, Sternberg and Lubart, 1997) some

precocious and gifted students show.

Our checklist is based in the model of the Renzulli´s et al.(1977) three

rings. in a likert-scale kind (from 1 to 4) it is made of 28 items: a) 10 items

measure the characteristics referred to intrinsic motivation (for example: he/she

get involves in what is interesting to him/her); b) 10 items value the general

delivery (for example: understand concepts and advanced-to-his/her-age figure

relations; having a rich vocabulary); and c) 8 items oriented to evaluate the

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creativity skills as: fluency, flexibility, elaboration and originality (for example:

great idea generation, unusual problem solving through different procedures).

In this study 467 schools have taken part (public and private schools), all

of them from the autonomous Region of Murcia (Spain), and 63.399 students of

public schools and 22.981 students belong to private schools, whose ages

range goes from 5 to 12 years old.

The research has been done in three stages: the first one, we proceed to

the design and adaptation of the checklist for which we used the judges system,

extremely gifted children experts.

The second stage: the teachers, using the checklist, selected the

students that were standing out for their delivery, creativity and intrinsic

motivation, characteristics that, in opinion of Renzulli and Sternberg, are those

of extremely gifted students.

Third stage: once the checklists were completed we proceeded to the

statistical analysis and result interpretation.

Finally, we will continue studying the distinguishable characteristics of

these children with the aim of designing strategies to adequate them to their

diversity.

The results show that the checklist has the psychometrics characteristics

required for this kind of instrument (Cronbach.90). From the initial sample of

participants 156 students have been identified, that fit into the requirement

previously set: to get, at least, a percentile equal or higher to 75 equally in the

delivery scale as well as the creativity scale too. The characteristics of these

children, according to the teachers are: using and maximizing the knowledge

efficiently, propose ingenious solutions and unusual problems; they are

persistent especially when the targets are interesting, original and complex.

As a final conclusion we can say that the checklist is a very useful tool for

the teacher to identify extremely gifted children.

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Actually, we studying some differential characteristics as well as the

cognitive configuration of these 155 children: a) general intelligence for the

study of it itself we use an IQ test (BAD&G, General and Differential Aptitude

Battery), this test will enable us to, establish cognitive profiles; b) TTC (Torrance

test of creative thinking).

1. WHO THE GIFTED CHILDREN ARE?

We know that the term extremely gifted and talent are concepts that,

sometimes, enclose certain confusion, because the word, extremely gifted

person is reserved to children with high intellectual abilities in all fields, while we

use the term talent for defining the children that show high abilities in certain

fields or areas such as art, music, sports and theatre. But, often, both concepts

are used in a very different way when we talk about school children that stand

out at school environment. The resulting data from different studies highlight

that approximately between 3 and 3.5 per cent of the children in school age

have been identified as extremely gifted. Joseph Renzulli (1978) has developed

a model widely used for defining extremely gifted; such model is made of 3

superimposed circles representing 3 differential characteristics of the extremely

gifted children, which are:

1. High intelligence level, which is manifested in high achievements

obtained by the school children within the school context. They show

high levels of abstract, verbal, numeric, spatial relations memory and

verbal fluidity thinking; they usually adapt and create new situations in

the environment, show great capacity for automating information, the

IQ is only one of its forms, and not necessarily the most reliable, way of

obtaining information on the intellectual capacity of the school child.

2. Motivation and involvement in the task consist in showing a great

energy or personal involvement in doing a particular task. They usually

are people with great curiosity in many subjects, what it forces them to

established selection and schoolwork planning criteria. The

perseverance, being this, one of the most specific characteristics of

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extremely gifted children, besides they have self-confidence and a

certain creed in their own capacity to do the work they consider

important, great capacity for establishing high achievements-

achievement motivation – broad mind for accepting external critics and

certain sense for aesthetics in appreciating their own and somebody

else quality.

