For gifted children. Lecture on the topic: “Modern approaches to the issue of giftedness in children. Specifics of talented children

There are gifted children among junior high school students, but not all children who are successful in their studies are gifted. On the other hand, not all gifted people become excellent students.

In the words of the outstanding Swiss psychiatrist, the founder of analytical psychology Carl G. Young (1875-1961), “a gifted person is, from a biological point of view, a deviation from the average measure.” The deviation is wonderful, the best of all possible. Which parent doesn’t dream that their child will show extraordinary abilities? What teacher wouldn’t want to nurture talent and be proud of his student’s achievements? In this context, a number of questions arise. Firstly, what is giftedness, is it always visible and what might be the dynamics of its development? Secondly, does giftedness lead to the harmonious development of personality or not and what problems arise on this basis in school years?

Both in literature and in the opinions of people far from psychology, two images of a gifted child have emerged. One of them is a thin and pale “bookworm”. Such a child is certainly weak, physically undeveloped, he cannot fight back against his less intelligent peers and has already managed to ruin his eyesight - glasses become his mandatory attribute. This is a child not of this world, a “little old man”, with early age absorbed in solving non-childish problems. Another image is exactly the opposite: a gifted child is superior to mediocre children in all respects. He is taller, more handsome, stronger than his peers. Overall, perfect.

Of course, from the point of view of psychological science, both ideas are incorrect. In terms of physical parameters, gifted children differ from each other just as much as children of the “average norm.” Foreign psychologists note only one physical characteristic that distinguishes gifted children (and even then it is not external) - a high energy level. It allows you to do something for a long time with full dedication, stay awake for a long time and sleep less. The main criterion for judging giftedness is IQ (English) Intelligence Quotient - IQ).

As is known, IQ- indicator calculated during testing. Intellectual tests, widespread in the West, are also known in our country. Most often, school psychologists use D. Wechsler's tests and the so-called Stanford-Vine scale. The smart score is calculated as follows:

If a child solves all tasks intended for his age, and his mental age is therefore equal to his chronological, “passport” age, then IQ = 100 points. Children who cope with more complex tasks designed for the next age period score more than 100 points. Those who received more than 120-130 points during testing are considered gifted.

During school years, giftedness usually manifests itself in the easy and quick assimilation of educational material. Everyone knows excellent students who learn without much effort, without cramming, grasping everything on the fly. They not only perfectly remember and imprint the material, but also process, generalize it, find a place for it in an existing system of knowledge and, at the right time, retrieve it and reproduce it. There are few such children; more often in schools, those who put enormous work into their studies “go for a medal”, completely subordinating their lives during this period to one goal - achieving high academic performance. They are less capable, but have great performance. Let us note that deep and complete involvement in educational activities contributes not only to the productivity of non-gifted excellent students, but also to the development of their abilities.

Students who learn easily have a high ability to assimilate knowledge, or the so-called school talent. Sometimes they are called intellectuals.

But among schoolchildren there are also gifted children who do not achieve high results in their studies.

American psychologist Alice P. Torrance (1915-2003), the test of which is often used in modern Russian schools, drew attention to poorly performing students. Among them he found children with a different type of giftedness - creative. They are not able to learn different subjects with ease; assimilation large quantity available data, someone else’s but the essence of experience for them - in general a big problem. They are strong in something else - in solving complex problems, searching for non-standard ways and ways of doing things. They are characterized by originality of thinking, creation of new things, and creativity.

Concerning IQ, it is high among both intellectuals and creatively gifted people, but there is one interesting pattern. A high level of creativity is combined with high general intelligence: in “creative” children IQ also more than 120 points. An increase in intelligence level in the range from 120 to 170 points does not cause a corresponding increase in creativity. Very high general intelligence (/Q = 170-180) does not contribute to the development of creative abilities. An adult who has risen to this level becomes an encyclopedist, a systematizer of scientific knowledge, a brilliant analyst and critic. It is believed that excessive criticality and focus on mastering knowledge interfere with creativity and the creation of fundamentally new ideas. This is the same obstacle to the development of creative abilities and creativity as a lack of knowledge and low intelligence.

High abilities to assimilate knowledge and high creative abilities determine two types of talent - “keepers of knowledge” and “generators of ideas.” Society, of course, needs people with different talents, but traditionally in European culture creativity is especially valued. Let us note that, for example, Eastern culture does not assume this: in such an economically developed country as Japan, both schoolchildren and adult professionals make every effort to master knowledge and acquire skills that allow them to perform work in the most effective way.

School and creative talent - varieties mental talent. In addition to it, there are special abilities that determine motor skills (the child demonstrates them, for example, in sports, dancing), social (organizational capabilities) and practical talent (manifested in a variety of areas of human activity - cooking, working with wood or metal, sewing, growing flowers, etc.). About social giftedness, which includes surprisingly wide opportunities for communication with other people, C. Jung wrote: “Along with the giftedness of the mind, there is the giftedness of the heart, which is no less important, but it is easy to lose sight of. Such people are often more useful and valuable for the well-being of society in in general, than other talents."

It is important to note the following: no matter in what area special abilities are manifested, at their core they always have sufficiently developed general abilities. That is why the common opinion that outstanding athletes do not shine with intelligence or, say, that students from a rural school are limited, who then turn out to be excellent workers in agriculture, becomes a big misconception. In addition, the school does not reveal all types of abilities. If a student has not demonstrated himself in any way in his studies, it does not follow that he does not have potential abilities, could not demonstrate them in favorable conditions, and will never demonstrate them in the future.

In this regard, the following question arises: should only those children who early revealed their extraordinary capabilities be considered gifted? What are the dynamics of developing high abilities?

Modern Russian psychologists N. S. Leites, V. E. Chudnovsky and V. S. Yurkevich, working with gifted children, identify two main ways of their development.

The first way is early development. Typically, mental gifts and special abilities in the arts and sciences (for example, music, mathematics) begin to develop rapidly in childhood. At the same time, the child demonstrates his abilities clearly and achieves noticeable success in one or several types of activities at once. The adults around him see and appreciate his giftedness and have high hopes for the child.

In some cases, the initially set pace of development is maintained, which leads to outstanding achievements in adulthood. Those who showed themselves early and retained their gift throughout adult life are relatively few. Famous names include composers Wolfgang A. Mozart and Franz Liszt, scientists Blaise Pascal and Gottfried IN. Leibniz, writer Alexander Griboyedov.

Often the pace of development slows down, and the child, at best, becomes “stuck” for some time. A slow, steady decline after a rapid rise is also possible, which in school and subsequent years is painfully perceived by both the child himself and his loved ones, who expected great success from him.

The second way is that giftedness remains unnoticed in childhood and manifests itself later. A period of relatively slow mental development is followed by a rapid rise, when the child, completely unexpectedly for those around him, begins to get ahead of his peers and achieves significant success. This often happens in adolescence, as, for example, in Newton, whose talent did not become apparent until he was 11 years old. An example that has become a textbook example is the biography of Albert Einstein. He was considered a completely incapable child and was expelled from the gymnasium at the age of 15. He was accepted into the Higher Polytechnic School in Zurich only the second time.

It is assumed that there is a third path that can be taken by the gifted. These people, having received rich inclinations from nature, were unable to realize their potential throughout their lives. To develop abilities, it is not enough to have good inclinations; you also need to work: abilities develop only through activity. There is no fully developed activity - and the potential remains unclaimed; there can be no talk of any significant achievements. Apparently, any abilities can remain undeveloped, but there is reason to believe that among those who have not realized their abilities there are especially many creatively gifted ones. It is creative people who find it most difficult to adapt to life, find their place in society, achieve success, and show their originality. When one of the large US firms selected employees with creative abilities, they were found among young people who did not have qualifications and stable income.

