Gifted People and Ways to Take Care of them

Dr. Seham A. Taha.

A gift is a blessing from God that He bestows upon whomever He wills. In order to preserve it, it must be supported, and always taken care of in order to develop and continue it. Talents come from parents and family, then from school, and the gifted have a prominent future and a profound impact on the nation’s development, progress, and superiority, so we have to take care of them, provide psychological, social, and health care for them, and develop counseling programs that ensure their psychological, mental, and integrated social development. In this article, we will mention some ways to nurture the gifted, and the characteristics of gifted people.

 

Linguistic definition of gifted

The word gifted in the language means a person who gives or gives something without compensation. The term gifted refers to the very high section of the group of superiors who are endowed with excellent intelligence. They often show certain traits, as they make us hope to contribute a large share to the progress of their nation. It was said in the definition of it is that the gifted is the child who clearly shows a clear ability in some aspect of human activity.

 

Who is the gifted?

A talented person is defined as that individual who consistently performs remarkably high in the areas of music, arts, social leadership, or other forms of expression.

The United States Education and Labor Commission (1972) defines a gifted child as a high performer or a high achiever in one or more of the following areas:

1- General mental ability. 2- Specialized academic ability.

3- Creative innovative thinking. 4- Contemporary or performing arts.

5- Self-motor ability.

 

Modern definitions

Withy definition: it is adopted by the American Association for Gifted Children, where gifted persons are defined as those individuals whose performance is consistently high to a noticeable degree.

Maryland definition: it was adopted by the office of the US Department of Education, in 1972 AD where it says that gifted are those children who have extraordinary abilities and potentials that appear in their distinguished high performances, who are identified by qualified and experienced specialist experts and who are not served by the regular school curricula and who need specialized programs to be able to serve themselves and their community.

There have been many and varied methods of examination in the modern era which are included the following:

Intelligence tests:

There are many and varied intelligence tests, including verbal tests such as: the Stanford Bineh test, and performance tests such as: Wechsler tests – the performance aspect, including pictorial tests such as: the illustrated vocabulary test, and there are also tests that included the verbal and performance aspects such as: Wechsler’s test for children’s intelligence.

Creativity tests:

The most famous of these tests is the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking.

Achievement tests:

These are the tests that focus on the basic academic concepts and skills that the child must be able to master in the specific age stages parallel to the equivalent grade stage.

Teacher nomination:

The teacher is one of the most sympathetic and knowledgeable of the students, and therefore the teacher’s judgment is one of the criteria that is frequently used in the selection of talented people.

Readiness tests:

One of the most famous of these tests is the school readiness test.

The student can nominate himself (self-nomination):

This method contributes to redressing the injustice of talented people with low achievement, who are not selected through the achievement test or the teacher’s nomination.

Parental nomination:

It is one of the criteria that can be used, but with caution, because it is not possible to guarantee the impartiality of the parents in their judgment.

Fellow nominations:

This test is taken because of the close knowledge of the students to each other.

Article test:

This method is considered one of the effective methods in detecting the gifted. Students are asked to write an essay on a pre-determined topic. In this topic, it is taken into account that it is one of the so-called open-ended topics. The essay test is corrected by specialists who are trained in the correction process to extract grades on criteria such as fluency, flexibility, and originality.

Personal interview:

This criterion contributes to identifying several aspects of the talented personality, such as: perseverance, leadership abilities, multiplicity of activities, and diversity of interests.

Behavioral Characteristics Monitor Lists:

The idea of these models is that the gifted participate and show patterns and forms of behavior that can be monitored and placed in lists and distributed on areas or dimensions such as: leadership characteristics that appear through initiatives or the relationship of colleagues, and learning qualities such as: inquiry, research, interest and reading.

Workshops or field work:

The idea of this test is to enroll the talented in a training program in his field of interest for a short period of time (two or three days), after which he will select those with perseverance and characteristics compatible with the needs of the special program. That is, the detection is done through field work or in the laboratory based on the observation of the talented person, including achievement and perseverance.

 

Methods of nurturing the gifted

Encouraging and giving opportunities for talented people to express their abilities and talent. Motivate parents for their talented children, and provide them with the possibilities as much as possible. Providing a calm environment that suits the talented personality, to help him create and innovate. Guiding them to multiple ways to increase them with knowledge and experience. Activate their mind by providing verbal and natural stimuli. Develop the spirit of imagination and thinking among the gifted by asking questions that illuminate their thinking. Providing the necessary tools they need to properly implement their talent. Cooperation with governmental and private institutions that support and care for talented people. Opening doors for dialogue and discussion with them from time to time. Promote their talents through the use of media, wall paintings, websites, and television. Organizing various exhibitions for talented students; To showcase their innovations and inventions. Preparing additional enrichment programs that satisfy their needs, commensurate with their abilities, and contribute to the development of their thinking skills. Preparing focused tests in the specific talent area; In order to identify the most prominent cognitive and technical developments they have. Develop their talent by developing their artistic and mental view of nature, and the surrounding environment around them.

 

Characteristics of talented people

 

• Each gifted person has his/her own abilities and inclinations for things that are different from others. Among the most prominent qualities that gifted people can possess are:
• The ability to express a brief symbolic expression; Smooth thinking, quick wit.
• The ability to express in vocabulary not known to peers.
• Excellence in writing and reading skill.
• Memory power; They are drawn to mysterious and complex matters that many do not understand. Broad imagination, the ability to be creative and think out of the box.
• Enthusiasm, love of new experiences. Great interest in pictures, maps, data, models of the Earth and planets.
• Boldness and curiosity; The ability to find solutions to the problems they face. Quickly adapt to their surroundings. Have a great sense of humor. Enjoy solving puzzles, pay attention to minute details.