3. Creativity, that is together with intelligence and motivation, another of

the peculiar characteristics of the extremely gifted children. Creativity is

understood as a kind of divergent thinking that favours the search of

solutions or different alternatives to a problem given. The extremely

gifted children with a high level of creativity are the ones that show a

high inventive capacity for producing many ideas or solutions to the

problems (fluency); they show a great broad mind for considering

ideas, experiences, actions and somebody else products; their

speculative curiosity, take them to enjoy situations and tasks that imply

intellectual risk, they like confronting difficult situations, they are

sensitive to aesthetics and they like to present their ideas and research

resulting products in a very original way, nothing conventional.

2. THE TEACHER’S CHECKLIST: A PROCEDURE TO IDENTIFY GIFTED CHILDREN

The teachers are a very rich source of information as they have had the

opportunity to get to know many students with different characteristics. For

considering the teacher as a valuable source of information, the researchers of

extremely gifted children have constructed instruments as checklist, whose aim

is to provide the teacher with a scale to value the extremely gifted children’s

capacities. For example, Quatrrochi (1984) demonstrated in his works that the

teacher could value the characteristics referred to the creativity of the extremely

gifted children. Some other researchers (Roedell, Jackson and Robinson, 1980;

Hoeksema, 1982; Wolfle, 1989) have also demonstrated that the teacher is a

very important source of information for valuing the capacities of the children

during the teaching – learning processes.

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Despite the teacher having a privileged position for informing about the

extremely gifted children’s characteristics, however, the teacher, in general

terms, tends to value the diligent child as intelligent child, obedient as calm,

forgetting the restless child, that usually put complex and embarrassing

questions, that cause problems to the teacher for being creative and puzzle

because of their original and unusual answers, being some of them some of the

characteristics of the extremely gifted children. In this sense. Genovard says

(1982) that the teachers don’t value creativity, originality and curiosity of a

superior intelligence. This lack of knowledge of the extremely gifted children’s

world obstructs its identification.

Fundamentally, from the eighties the scales for teachers, parents and

schoolmates Nomination have been designed for identifying the extremely

gifted and talented children within the school context. We are referring to the

Teacher’s Nominations (Teacher’s Checklist)

The designed scales for teachers are made of a series of questions that

have as an aim the observation and valuing of a series of typical extremely

gifted child characteristics.

Renzulli (1977), expert in the field of the extremely gifted, designed a scale

for the teachers to identify extremely gifted or precocious children (4-12 years

old). The scale pretends the valuation of the following characteristics: a)

capacity to learn, we collect all the abilities referred to the control of vocabulary,

processing of information, reading competence, and so on; b) motivation, the

items of this scale are making reference to the personal involvement in their

work, to the independent way of doing their tasks, the ability to organize and

structure activities, and so on; c) creativity, within this section we include the

curiosity, ideas generation, originality in solving problems, and so on; d)

leadership, we have items referred to the involvement of the student in the

social and school activities, cooperation, responsibility to accomplish what

promised, and so on; e) precise communication, in this section we collect the

characteristics referred to verbal and written fluency, ability to express

messages clearly and precisely, easiness to describe anything with the suitable

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terms, and so on; f) communication and expressiveness, the items of this

subscale collect abilities referred to the information transmission through non

verbal language, easiness to narrate stories in a very interesting way and ability

to use analogies and tongue twist, and so on; g) planning capacity, includes

items referred to the easiness to organize and structure their own work,

selecting information efficiently or the necessary resources to complete any

task, and the ability to use the different alternative methods to achieve the task,

and so on. This scale was translated, adapted valued and widespread in our

country (Spain) by Castelló (1986).

At the end of the seventies, Johnson (1979) designs a scale for teachers

for them to identify the distinctive characteristics of the extremely gifted children.

The scale is made of 24 items that are making reference to the following areas:

academic, creative, intelligence, and leadership, artistic, psychomotor and

mechanic. The goodness of the scale is that allows the obtaining of the

classroom as well as the individual schoolchild profile, in this sense, the teacher

can observe the differences between the precocious, the extremely gifted and

talented with respect to the rest of the students within the classroom.

Later on, Hoeksema (1982) proposes a group of instruments for

identifying the extremely gifted children of the different instructional levels.