Considering the problem of early development of children and tracing their further life path, L. S. Vygotsky distinguishes between the so-called child prodigies (“miracle children”) and talented, truly gifted children. Prodigy From early childhood, he amazes those around him with some exceptional abilities - musical, artistic, mathematical, and the ability to reason “like an adult.” Moreover, it is not the mathematical abilities themselves that cause surprise, but the fact that they manifest themselves early, in such a young child. Such accelerated development, when a child quickly goes through each age stage, constantly ahead of his peers, does not become optimal or useful. Most child prodigies grow up to be ordinary people with average (or even lower than average) abilities.

If a child prodigy is admired by the fact that he is similar to older children, then a truly gifted and talented child attracts attention with qualities characteristic of his age, but only fully, fully developed. A child prodigy is characterized by “running ahead”; his development shows signs of future ages. As L. S. Vygotsky notes, an adult genius differs from each of us not in that at the age of 30 he displays the experience characteristic of a 90-year-old man, but in that at the age of 30 he brings the same features to genius proportions.

In May 2009, the International Forum “Days of Russian Innovation” was held in Moscow. Its participants adopted the “Russian Innovation Manifesto,” which declared that the main strategic task of the state is to make innovation an integral element of the economy, permeating all sectors of the national economy.

In May 2009, the International Forum “Days of Russian Innovation” was held in Moscow. Its participants adopted the “Russian Innovation Manifesto,” which declared that the main strategic task of the state is to make innovation an integral element of the economy, permeating all sectors of the national economy. “From the point of view of innovation, we are a hopeless generation, waste material...,” stated those who have crossed the threshold of forty years. “The hope of the country is those who come after us, those who are ten years old today.” In 10–15 years, today’s children will make up the main working-age and creative part of the Russian population. The future of our country depends on them. The main component of potential intellectual and creative resources and the key to the country’s prosperity is the new generation. Therefore, at present, against the backdrop of depopulation of the Russian population and a decrease in the number of children, monitoring the qualitative potential of young cohorts of the population is especially relevant.

What is giftedness and who are gifted children? According to a widely held view, gifted children are children who display a high level of abilities, general or special, for example, in music, drawing, choreography, foreign languages, literature, mathematics, natural sciences and technology. Children's giftedness is recognized by the degree to which the child is ahead of his peers in mental development, all other things being equal. It is generally accepted that children show a musical, poetic, artistic and visual gift before others, and in the field of science - a penchant for mathematics.

The largest Soviet geneticist and psychologist V.P. Efroimson, with his work “Genius and Genetics,” brought us closer to understanding the mystery of genius. He formulated the guidelines within which he conducted his research. This is 1) the emergence of a potential genius - the genetic aspect; 2) development and formation - biosocial sphere; 3) implementation, embodiment of revealed talent - a social problem. Analyzing these components, he interpreted the phenomenon of talent pulsation and estimated that the frequency of the generation of potential geniuses and remarkable talents, based on their implementation in favorable historical periods, and most importantly, in optimal layers, is probably determined by a figure of the order of 1:2000 - 1:10000. The frequency of potential geniuses who have developed and realized enough to be highly rated is probably in the order of 1:1000000. The frequency of geniuses realized to the level of recognition of their creations or deeds as ingenious, even in the age of almost universal secondary and very often higher education, is probably calculated at 1:10,000,000, which suggests the presence in the middle of the twentieth century of approximately a hundred geniuses per 1,000,000,000 inhabitants civilized and not suffering from overwhelming need of the population of countries such as Japan, the USSR, the USA, Canada, Australia and the countries of south-eastern, central and western Europe. Analyzing recognized geniuses, starting from the 5th century BC. until the middle of the 20th century, Efroimson came to the conclusion that “geniuses and remarkable talents almost always appeared in flashes, in groups, but precisely in those periods when they were presented with optimal opportunities for development and implementation.”

Currently, about 29 million children live in the Russian Federation. How many of them are gifted? It is difficult to determine which child is gifted. It is even more difficult to say which of them can and will become an outstanding scientist, artist, public figure... Most psychologists or educators estimate the number of gifted children from 1–2% to 20% of the total number of children. Specialists in mathematical statistics, using the law of normal distribution, believe that in any population the total number of normal individuals is in the range of 68–70%, significant deviations in both directions are 15–16%. Statistical difference in the assessment of the number of gifted people in different countries very significant - from 7 to 90%. Russia gives a figure of about 7%. “Potentially gifted” - up to 30%.

Let us turn again to the work of V.P. Efroimson. He asks the question: “maybe a genius is not so needed?” and answers: “The practical Yankees responded to the flights of Soviet satellites not only by developing their cosmonautics, but also by “putting on the conveyor belt” the search (through tests developed over 80 years) and the maximum development of 35,000 gifted high school students annually, allocating about 1.5 billions of dollars annually to help them and the colleges they choose, and, in fact, completely incalculable sums for their rapid advancement in all directions and hierarchies corresponding to their talents.<...>One of the most constructive functions of measuring ability using an intelligence test is that it serves as a kind of springboard, throwing many people towards achievement.<...>The tests probably “extract” gifted young people from at least 70% of high school students in US schools and remove from their subsequent path almost all obstacles to both the development and realization of individual talent.”

Many countries (which we usually look up to) have been busy for half a century identifying potential geniuses and then carefully guiding them into adulthood. They consider it an immutable theory that every child prodigy can become a great man. Therefore, supporting young geniuses is the only reliable way to reproduce the nation's intellectual elite. Programs for mandatory testing of all children for signs of genius exist in 47 countries. And some countries - for example Singapore - are trying to raise “the best nation in the world” by making the theory of the reproduction of the intellectual elite a national idea (social engineering involves “mating like”, when, to improve the pedigree, college graduates should marry only college graduates, etc.) . Intelligence and creativity are the main national wealth. This has long been understood by the Japanese, who value their gifted children and spare no expense on their education and development. Israel has an effective system for teaching gifted children, and it is a state secret. The United States has created an effective system for encouraging and developing giftedness. It is no coincidence that the so-called brain drain is directed mainly towards the United States.

Teachers in the United States of America have accumulated a wealth of practical experience and achieved positive results in the field of diagnostic testing, development of methods for teaching gifted children, creation of appropriate curricula, and special training of teachers. The US Department of Education and Science, many universities and colleges, local educational authorities, and public organizations take part in this activity. Scientific centers for research in the field of identifying and training gifted children have emerged in the country at universities in several states, and special journals have been published (“Gifted Child Today”, “Gifted Education International”, “Educational Researcher”). In the 1990s, legislation and government programs were adopted. In particular, the administration of President Bush published the America 2000 program. Education Strategy" (Goals 2000: Educate America Act). One part of this program aims to unleash America's creative potential by progressively creating a new generation of schools in every community. These are expected to be the best schools in the world, focused on achieving national educational goals. Achieving these goals will provide a quantum leap in learning.

Participation of the international community in working with gifted children. Gifted children have many needs that the standard educational system is unable to satisfy. Therefore, in most European countries and in the USA they began to create programs for working with gifted children.

In 1988, the international non-governmental organization Eurotalent (Paris) was created under the Council of Europe with the aim of coordinating work with gifted children in the pan-European space. In 1992, Eurotalent received consultative status, and two years later (1994) the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved the Recommendations on the Education of Gifted Children.

The priority of the interests and welfare of children in all spheres of state life is enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989 and which entered into force in the Russian Federation on September 15, 1990. By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of June 1, 1992 No. 543 “On priority measures to implement the World Declaration on ensuring the survival, protection and development of children in the 90s”, the problem of survival, protection and development of children was recognized as a priority at the federal and regional levels, in in particular in the formation of the federal budget of the Russian Federation, the distribution of material and financial resources, the organization and development of production, and the investment of socio-economic programs. In accordance with this Decree, the Government of the Russian Federation developed the federal program “Children of Russia”, but there was no thesis about gifted children in it.