Within the instruments he includes a checklist for the teacher. It is made of 46

items that are making reference to characteristics that the author considers

typical of precocious children. The 46 items are included within 3 big categories:

the first one is called “superior general ability”, within this category he

establishes a distinction between the items referred to the intellectual aspect

and those that are making reference to the emotional, social and moral aspects;

the second is called “completion and involvement in the tasks” and the third one

is called “superior level of creativity”. The presentation of the checklist is made

of an answer sheet in which the teacher notes for each of the items of the

checklist the frequency on which the child shows such a conduct.

Within the first category, called “superior intellectual ability” is included

items referred to the easiness for learning new things and understand new

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concepts, to the ability that some schoolchildren show in the handling of the

language and reading and their high delivery in school work. Within the social,

emotional and moral aspects are included the abilities of the extremely gifted in

organizing or leading groups, or the understanding of abstract concepts (the

death, the injustice in the world, the sadness and the lies, and so on).

Within the category “completion and involvement”, the items included

make reference to the working habits, concentration capacity, working

independence, organizing and structuring the tasks or high motivation for

learning and involving themselves within the activities that are interesting, all of

them are schoolchild extremely gifted characteristics.

Within the category known as “superior level of creativity”, the items that

are included have characteristics referred to the ideas fluency, to the originality

in solving problems, to the flexibility to change the pattern of thinking, to the

imagination and inventiveness.

Within this instrument the teacher is asked about the wide variety of

characteristics of his/her students in the classroom; this instrument allows the

giving of a wide and precise valuation of the school children and especially

those that are extremely gifted. It demands dedication of the teacher and

knowledge of the exceptional students’ characteristics (extremely gifted,

precocious and/or talented).

Other scale is the one designed by Mc Millan and it is known as the

Teacher Summary (The Halton Board of Education, 1987), it is an oriented to

value in a global way the capacities of the students in relation to the reading,

written and verbal language, mathematics and development within the

environment. Besides it collects characteristics referred to creativity (fluidity,

flexibility, originality, curiosity, elaboration, imagination, knowledge and

completion of tasks). The teacher can reflect the frequency and intensity of the

different characters corresponding to these 5 abilities and value the skills of the

extremely gifted children in these areas.

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It is also known and used the scale for teachers designed by J.Wolfle

(1989), that contains 20 characteristics that define the extremely gifted student

and make reference to the different aspects of their own personal development

(handling and use of the language, abstract problems resolutions, sensitivity to

the problems of the others, creativity, and so on).

The research team of “High Abilities” of Murcia University conducted by

Professor Prieto, designs a checklist, based in the works previously mentioned

and mainly around Renzulli (Prieto, 1997). This scale contains 24 items, whose

aim is valuing motivation, creativity and delivery of the precocious/extremely

gifted child. The results from the different studies have demonstrated that it has

a high reliability as well as an easy handling and use for teachers.

In few words, these instruments Checklist serve the teacher for

identifying the characteristics of the students with high abilities in a very

significant way, because they can be very effective in the identifying of the

capacities of the students better gifted. An advantage of this system is that,

once a teacher recognizes the capacity, usually gets interested in designing

adequate measures for the diversity of the extremely gifted (educative

provisions). The identification and educative provision have been always seen

very close to each other: the good provision allows the capacity to surface,

while a good identification leads to an adequate provision.

Summing up, we can say that it is essential the help from the teacher for

the identification of the extremely gifted students for several reasons, among

these are the following:

- They are the ones that know the students better within the learning process.

- They spend a lot of time with the students.

- They know their weak and strong points for learning.

- They are, also, great learning easers. This easing or intercession can be

reflected in the following aspects:

1. The teachers of extremely gifted children try to make positive and

physical relationships that can help the learning of them

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2. The quality and quantity of the verbal interaction, it is an important

factor for the success of the leaning of these children.

3. These teachers give great importance to the creativity of the their

children.

4. The teachers of extremely gifted children are flexible with their time and

program, according to the students’ needs.

5. Provide the suitable environment support for studies and independent

interest of the children.

6. They show a “gifted conduct” for sustaining and maintaining their

professional responsibility.

7. The have a great self-confidence.

8. They know how to apply their knowledge in the teaching-learning

process.

9. They usually organize well their teaching work.

10.They are great innovators in methodologies, strategies and teaching

tactics.