In 1995, the II International Scientific and Practical Conference on Giftedness took place in Warsaw. It adopted appeals to the UN and the governments of European countries, in which the conference participants called on the countries of the European Community to support the international programs “Gifted Children of Europe” and “Children of the 21st Century”. After this event, the “Children of Russia” program was prolonged and expanded, and in 1996 the “Gifted Children” subprogram was introduced into it. At the same time, its financing began at the state level (albeit in a very modest amount - 9.215 billion rubles).

The Gifted Children program provided for the creation of conditions for the development of the potential capabilities and abilities of young talents. It included a system of measures to develop a network of educational institutions and experimental sites for working with gifted children, strengthening their material and technical base; training specialists to work with gifted and talented children; introduction of new educational technologies for the training and development of gifted children; conducting research on the problems of child giftedness.

The preamble to the Gifted Children Program for 1998–2000 stated that at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, certain positive experience in working with gifted youth had been accumulated, requiring scientific generalization and dissemination. For many years, students' talents have been identified and assessed at various olympiads, tournaments, student scientific societies, conferences, exhibitions, summer schools and camps, which helps improve the social status of knowledge. At the same time, it was noted that the work of various departments and public organizations aimed at finding and developing gifted children is unsystematic. It was planned to form a federal data bank in various areas of work with gifted children.

However, an analysis of the actual financing of the Program until 1999 from the federal budget showed that from the very beginning of the implementation of the Children of Russia Program (including the Gifted Children program), there was a steady trend towards a reduction in the share of fulfillment of the Government’s obligations for its financing. According to Federation Council member V.N. Pivnenko, “if today we all together do not take on tasks in the name of children and do not solve them today, there will be no future for you and me tomorrow. And then our generation, which is moving into the 21st century, will not forgive us for this.”

On September 19–21, 2001, a Special Session of the UN General Assembly following the World Summit for Children was held in New York. At it, from Russia, in parallel with the State report, which created the impression of well-being and progress, an Independent report of Russian independent organizations was presented, “reflecting a picture of children’s life in our country not distorted by departmental interests.” In it, the low effectiveness of the presidential program “Children of Russia” and the lack of mechanisms for transparent and competitive spending of social sector funds were subjected to evidence-based criticism. According to the authors of the Independent Report, the increase in costs for the implementation of these target programs in itself is not an indicator of the effectiveness of spending funds. In the absence of legally established and effective mechanisms, these funds will once again be spent uncontrollably and, therefore, with a high degree of probability, meaninglessly. The public has no information about where these funds go: there is no discussion during the distribution of funds, there is no competition, no openness, no reports are published. The only document available to the public remains the audit report of the implementation of the program by the Accounts Chamber of Russia, which indicates dozens of examples of misuse of budget funds. This report also noted positive developments that did occur in the last decade, in particular the fact “that Russian officials are making extraordinary efforts to, at least outwardly, comply in their activities with the principles approved by civilized countries.”

By Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of August 25, 2000 No. 625, the “Gifted Children” program for 2001–2002 was approved. The main directions of program implementation included:

1. Targeted support for all-Russian part-time and correspondence schools working with gifted children; summer creative schools, laboratories, master classes in various areas educational activities; development of regional educational institutions working with gifted children; boarding schools for gifted children.
2. Providing state support for gifted children through the allocation of annual state scholarships (awards); targeted support for children’s participation in all-Russian and international subject Olympiads and competitions; supporting gifted children with disabilities and creating conditions for their identification, development and socialization; publication of creative works of students - winners of all-Russian competitions for young technicians and inventors, researchers, poets,artists, musicians; holding all-Russian festivals of children's artistic creativity; organizing and conducting various events: leisure, sports, creative festivals.
3. Development of a personnel management system.
4. Scientific and methodological work.
5. Information and organizational support for Program activities.

The amount of funding for the Program from the federal budget has increased significantly.

The first information and analytical bulletin with the results of the implementation of the target program “Gifted Children” of the Federal Program “Children of Russia” in 1998–2003 was prepared under the leadership of Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation E.E. Chepurnykh and published in 2004. It reflects all the activities carried out during the specified period, shows the distribution of funding for the “Gifted Children” subprogram across the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and provides quantitative indicators of the effectiveness of the implementation of the subprogram.

In subsequent years, the “Children of Russia” program was financed on a shared basis: the federal budget, the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and extra-budgetary sources. Every year, about 500 talented schoolchildren became its scholarship recipients. In some regions, a governor's scholarship was paid to support gifted children. The specifics of the problem of identifying and supporting gifted children are largely related to the need to ensure maximum coverage of the areas where children live.

The federal target program “Children of Russia” for 2007–2010 continues the previous one. But, as before, increased attention is paid to disadvantaged categories of children. Financing of the subprogram “Gifted Children” in the Federal Program for 2007–2010. equals only 105.2 million rubles, which is less than 0.5% of the total funding of the program.

The expected end result of the current (fifth) stage of the “Gifted Children” subprogram is the creation of a state system for identifying, developing and targeted support for gifted children, covering up to 40 percent of the child population school age; aimed at preserving the country's national gene pool, developing the intellectual and creative potential of Russia; formation of an information database about talented and gifted school-age children in order to track their further personal and professional self-determination; further development of the system of all-Russian competitive events to identify gifted children; development and implementation of innovative technologies for identifying and targeted support for gifted children, including those living in rural areas, regions of the Far North and similar areas.

How do Russia and Russian education look against the backdrop of international research? The authors of the books “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” and “IQ and Global Inequality” R. Lynn and T. Vanhanen, as a result of analyzing their calculations, came to the conclusion that the national IQ index directly correlates with the gross national product of a country, and interpret this correlation as an indication that IQ is an important factor making a difference in national wealth and the rate of economic growth. But IQ is not the only determining factor in these differences. Differences in intelligence scores between nations are explained by researchers as genetic and environmental factors. The books contain tables of average IQ data for each of the 81 countries. Russia with an IQ index of 96 is in 26th/27th place.

Currently, many international comparative studies of the quality and accessibility of education are being conducted. Based on their results, a world ranking of the quality of education is compiled. The most respected are TIMSS - Trends in Mathematics and Science Study PISA - Program for International Student Assessment and PIRLS - Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Russian schoolchildren have been participating in TIMSS since 1995, in PISA since 2000 and in PIRLS since 2001.

PIRLS is one of the most representative studies in elementary school aimed at identifying the quality of reading and text comprehension. In 2006, 215 thousand schoolchildren from 40 countries took part in it. Russian schoolchildren took first place, sharing the palm with their peers from Hong Kong and Singapore. Our country was represented in the study by 4,955 4th grade students from 232 schools in 45 regions of the country. The age of the participants was not chosen by chance: by this moment, teenagers should have mastered reading to such an extent that it becomes a means and key to their successful learning in the future. According to the average score of Russian graduates primary school ahead of the USA, Belgium, South Africa (which took last place). In addition, Russia showed the most significant positive dynamics compared to PIRLS-2001, moving from 12th place in the world reading ranking to the highest position.

The purpose of the TIMSS survey is to test the knowledge of 4th and 8th grade students in mathematics and science. In 2003, young Russians took 12th place out of 49 countries; in 2007, according to preliminary estimates by experts, these results are even higher, but the final results have not yet been summed up and officially published.

The PISA study tests the knowledge of 15-year-old students. Compared to their foreign peers, our teenage schoolchildren demonstrate very modest success. In 2003, we took 25th–30th place among 40 countries, in 2006 we were in the fourth ten among 57. The average score in science literacy among Russian teenagers is much lower than in the countries included in the top ten: Finland, Estonia, South Korea. The picture is similar with mathematical literacy. In terms of text comprehension, our indicators are comparable to Turkey and Chile. Thus, the basic school (grades 5–9) is the weakest link in Russian education. PISA either offers tasks in which it is necessary to show ingenuity, resourcefulness, and use interdisciplinary connections, or students are given a text to read, compare different points of view on a particular problem presented in it, and justify their own position. Such questions confuse our schoolchildren. While students in Western countries are accustomed to working with different genres of information and expressing their thoughts in the form of essays, mini-reviews, etc., our children always work with specially prepared texts and receive “particularly precise instructions” when solving problems. Any deviations from the pattern cause difficulties for them.

In the course of a study of the mathematical skills and abilities of Russian schoolchildren, our scientists found that almost all students are ready to solve a simple equation, a simple quadratic equation - 80%, and find a distance on a map - already 57%, calculate the number of floor tiles - only every second out of three, understand graphics published in newspapers - 65%. In addition, the role of psychological factors was identified, the influence of which on PISA results is indirect, but significant. For example, 39% of our students experience psychological stress when doing math homework, 32% of Russian teenagers, by their own admission, “are terribly nervous when solving math problems,” 72% are worried that they will get a bad grade in this subject, and this indicates a high level of anxiety among Russian schoolchildren.

The Russian Ministry of Education and Science does not respond to the mediocre results of Russian students in PISA 2006, while, since 2003, many countries have reformed their education systems taking into account the results of previous international PISA studies and have shown better results.

A few words about the main “forge of natural science brains” of the country - the famous Physics and Mathematics Boarding School named after A.N. Kolmogorov (now the Specialized Educational and Scientific Center of Moscow State University). It is believed that high school students (about three hundred people) study there, who came from different parts of Russia and have outstanding abilities in the field of natural sciences. According to one of the teachers of this school, who has been working there for six years and prepares children for admission to the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics or the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, the level of those who come to SUSC is becoming lower and lower and, accordingly, the average level of those entering universities getting lower. Although, it would seem, the Moscow State University Scientific Research Center selects the cream, but, nevertheless, this cream is becoming more and more liquid.

Russian children began to lose ground both in international comparisons of intelligence and in international Olympiads, which is a sign that Russia is lagging behind in gifted children. We are inferior to our peers from Singapore, Japan, and China in many respects. So, although at the 49th (2008, Madrid) and 50th (2009, Bremen) International Mathematics Olympiad the Russian team received 6 gold medals (out of 6 possible) and 5 gold and one silver medal, respectively, the Russians lost in the team competition schoolchildren from China and Japan. For the Chinese and Olympiad participants from other Asian countries, preparation for international-level scientific tournaments is one of the priorities and begins long before the start of the competition, and our guys have to spend a lot of time and energy on solving organizational issues and searching for sponsors.

To what extent are gifted children in demand in Russia as human potential? What is the attitude of the state and society towards them? To what extent are these institutions ready for their social adaptation and integration?

In Soviet times, there was a fairly effective system for identifying, selecting and training especially gifted children: they were socialized in free special educational institutions under the guidance of highly qualified professional teachers. In addition, children could develop their creative abilities in various free clubs at houses and palaces of pioneers, cultural centers, year-round pioneer camps and institutions additional education. This system was laid down before the war. Throughout the Soviet period (more than half a century), it generally quite successfully solved the tasks assigned to it.

The emergence of gifted and super gifted children poses serious problems for society, their parents, and the children themselves. There is an urgent need to preserve these children. And a significant responsibility and role is assigned to parents in these situations. Often, parents exploit the abilities of their children, satisfying their own ambitions and compensating for personal unfulfillment and thereby destroying their unformed psyche and health. In addition, it has been noticed that super-gifted children also exhibit unknown health abnormalities. There are bleak statistics regarding gifted children who have achieved success in the profession - at best, their number does not exceed 2–3%. We are talking, of course, about achievements comparable to the level of unusual abilities manifested in childhood. Failed gifted people are not only a disaster for a nation that needs outstanding people, it is also a tragedy for the former “miracle child” himself, who suffers throughout his life from the “former child prodigy syndrome,” manifested in depression, loss of interests, and often increased aggression.

Currently, a rather sad picture is emerging in our country: soon we will not only have no qualified workers left, but also representatives of the intellectual and artistic elite. Today the system of working with talented youth is collapsing. Only children from wealthy families can develop and increase their talents: classes in sports clubs, music and art groups, trips to competitions and studies in prestigious educational institutions cost a lot of money. The enormous burden of choosing a life strategy for your child falls on the family. Without government support, a task of this magnitude cannot be solved fully and comprehensively.

The relevance of working with gifted children. Russia became very concerned about creating “selected” human capital just a few years ago, but did not back up this concern with sufficient funding. In 2004, within the framework of the Presidential program “Children of Russia”, conferences, round tables and meetings were held on the problems of working with gifted children, the selection of gifted children during the modernization of the education system. Reputable scientists and practitioners have developed and adopted the Working Concept of Giftedness, which sets out theoretical principles and methods for identifying gifted and talented children, outlines directions for working with them in the field of education, and substantiates various forms of education.

On the initiative of the Council of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, in October 2006, to develop the public-state project “System for identifying and supporting talents”, the Working Group “Gifted Generation” of the Commission of the RF OP on the intellectual potential of the nation was created. In the same year, several round tables were held at the Higher School of Economics and Tomsk State University on the development of a public-state project “System for identifying and supporting gifted people from various age and social groups.” Members of the Working Group determined the main objectives, conceptual apparatus and structure of the draft document. The participants of the final meeting approved the initiative of the Commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation on the intellectual potential of the nation and the activities of the Working Group “Gifted Generation” and recommended submitting the created project for consideration to the highest government bodies for approval as a Federal target program. In May 2007 working group reported that the development of the program had entered the final stage - final hearings were scheduled for September. In the structure of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation in 2008, the topic of gifted children is absent, apparently as it has been worked out.

However, today it acquires even greater relevance and new meaning.

Currently, several dozen scientific concepts of giftedness are known in the world, created in line with a variety of theoretical directions. The variety of concepts reflects the complexity of the nature of giftedness, the impossibility of developing common standards and development strategies for all its manifestations. There are frequent cases of discrepancies between the general mental level of the child and the severity of special abilities. Children with unusually early mental development or with particularly bright, extraordinary achievements in any activity are often called “child prodigies” with an ironic tinge, which indicates their rejection and rejection as “black sheep.” According to the observations of psychologists and teachers, in the training and education of gifted children it is important to provide an opportunity for the full development of their abilities, as well as their social adaptation, since, due to their originality, originality and differences from their peers, they often experience serious difficulties in communicating with others. Gifted children often have other personal characteristics that complicate the process of their socialization: high selectivity of interests, low resistance to stress, and a tendency to withdraw into themselves. Identification, training and support of gifted children are currently carried out in many countries through specially developed government programs.

A gifted child can be born into any family, regardless of the status and social status of its members, material and property wealth. The problem of heritability of abilities and giftedness (their inclinations) is very complex, and hereditary potential does not always serve as a guarantee of future creative productivity. The extent to which creative impulses will turn into creative individuality largely depends on the influence of the adults around gifted children. It happens that gifted children do not show high achievements due to the lack of intensive and constant pedagogical support.

A particular problem is the combination of giftedness with early manifestations of mental pathology in children, including hereditary ones. There are quite contradictory opinions regarding the timing of the start of education for gifted children. There is evidence that early learning conditions are most favorable for young musicians and mathematicians. Talents in the natural sciences and humanities emerge later, and the decline preschool period does not always contribute to their development. Each gifted child requires an individual approach.