For ending up, we will like to highlight that the teacher is the key figure and

it is in real terms the one that makes the difference. It is on him to introduce the

measures and procedures for benefiting the extremely gifted. The role of the

teacher recognized by the different authors can be summarized in the following

way: His/her personality, ability and experience are key factors for the teaching-

learning process of any child, but they are critics in the case of the extremely

gifted. The capacity for proposing a stimulating dialogue depends on the degree

of intuition within the area.

3. COGNITIVE CONFIGURATION OF GIFTED CHILDREN

In 1998 Castelló and Batlle proposed a identification protocol that is

extracted from two instruments of measuring already elaborated, that are the

Battery of Aptitudes Differential and General (BAD&G) and Torrance’s Creative

Thinking Test, that allow the differentiation of the different ways in which high

ability appears: extremely gifted, academic, artistic-figurative, verbal,

mathematical spatial and creative talent. This proposal tries to cover the two

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main problems related to identification in the extremely gifted and talent that

are: on one hand the low congruence among the theory criteria and the

identification on the other hand, the frequent word confusion in the concepts

referred to high ability extremely gifted, talent, precocious etc). As Castelló and

Batlle established (1998), with this proposal we can obtain a reliable valuation

of a section of the resources potentially involved in particular areas (verbal,

numeric, logic, and so on).

The cognitive configuration of extremely gifted characterised by a high

level of resources in all the intellectual aptitudes. The evolution of extremely

gifted is slow and complex, being difficult the appearing of the most

sophisticated processes and interactions before the end of the adolescence. In

spite of this, the basic aptitudes, as they are measured through the intelligence

test, can be evaluated from 12 years old. The social, motor functions and

emotional they also are part of the extremely gifted. These should be evaluated

with suitable test (Castelló, 2002).

This model allow us to identify extremely gifted and talented students

according to the following typology: a) students that show simple talents or

specific (referred to only one single variable); b) students that show multiple

talents (referred to several variables together); c) students the show complex

talents (referred to several variables together) within these ones we can find,

academic and figurative talents; and d) students that show conglomerated

talents in which we can find the combination of intellectual configuration of

academic and/or figurative talents with the multiple or simple talent.

As follows we detailed the identification criteria of extremely gifted and

every kind of talents.

The intellectual configuration in the case of the extremely gifted has a

percentile of 75 or higher in all areas: verbal, numeric, spatial, creativity, logic

memory and non-verbal reasoning.

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The intellectual configuration in the case of the simple talent gets a 95

percentile or higher in only one specific aptitude (for example a verbal,

mathematical spatial, creative or logical talent).

We can also find a multiple talent that shows an intellectual profile in

which there are several specific aptitudes having a percentile of 95 or higher.

The complex talent is the one that is made of the combination of several

specific aptitudes getting a percentile of 80. Within this category we can find: a)

academic talent that comes from the combination of verbal, logic reasoning and

memory; b) figurative talent that comes from the combination of logical and

spatial reasoning.

In the last place, in the conglomerated talent we can find several intellectual

profiles, it can be considered as conglomerated the talent that comes from the

combination of an academic talent with one or several specific aptitudes, it is

also the result of a figurative talent in combination with one or several specific

aptitudes, or when in a profile we find a figurative talent in combination with an

academic talent and several specific aptitudes.

4. EMPIRICAL WORK

The aim of this work is double: on one hand, to show the efficiency of the

Teacher’s. Checklist in the identification of extremely gifted; in the other hand,

to study the cognitive configuration and different profiles of the extremely gifted

and talented children. This work has been carried out in the Region of Murcia

(Spain).

4.1. Participants and Schools

In this work, there were 467 schools of the Region of Murcia, 372 public and

95 private. The school children sample was of 63.399 students (from public

schools) and 22.981 (private and state assisted) all of them in the stage of

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enfant school of 5 years old and primary education, according to the Spanish

Educative system. The ages of the students range from 5 to 12 years old.

4.2. Instruments

As follows we describe the instruments used in this study.