In Soviet times, there was a fairly effective system for identifying, selecting and training especially gifted children: they were socialized in special educational institutions under the guidance of highly qualified professional teachers. Among them are physics and mathematics boarding schools at Moscow State University, MEPhI, Physics and Technology, Bauman School; specialized music and art schools, various sections at sports clubs. Children could discover and develop their creative abilities in various free clubs at pioneer houses and palaces, cultural centers, year-round pioneer camps and additional education institutions. This system was laid down before the war. Throughout the Soviet period (more than half a century), it was fully financed by the state, thanks to which, on the whole, it successfully accomplished the tasks assigned to it.

Here are the memories of a 1966 graduate of the Physics and Technology Institute (also a gifted child): “In a small Siberian scientific town, where I had the good fortune to spend my childhood, the system of selecting and preparing the smartest boys for admission to the legendary MIPT, MEPhI, and Mechanics and Mathematics Moscow State University worked in a fantastic way. At that time we were not aware of how it was done. It was a natural norm of life: five to ten boys were chosen from the graduating class - they all entered. As I now understand, the boys who went to study at these elite universities were not just the smartest, they were also the most talented, i.e. They also had artistic inclinations: they played musical instruments, sang, composed poems and verses, and easily translated from foreign languages. What kind of mutation this is and how it affected the development of the country - I don’t presume to judge. I went after them."

But not all gifted children have a successful path. For example, the story of the extraordinarily gifted mathematician Pavel Konoplev (1971–2000), which received wide publicity in its time, is known. He was three years old when he himself learned to do complex calculations in his head, and a little later - to read fluently. At the age of five, he taught his mother (a professional physicist) to calculate logarithms in her head. Using a self-instruction manual, he mastered the basics of musical literacy and began to play his favorite songs from the notes (there were no musicians in the family). At the age of eight, Pavel solved a difficult physical problem. It was shown to Academician Kolmogorov, who praised the “beautiful solution”, but did not believe that an 8-year-old boy had solved it in his mind. P. Konoplev was denied admission to the Kolmogorov mathematical school for gifted students, since only high school students were accepted there. He studied at a regular comprehensive school, where he went straight from 1st grade to 4th grade. But then a communication problem arose: due to the age difference, it was difficult for him with his classmates both physically and psychologically. At the age of 15, Pavel entered university, and at 18, he entered graduate school... An inadequate education system, poor communication, and lack of understanding of society led to mental illness. The intellect of genius came into conflict with the physical capabilities of the body, which led to the premature death of the young man.

The emergence of gifted and super gifted children poses serious problems for society, their parents, and the children themselves. There is an urgent need to preserve these children. And a significant responsibility and role is assigned to parents in these situations.

In 1964, we first heard the name of the young 12-year-old graphic artist Nadya Rusheva and saw her illustrations in the magazine “Youth”. Over the next five years, 15 personal exhibitions of her drawings took place in Russia and abroad. But a congenital disease that was not detected in time suddenly ended the life of seventeen-year-old Nadya.

Another, no less famous story is connected with the name of the poetess Nika Turbina (1974–2002), who began composing “adult” poetry at the age of four. Thanks to the support of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, little Nika was accepted into the literary community of Moscow. At the age of 11, she won the main Golden Lion prize at the prestigious poetry festival in Venice (of the Soviet poets, only Anna Akhmatova was awarded this prize). At the same time, the first collection of her poems was published, which was translated into 12 languages. The girl prodigy's trips around the country, public appearances, filming... But the fame and glory that came to Nika at an early age played a tragic role in her fate. As she grew older, interest in her faded. After several suicide attempts, her life was cut short at the age of 27.

It has been noticed that super-gifted people also develop super-unknown diseases. Stephen Hawking was born in 1942. In 1962 he graduated from Oxford University and began studying theoretical physics. At the same time, he began to show signs of illness, which led to paralysis. Despite this, he became the father of a daughter and two sons. In 1974, Hawking was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. After throat surgery in 1985, he lost the ability to speak, but thanks to a speech synthesizer installed on his wheelchair, Hawking is able to communicate with people. He owns the theory of black holes and the existence of parallel worlds. He now holds the position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a position held three centuries earlier by Isaac Newton. Despite his serious illness, he leads an active life.

In October 2006, a round table was held at the Higher School of Economics, organized by the Public Chamber Commission on the Intellectual Potential of the Nation, on the topic “The Gifted Generation: Indigo Children - Myth or Reality?” It said that there are gifted children who can easily operate with knowledge that no one gave them, but “modern pedagogy is significantly late, and there are no teachers who know how to work with these children.” It is important to teach these children to live in modern society, and not to gather them into closed groups.

At what age (at what stage of child development) are extraordinary abilities discovered? There is no consensus on this matter. Some believe that certain indications of unusual capabilities can be seen already in an infant. But although certain glimpses of future bright abilities can be seen very early, one can still seriously talk about the existence of giftedness no earlier than 3–4 years. Experience shows that from the age of 3–4 years until the age of 7 years, the child rapidly masters his mental capabilities. During this period, the child acquires a certain direction: either along the path of a gifted child, or along the path of an ordinary child, or along the path of an incapable child.

The socialization of gifted children in our time is difficult, with great difficulties. Gifted children feel uncomfortable in an “average environment”: the specifics of their behavior, inclinations, and attitude towards peers are not taken into account. The “average environment” slows down and often “freezes” their development. Teachers cannot always recognize the abilities of exceptionally gifted students and do not know how to stimulate their development or provide qualified assistance to parents of gifted children. They often show uncertainty and inaccuracy in identifying giftedness. Sometimes the attitude of teachers towards gifted children varies from reluctance to recognize their talents to a significant overestimation of their abilities. An ordinary comprehensive school is not suitable for those who differ significantly from the average level towards greater abilities. It is difficult to rebuild a typical education system, as well as to change the attitude of teachers towards non-standard children. This can be achieved more realistically in the context of the establishment of additional education, since it is additional education that expands the sphere of creativity of a gifted child. At the same time, even in a regular school, where gifted children are given Special attention, the effect can spread to the entire student body, which generally has a positive effect on the results of the education system.

The socio-economic transformation of Russian society has brought destructive tendencies to the system of preschool and school education and training, which has a negative impact on gifted children. They have become a kind of “risk group”, becoming more vulnerable than categories such as orphans and children without parental care, disabled children, children in a socially dangerous situation, to whom society and the state traditionally pay increased attention ( since it is believed that these groups of children primarily need social rehabilitation, adaptation and integration into society).

In the conditions of commercialization of special professional upbringing and education, many gifted children have no way to fully develop their natural abilities. Given the extreme differentiation of modern society, gifted children should be allocated to a special target group that would be supported regardless of their social origin and financial situation. Every parent should have the right to declare their child so that the Gifted Children program is as open and accessible as possible to truly gifted children. Despite the important role of the state, its capabilities are limited, and it relies on the development of charitable foundations and programs and the revival of philanthropy in Russia. During the post-Soviet reality, non-governmental and private cultural foundations have been created and are successfully operating, supporting young talents, mainly in the field of art. The New Names Foundation is more than 10,000 young Russian talents from different regions of Russia and neighboring countries who have received real support, including over 3,000 fellows of the Program. The “New Names” movement, born on Russian soil, promotes the unity of young musicians, artists and poets representing different countries, cultures, and performing schools. The New Names Foundation carries out its activities with the support of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation together with the Federal Program “Children of Russia” (subprogram “Gifted Children”).