4.2.1. Teacher’s Checklist

In a Likert like scale, oriented to tutor teachers, made of 28 items:

a) 10 items measures the characteristics referred to the

inherent motivation (for example: gets involve in what really interest

him, he/she is persistent in doing the task);

b) 10 items value the general delivery (for example:

includes concepts and numeric relations to advanced for his/her

age; has a rich and elaborated vocabulary);

c) 8 items oriented to evaluate the creativity abilities, such

as: fluency, flexibility, elaboration and originality (for example:

generate great amount of ideas, solve unusual problems through

different approaches).

The teachers answered the items with answers ranging from 1 to 4,

representing the characteristics of variability in the following answers: 1) In

complete disagreement or never happen what is part of the item, 2) In some

disagreement or almost never happen what is part of the item, 3) In big

agreement or almost happening what is part of the item, 4) In full agreement or

always happen what is part of the item.

The results show that the checklist includes the psychometric characteristics

required for this kind of instruments: of Cronbach equal to .90.

4.3. Procedure

The empiric work was carried out in 3 stages.

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The first stage: The Teacher’s Checklist was sent to 467 schools of the

Region of Murcia that have Enfant and Primary Education, 372 are public

and 95 private. After, the teachers using the checklist selected the students

that have stood out in creativity, intrinsic motivation, characteristics that,

according to Renzulli (1977) and Sternberg and Lubart (1997), are from

students with high abilities.

Once the checklist has been completed we made the statistical analysis

and result interpretation. These allowed us to select the potential students

that showed exceptionality for high abilities. From the total number, the

sample was short listed to 155 students, after applying the established

criteria that was the reaching of 75 percentile in the sub scales referred to

creativity and general delivery in the Teacher’s Checklist.

The second stage: applying the IQ test (BAD&G). The evaluation of the

intellectual capacity, through the BAD&G that is performed within the school

centre, in ordinary school timetable, as another activity programmed as part

of the Curriculum. This application is done in the classroom context and

several members of the team, previously trained for this purpose, collect the

data.

The third stage: Creativity evaluation through TTCT (Torrance Test of

Creative Thinking). This stage had as an aim the evaluation of creativity that

is done applying the TTCT carried out by the members of the team.

5. RESULT ANALYSIS

The program used for the statistical analysis has been SPSS 12.0.

In this first moment the analysis have had descriptive character over the

answers given to the Teacher’s Checklist, the BAD&G test and the TTCT test,

as well as the analysis for obtaining the reliability of the scale (Alpha of

Cronbach).

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After the data analysis we can say the following:

First: in respect to the results of the Teacher’s Checklist, we have to

highlight that the averages of the students proposed by the teachers have been

very high.

So, in respect to the dimension referred to the intrinsic motivation the

average mark assigned to the students has been 3.14 (Typical Deviation 0.43),

that is under the teachers’ judgement the students with high abilities usually get

high marks in the motivation sub scale. It is necessary to remember that the

range of variability moves from 1 to 4 in all sub scales (“In Total disagreement

or never happen what is part of the item” to “In full agreement or always happen

what is part of the item”.).

In relation to the scale that values the general delivery, the average was

3.18 (Typical Deviation 0.55), what informs us that, according to the teachers’

judgements, that happen very often behaviours that reflect that high general

capacity of delivery.

And in the same way, in relation to the creativity dimension, the average

mark of the students has been 3.16 (Typical Deviation 0.50), what represents

that these students show high creativity, according to what the teachers say.

In second place: in respect to the gender differential analysis, according to

the teachers there is a 65.1 % of boys the show high abilities (extremely gifted

and/or talented) while the 34.9 % have been girls showing high abilities

(extremely gifted and/or talented).

In third place: in relation to the school level, according to the teachers, it is

within the first stage of Primary Education (6 to 8 years old) in which we have

the highest number of students with high abilities. When we use the most

conventional psychometric procedures, it is also in this stage when we find the

highest number of students with high abilities (see table 1).

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Table 1. Initial proposals and identified children with some exceptionality. Educative Stage Percentages.Enfant and Primary Education Stages Teacher’s Checklist

PercentageBAD&G and TTCT

PercentagePre-school Level (5 Years old) 14.89 6.87Primary Education First Stage 1º-2º (6 to 8) 32.12 39.69Primary Education Second Stage 3º-4º (8 to 10)

29.78 29.77

Primary Education Third Stage 5º-6º (10 to 12)

22.34 23.66

In fourth place: The data referred to the cognitive configuration of these

155 students considered as high abilities, are distributed as follows:

a) 45 students (29.03 %) show profiles referred to a talent defined as

conglomerated, being basically its intellectual configuration as follows:

academic talent aptitudes (high intellectual resources in verbal, logic and

memory management), and also mathematical talent (high resources of

representation and numeric and quantitative information handling).

b) 24 students (15.48%) show academic talent, which is a way of complex

talent in which it is combined the high resources of verbal, logic and

memory management. As it is an interaction of resources, the great

functions that are generated relate to the memory management from

verbal information logically organized.

c) 19 students (12.26%) show a multiple talent, which their intellectual

aptitudes at very high level of delivery (95 percentile) in two areas.

d) 19 students (11.61%) respond to the mathematical profile, that is, they

have high level of resources of representation and numeric and

quantitative information handling. This character makes an incidence in

certain trend to represent quantitatively all kind of information,

mathematical or another.

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e) 7 students (4.51) show verbal talent, what it means that have high

intellectual level of resources oriented to the representation and verbal

material handling. They solve skilfully problems and situations that

demand verbal and numeric components. They also show certain easiness

to work with problems that imply establishing analogical relationships

responds very well to complex verbal orders and handle a great number of

basic concepts.

f) 5 students show the figurative-artistic talent profile, they stand out

because of their spatial-figurative aptitudes and creative and logical

reasoning. Despite the logic component is usually low consider, it

becomes very necessary for the steady production and artistic material

elaboration. The interaction of these variables is essential for the

identification of this talent.

g) 4 students (2.58%) show a creative talent profile, that is, they are

students that have reflected an extraordinary divergent thinking, concreted

in their flexibility or capacity to change the patron of thinking; their fluidity

or easiness to produce different and numerous ideas and solutions to

problems; their originality or ability to propose non conventional answers

but very productive and their ability to elaborate or easiness for decorating

their ideas.

h) 2 students (1.29%) show the logic talent profile, it is very similar to the

creative in intellectual terms; but in return, its functionality is higher, as the

school and cultural parameters coincide with this one.

i) Finally 7 students (4.51 %) show characters of extremely gifted, the

stood out for their high resources in all the intellectual aptitudes. So, the

interactions among the logical, mathematical, verbal, spatial and memory

resources are more important and not the gross capacity in each of them.

They show a great capacity for delivery, intrinsic motivation and creativity

(see table 2).

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Table number 2. Children identified by typology of exceptionality and school stage.Exceptionality Typology

Enfant education 5 years

Primary E. Stage 1

Primary E. Stage 2

Primary E. Stage 3

Total % % Accumulated

Verbal Talent 2 4 1 7 4.51 4.51

Mathematical

Talent

2 10 2 4 18 11.61 16.12

Logical Talent 2 2 1.29 17.41

Figurative-

artistic Talent

5 5 3.22 20.63

Creative talent 3 1 4 2.58 23.21

Academic Talent 4 7 11 2 24 15.48 38.69

Multiple Talent 5 7 7 19 12.26 50.95

Conglomerated

Talent

2 16 13 14 45 29.03 79.98

Extremely gifted 1 4 2 7 4.51 84.49Not registered 3 5 8 8 24 15.48

6. CONCLUSIONS

In the first place, the results show a certain coincidence between the

Teachers’s Checklist and the psychometric techniques (IQ test and creativity

marking). As the previously established criteria patterns are maintained:

reaching or going over of 75 percentile in the intrinsic motivation and delivery

capacity subscales. When these conditions are met, both procedures (checklist

and psychometric trials) coincide in the identification of the 84.5 % of the

students.

In second place, it seems useful to use the Teacher’s Checklist together

with the psychometric trials because both procedures are complementary and

help us to explain, and as a result, understand better the students with high

abilities within the school context.