In 1997, the non-profit Charitable Foundation “World of Art” was created. Its activities cover thousands of musically gifted children with developmental problems (children with disabilities, orphans, children from low-income families) from all regions of the Russian Federation. The Foundation constantly searches and selects musically gifted children with developmental problems in all regions of the Russian Federation and assists them in further improving their musical abilities. The Foundation attracted the attention of modern luminaries to its activities: Montserrat Caballe, Vangelis, Placido Domingo, M. Rostropovich, G. Vishnevskaya, Cecilia Bartoli, V. Gergiev, Y. Temirkanov, Roberto Alagna, Angela Georgiu, Thomas Quasthoff, Maria Gulegina, V. Spivakov, D. Hvorostovsky.

In 2005, to implement the charity program “A Thousand Cities of Russia”, the All-Russian Rehabilitation Center was created; branches of the Center successfully operate in many regions of the Russian Federation. The guarantor of the Thousand Cities of Russia program is the famous Russian entrepreneur Alisher Usmanov.

Other initiatives include the Moscow International Forum “Gifted Children” (since 1998). Every year on the eve world day for the protection of children, the central council of this movement organizes a solemn ceremony of awarding the Forum laureates in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Over the 12 years of its work, over 70 thousand children from 64 regions of Russia and the CIS countries took part in it. Members of the board of trustees of the All-Russian public movement “Gifted Children - the Future of Russia” are convinced that “gifted children are made by gifted adults. Where adults are interested and patronize young talents, it’s good for children, they can come to Moscow and make themselves known.”

For 10 years, the National Delphic Council has been operating in Russia, whose activities are also aimed at identifying and supporting gifted creative youth of Russia, preserving and developing the cultural potential of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, promoting the realization of creative abilities and harmonious development personality. The minimum age of participants in competitive tests is 10 years. In 2009, the Eighth Youth Delphic Games of Russia “Youth of Russia” were dedicated to the Year of Youth and were held in Samara.

Children from an early age receive increased attention from famous public artists and public figures. By taking part in festivals and competitions, they improve and strengthen their intellectual and creative abilities. However, there are polar points of view on competitions of this kind: supporters of one of them believe that competitive battles cause irreparable psychological and often moral damage to the child (for example, in the event of an unsuccessful result).

There are sad statistics regarding gifted children who have achieved success in the profession - at best, their number does not exceed 2–3%. We are talking in this case, of course, about achievements comparable to the level of unusual abilities manifested in childhood. Failed gifted people are not only a disaster for a nation that needs outstanding people, it is also a tragedy for the former “miracle child” himself, who suffers throughout his life from the “former child prodigy syndrome,” manifested in depression, loss of interests, and often increased aggression.

In the summer of 2008, round tables were held in the State Duma of the Russian Federation and the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation on the problems of gifted children and their education. A rather bleak picture emerged: it turns out that in our country there will soon be no more qualified workers left, but also representatives of the intellectual and artistic elite. Today the system of working with talented youth is “failing.” Only children from wealthy families can develop and increase their talents: classes in sports clubs, music and art groups, trips to competitions and studies in prestigious educational institutions cost a lot of money. The enormous burden in choosing a life strategy for their child falls on the family, mostly on mothers. Without government support, a task of this magnitude cannot be solved fully and comprehensively.

Magarshak Yu.B. Innovative schizophrenia // NG-Science. 2009. June 24. P. 11.

Efroimson V.P. Genius and genetics. M.: Russkiy Mir, 1998. - 544 p.

Savenkov A.I. Children's giftedness // http://adalin.mospsy.ru/l_01_12.shtml

From the speech of Doctor of Psychology. Sinyagina N.Yu., Director of the Federal State Scientific Institution “Center for Research on Problems of Education, Formation healthy image life, drug addiction prevention, social and pedagogical support for children and youth", at the plenary session of the All-Russian scientific and practical conference "Experience of working with gifted children in modern Russia" October 27, 2008, Stavropol. See more details: http://odardeti.ru/images/onlydoc/stavropolnu_2008.doc

Quote by: Maksimov N., Chernova E. You can’t catch them // Newsweek. May 28–June 3, 2007. No. 22 (147).

Http://eurotalent-rus.blogspot.com/2008/02/1248.html. In February 2008, a representative from Russia was elected vice-president of Eurotalent.

By Presidential Decree No. 1696 of August 18, 1994, the Federal Program “Children of Russia” received presidential status.

Pivnenko V.N. The “Children of Russia” program: realities, priorities, experience of the region // Analytical Bulletin of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. M., 1999. No. 11 (99). pp. 12–17.

For more details see: http://detirossii.narod.ru/altern.htm

As part of this program, in 2001, funds began to be allocated to help gifted children with disabilities.

Approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of March 21, 2007 No. 172.

R. Lynn, T. Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. London, 2002; Idem. IQ and Global Inequality. London, 2006.

For more information about the results of international studies of the knowledge of Russian students, see: Krasnyanskaya K. PISA–2006: assessment of mathematical literacy of 15-year-old students // National education. 2008. No. 9. P. 169–179; Dashkovskaya O. Russian education in the mirror of international research http://mosparents.ru/ru/education1/news/index.php?from40=12&id20221=41233&from4=77&id4=28101

From an interview with V.F. Butuzov, head Department of Mathematics, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University. See: Gurova N. Troika in mathematical analysis // Digest of the Physics and Mathematics School. 02/29/2008.

Bogoyavlenskaya D.B. Working concept of giftedness // Issues of education. 2004. No. 4. P. 46–68.

Markelov E.V., Yurkevich V.S. Organization of a school for especially gifted children and adolescents. See: http://www.humanities.edu.ru/executors.html

Children's giftedness: signs, types, personality traits of a gifted child

Definition of the concepts of “giftedness” and “gifted child”

Giftedness- this is a systemic quality of the psyche that develops throughout life, which determines the possibility of a person achieving higher, extraordinary results in one or more types of activity compared to other people.

Gifted child- this is a child who stands out for his bright, obvious, sometimes outstanding achievements (or has internal prerequisites for such achievements) in one or another type of activity.

Today, most psychologists recognize that the level, qualitative originality and nature of the development of giftedness are always the result of a complex interaction of heredity (natural inclinations) and the sociocultural environment, mediated by the child’s activities (play, study, work). In this case, the child’s own activity, as well as the psychological mechanisms of personal self-development that underlie the formation and implementation of individual talent, are of particular importance.

Childhood- the period of formation of abilities and personality. This is a time of deep integrative processes in the child’s psyche against the background of its differentiation. The level and breadth of integration determine the characteristics of the formation and maturity of the phenomenon itself - giftedness. The progression of this process, its delay or regression determine the dynamics of the development of giftedness.

One of the most controversial issues related to the problem of gifted children is the question of the frequency of manifestation of children's giftedness. There are two extreme points of view: “all children are gifted” - “gifted children are extremely rare.” Supporters of one of them believe that almost any healthy child can be developed to the level of giftedness, provided favorable conditions are created. For others, giftedness is a unique phenomenon, in which case the focus is on finding gifted children. This alternative can be removed within the framework of the following position: potential prerequisites for achievement in various types of activities are inherent in many children, while actual outstanding results are demonstrated by a significantly smaller proportion of children.

This or that child can demonstrate particular success in a fairly wide range of activities, since his mental capabilities are extremely plastic at different stages of age development. In turn, this creates conditions for the formation of various types of talent. Moreover, even in the same type of activity, different children can discover the uniqueness of their talent in relation to its different aspects.

Giftedness often manifests itself in the success of activities that have a spontaneous, amateur nature. For example, a child who is passionate about technical design may enthusiastically build his own models at home, but at the same time not show similar activity either in school or in specially organized extracurricular activities (club, section, studio). In addition, gifted children do not always strive to demonstrate their achievements to others. Thus, a child who writes poetry or stories may hide his hobby from the teacher.

Thus, a child’s giftedness should be judged not only by his school or extracurricular activities, but by the forms of activity initiated by him. In some cases, the reason that delays the development of giftedness, despite a potentially high level of abilities, is certain difficulties in the child’s development: for example, stuttering, increased anxiety, conflictual nature of communication, etc. By providing such a child with psychological and pedagogical support, these barriers can be removed.

One of the reasons for the lack of manifestations of one or another type of giftedness may be a lack of necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as the inaccessibility (due to living conditions) of the subject area of ​​activity corresponding to the child’s talent. Thus, giftedness in different children can be expressed in more or less obvious form. When analyzing the characteristics of a child’s behavior, a teacher, psychologist and parents must make a kind of “admission” for insufficient knowledge about his true capabilities, while understanding that there are children whose talent they have not yet been able to see.

Giftedness in childhood can be considered as the potential for mental development in relation to subsequent stages of an individual’s life path.

However, it is necessary to take into account the specifics of giftedness in childhood (as opposed to the giftedness of an adult):

Children's giftedness often acts as a manifestation of patterns of age-related development. Each childhood age has its own prerequisites for the development of abilities. For example, preschoolers are characterized by a special predisposition to mastering languages, a high level of curiosity, and extremely vivid imagination; for senior adolescence characteristic are various forms of poetic and literary creativity, etc. The high relative weight of the age factor in the signs of giftedness sometimes creates the appearance of giftedness (i.e., the “mask” of giftedness, under which is an ordinary child) in the form of accelerated development of certain mental functions, specialization of interests, etc.

Under the influence of changes in age, education, mastery of norms of cultural behavior, such as family education etc. There may be a “fading” of signs of children’s giftedness. As a result, it is extremely difficult to assess the degree of stability of giftedness demonstrated by a given child over a certain period of time. In addition, difficulties arise regarding the prognosis of the transformation of a gifted child into a gifted adult.

The unique dynamics of the formation of children's giftedness often manifests itself in the form of unevenness (mismatch) of mental development. Thus, along with a high level of development of certain abilities, there is a lag in the development of written and oral speech; a high level of special abilities can be combined with insufficient development of general intelligence, etc. As a result, according to some characteristics, a child can be identified as gifted, but according to others, as lagging behind in mental development.

Manifestations of children's giftedness are often difficult to distinguish from training (or more broadly, the degree of socialization), which is the result of more favorable living conditions for a given child. It is clear that, given equal abilities, a child from a family with a high socio-economic status (in cases where the family makes efforts to develop it) will show higher achievements in certain types of activities compared to a child for whom similar conditions have not been created.

The assessment of a particular child as gifted is largely arbitrary. A child's most remarkable abilities are not a direct and sufficient indicator of his future achievements. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that signs of giftedness manifested in childhood, even under the most seemingly favorable conditions, can either gradually or very quickly disappear. Taking this circumstance into account is especially important when organizing practical work with gifted children. You should not use the phrase “gifted child” in terms of stating (rigidly fixing) the status of a particular child, because the psychological drama of the situation is obvious when a child, accustomed to the fact that he is “gifted,” suddenly objectively loses signs of his exceptionality at the next stages of development. A painful question may arise about what to do next with a child who began studying in a specialized educational institution, but then ceased to be considered gifted.

Based on this, in practical work with children, instead of the concept of “gifted child,” the concept of “signs of a child’s giftedness” (or “child with signs of giftedness”) should be used.

Signs of giftedness

Signs of giftedness are manifested in the child’s real activities and can be identified at the level of observation of the nature of his actions. Signs of obvious (manifested) giftedness are recorded in its definition and are associated with a high level of performance. At the same time, a child’s giftedness should be judged in the unity of the categories “I can” and “I want,” therefore, signs of giftedness cover two aspects of a gifted child’s behavior: instrumental and motivational. Instrumental characterizes the ways of his activity, and motivational characterizes the child’s attitude to one or another aspect of reality, as well as to his activity.

The instrumental aspect of a gifted child’s behavior can be described by the following features: The presence of specific activity strategies. The methods of activity of a gifted child ensure its special, qualitatively unique productivity. At the same time, three main levels of activity success are identified, each of which is associated with its own specific strategy for its implementation: rapid mastery of the activity and high success in its implementation; using and inventing new ways of activity while searching for a solution in a given situation; putting forward new goals for activity due to deeper mastery of the subject, leading to a new vision of the situation and explaining the emergence of ideas and solutions unexpected at first glance.

The behavior of a gifted child is characterized mainly by the third level of success - innovation as going beyond the requirements of the activity being performed, which allows him to discover new techniques and patterns.

The formation of a qualitatively unique individual style of activity, expressed in the tendency to “do everything your own way” and associated with the self-sufficient system of self-regulation inherent in a gifted child. For example, it is very typical for him - along with the ability to almost instantly grasp an essential detail or very quickly find a way to solve a problem - a reflexive way of processing information (a tendency to carefully analyze a problem before making any decision, an orientation towards justifying one’s own actions).

A special type of organization of a gifted child’s knowledge: highly structured; the ability to see the subject being studied in a system of various connections; the condensation of knowledge in the relevant subject area while at the same time its readiness to unfold as a context for searching for a solution at the right time; categorical character (fascination with general ideas, tendency to find and formulate general patterns). This provides amazing ease of transition from a single fact or image to their generalization and expanded form of interpretation.

In addition, the knowledge of a gifted child (as well as a gifted adult) is characterized by increased “stickiness” (the child immediately grasps and assimilates information corresponding to his intellectual orientation), a high proportion of procedural knowledge (knowledge about methods of action and conditions for their use), a large the volume of metacognitive (controlling, organizing) knowledge, the special role of metaphors as a way of processing information, etc.

It should be borne in mind that knowledge may have a different structure depending on whether a person has an interest in the relevant subject area. Consequently, the special characteristics of a gifted child's knowledge may reveal themselves to a greater extent in the sphere of his dominant interests.

A peculiar type of learning ability. It can manifest itself both in high speed and ease of learning, and in a slow pace of learning, but with a subsequent sharp change in the structure of knowledge, ideas and skills. Facts indicate that gifted children, as a rule, from an early age are distinguished by a high level of self-learning ability, therefore they need not so much targeted educational influences, but rather the creation of a variable, enriched and individualized educational environment.

Motivational aspect of behavior A gifted child can be described by the following characteristics:

Increased selective sensitivity to certain aspects of objective reality (signs, sounds, colors, technical devices, plants, etc.) or certain forms of one’s own activity (physical, cognitive, artistic and expressive, etc.), accompanied, as a rule, by experiencing a feeling of pleasure.

An increased cognitive need, which manifests itself in insatiable curiosity, as well as a willingness, on one’s own initiative, to go beyond the initial requirements of the activity. I

strongly expressed interest in certain activities or areas of activity, extremely high passion for any subject, immersion in this or that matter. Having such an intense inclination towards a particular type of activity results in amazing tenacity and hard work. Preference for paradoxical, contradictory and uncertain information, rejection of standard, typical tasks and ready-made answers.

High demands on the results of one's own work, a tendency to set extremely difficult goals and perseverance in achieving them, the desire for perfection.

The psychological characteristics of children who demonstrate giftedness can be considered only as signs that accompany giftedness, but not necessarily as factors that give rise to it. Brilliant memory, phenomenal powers of observation, ability for instant calculations, etc. by themselves do not always indicate the presence of giftedness. Therefore, the presence of these psychological characteristics can only serve as a basis for the assumption of giftedness, and not for a conclusion about its unconditional presence.