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In third place, in the study of the general characteristics of these students

we have observed their great creative capacity referred to: fluency, flexibility,

elaboration and originality. Being some of these components more relevant in

some students with high abilities (extremely gifted, precocious and/or talented)

than others, as it is reflected in the teachers’ evaluations and in the resulting

data of the creativity test (TTCT).

In fourth place, we have to insist in that these students show a great level

of general intelligence. Although their cognitive profiles are different as they are

showing extremely gifted or specific talents, they are students that use

efficiently their intellectual resources referred to the verbal, logical-mathematical

and spatial reasoning and their remembering and memory capacity.

In fifth place, we want to point out some orientation patterns for these

students identified with high abilities. For example, for the students that show

precocity, we would have to design action patterns oriented to provide them

with complex works including quantitative concepts, numeric problems and

solving problems that demand the execution of logical inferences, generalizing

and applying rules to the solution of the problems. It will be also

recommendable for the school to provide them with risky situations for

preventing them from boringness, as they are students with high domain of

information and fast pace of learning; that will invigorate socializing situations as

the interest and motivations are different to the rest of their classmates, this can

lead to a rejection from their classmates.

For the students with academic talent, we would have to design activities

demanding from them the storing and retrieving of any kind of information that

can be expressed verbally having a logical organization.

It would be convenient that for the figurative – artistic talent, the teachers

include tasks and works demanding the using of the representation and/or

expression abilities.

However, for the verbal talent the activities should be oriented to the

access to the information that requires coding and decoding complex

information.

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For the mathematical talent the teachers’ intervention will be centred in

providing material and activities that demand verbal comprehension of the

mathematical-logical problems.

In respect to the logical talent the teacher should include tasks related to

the domain of conceptual categories, graphic, verbal and numeric logical series,

that would demand all of them a high level of abstraction.

Finally, the creative talent demands an especial attention from the

teacher’s side; this should promote spaces, resources and moments the ease

the use of their resources and broad mind.

7. REFERENCES

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Castelló, A. (2002) Limitaciones del concepto de capacidad. Educar. Servei de Pubicacions de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Castelló, A. & Batlle, C. (1998) Aspectos teóricos e instrumentales en la identificación del alumno superdotado y talentoso. Propuesta de un protocolo. FAISCA, 6, 26-66.

Genovard, C. (1982). Hacia un esquema previo para el estudio del superdotados. Quaders de Psicología. (1), 115-144.

Hoeksema, F.H. (1982) Identifying Intellectual Advancement in Preschoolers. Specialist in Education Thesis. Central Michigan University.

Johnson, D.L. (1979) Gifted and Talented Screening Form: Instruction manual. Chicago: Stoelting.

Mc Millan (1987). The Teacher Summary: The Halton Board of Education. Pringram: Prime Time. Prieto, M.D. (1997). Identificación, evaluación y atención a la diversidad del superdotado. Málaga: Aljibe

Prieto, M.D.; Parra, J. Ferrándiz, C; Ballester, P. Sánchez, C & Ferrando, M. (2004). Identificación de alumnos con altas habilidades en centros educativos de

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la Región de Murcia. Informe del Proyecto Final del proyecto de Investigación. Convenio Universidad-Consejería de Educación.

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Renzulli, J. (1977) The Enrichment Triad Model: A guide for developing defensible programs for the gifted. Mansfield Centre, CT: Creative Learning Press, Inc.Renzulli, J. (1978) What makes giftedness. Reexamining a definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 60 (3).

Roedell, W.C. Jackson, N.E. & Robinson, H.B. (1980). Gifted Young Children, New York. Teachers College Press.

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Sternberg, R. & Lubart, T. (1997) La Creatividad en una Cultura Conformista. Barcelona: Paidós.

Torrance, E.P. (1974). The Torrance tests of creative thinking-TTCT Manual and Scoring Guide: Verbal test A, figural test. Lexington, KY: Ginn.

Wolfle, J. (1989) The gifted preschoolers: Developmentally different, but still three or two years old. Young Children. 44 (3), 41-48

Yuste, C., Martínez, R. & Galve, J.L. (1998). BADyG. Manual Técnico. Madrid: CEPE.

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