It should be emphasized that the behavior of a gifted child does not necessarily have to simultaneously correspond to all of the above characteristics. Behavioral signs of giftedness (instrumental and especially motivational) are variable and often contradictory in their manifestations, since they largely depend on the subject content of the activity and the social context. However, even the presence of one of these signs should attract the attention of a specialist and direct him to a thorough and time-consuming analysis of each specific individual case.

Types of giftedness

The systematization of types of giftedness is determined by the criterion that forms the basis of the classification. Giftedness can be divided into both qualitative and quantitative aspects.

Qualitative characteristics of giftedness express the specifics of a person’s mental capabilities and the characteristics of their manifestation in certain types of activity. Quantitative characteristics of giftedness make it possible to describe the degree of their expression.

Among the criteria for identifying types of giftedness are the following:

The type of activity and the spheres of the psyche that support it.

Degree of formation.

Form of manifestations.

Wide range of manifestations in various types of activities.

Features of age development.

According to the criterion “type of activity and the spheres of the psyche that support it,” the identification of types of giftedness is carried out within the framework of the main types of activity, taking into account different mental spheres and, accordingly, the degree of participation of certain levels of mental organization (taking into account the qualitative uniqueness of each of them).

The main types of activity include: practical, theoretical (taking into account children's age, it is preferable to talk about cognitive activity), artistic-aesthetic, communicative and spiritual-value. The spheres of the psyche are represented by the intellectual, emotional and motivational-volitional. Within each sphere, the following levels of mental organization can be distinguished. Thus, within the framework of the intellectual sphere, sensorimotor, spatial-visual and conceptual-logical levels are distinguished. Within emotional sphere- levels of emotional response and emotional experience. Within the framework of the motivational-volitional sphere - the levels of motivation, goal setting and meaning generation.

Accordingly, the following types of talent can be distinguished:

In practical activities, in particular, one can distinguish talent in crafts, sports and organizational ones.

In cognitive activity - intellectual talent of various types depending on the subject content of the activity (giftedness in the field of natural sciences and humanities, intellectual games, etc.).

In artistic and aesthetic activities - choreographic, stage, literary, poetic, visual and musical talent.

In communicative activities - leadership and attractive talent.

And, finally, in spiritual value-based activities - giftedness, which manifests itself in the creation of new spiritual values ​​and serving people.

Each type of giftedness involves the simultaneous inclusion of all levels of mental organization with a predominance of the level that is most significant for this particular type of activity. For example, musical talent is ensured by all levels of mental organization, while either sensorimotor qualities can come to the fore (and then we are talking about a virtuoso), or emotionally expressive ones (and then we are talking about rare musicality, expressiveness, etc.). Each type of giftedness, in its manifestations, covers to one degree or another all five types of activity. For example, the activity of a performing musician, being by definition artistic and aesthetic, is also formed and manifested in practical terms (at the level of motor skills and performing technique), cognitive terms (at the level of interpretation of a musical work), and in communicative terms (at the level of communication with the author of the piece being performed and the audience), spiritually and axially (at the level of giving meaning to one’s activities as a musician).

The classification of types of giftedness according to the criterion of “type of activity and the spheres of the psyche that support it” is the most important in terms of understanding the qualitative uniqueness of the nature of giftedness. This criterion is the initial one, while the others determine the special forms that are currently characteristic of a person.

Within the framework of this classification, the following two questions can be posed and resolved:

What is the relationship between giftedness and individual abilities?

Does “creative talent” exist as a special type of giftedness?

Identification of types of giftedness according to the criterion of types of activity allows us to move away from the everyday idea of ​​giftedness as a quantitative degree of expression of abilities and move on to understanding giftedness as a systemic quality. At the same time, activity and its psychological structure act as an objective basis for the integration of individual abilities, forming the composition of them that is necessary for its successful implementation. Consequently, giftedness acts as an integral manifestation of various abilities for the purposes of specific activities. One and the same type of giftedness can have a unique, unique character, since individual components of giftedness in different people can be expressed to different degrees. Giftedness can only occur if the reserves of a person’s various abilities make it possible to compensate for the missing or insufficiently expressed components necessary for the successful implementation of activities. Bright giftedness or talent indicates the presence of high abilities across the entire set of components required by the activity, as well as the intensity of integration processes “within” the subject, involving him in the personal sphere.

The question of the existence of creative talent arises insofar as the analysis of giftedness necessarily poses the problem of its connection with creativity as its natural result.

The consideration of “creative talent” as an independent type of giftedness, which became widespread in the second half of the last century, is based on a number of initial contradictions in the very nature of abilities and giftedness, which are reflected in paradoxical phenomenology: a person with high abilities may not be creative and, on the contrary, cases are not uncommon , when a less trained and even less capable person is creative.

This allows us to specify the problem: if skills and special abilities do not determine the creative nature of activity, then what is the key to “creativity”, the creative potential of an individual? It is easier to answer this question by appealing to a special creative talent or to a special mental operation that determines it (for example, divergence).

At the same time, another approach to the interpretation of this phenomenology is possible, which does not resort to the concept of creative talent as an explanatory principle, since it allows us to highlight the mechanism of the phenomenon of giftedness.

The different contributions of the leading components in the structure of giftedness can give a paradoxical picture, when sometimes success in mastering educational activities (achievement), intelligence (ingenuity) and “creativity” do not coincide in their manifestations. The facts of such a discrepancy in the manifestation of giftedness do not clearly speak in favor of its division into types (academic, intellectual and creative), but, on the contrary, allow us, as if in a cross-section, to see the role and place of these manifestations in the structure of giftedness and explain the above-mentioned paradox of the human psyche without attracting a special type of talent - creative.

An activity is always carried out by a person whose goals and motives influence the level of its implementation. If the goals of the individual lie outside the activity itself, i.e. the student prepares lessons only in order “so as not to be scolded for bad grades or so as not to lose the prestige of an excellent student, then the activity is performed in good faith at best and its result, even with brilliant performance, does not exceed the normatively required product. When noting the abilities of such a child, one should not talk about his talent, since the latter presupposes passion for the subject itself, absorption in the activity. In this case, the activity does not stop even when the initial task is completed, the initial goal is realized. What the child does with love, he constantly improves, realizing all the new ideas born in process of the work itself. As a result, the new product of his activity significantly exceeds the original plan. In this case, we can say that there has been “development of activity.” The development of activity on the initiative of the child himself is creativity.

With this understanding, the concepts of “giftedness” and “creative talent” act as synonyms. Thus, “creative talent” is not considered as a special, independent type of talent, characterizing any type of work. Relatively speaking, “creative talent” is a characteristic not just of the highest level of performance of any activity, but of its transformation and development.

This theoretical approach has an important practical consequence: when talking about the development of giftedness, you cannot limit your work to just drawing up training programs (acceleration, complexity, etc.). It is necessary to create conditions for the formation of internal motivation of activity, orientation and value system, which create the basis for the formation of personal spirituality. The history of science and especially art provides many examples that the absence or loss of spirituality resulted in the loss of talent.

According to the criterion " degree of talent development» can be differentiated:

current talent;

potential talent.

Current talent- this is a psychological characteristic of a child with such existing (already achieved) indicators of mental development that are manifested in a higher level of performance in a specific subject area compared to age and social norms. In this case, we are talking not only about educational activities, but also about a wide range of different types of activities. Talented children constitute a special category of actually gifted children. It is believed that a talented child is a child whose achievements meet the requirement of objective novelty and social significance. As a rule, a specific product of a talented child’s activity is assessed by an expert (a highly qualified specialist in the relevant field of activity) as meeting, to one degree or another, the criteria of professional skill and creativity.

Potential giftedness b is a psychological characteristic of a child who has only certain mental capabilities (potential) for high achievements in a particular type of activity, but cannot realize their capabilities at a given time due to their functional insufficiency. The development of this potential can be hampered by a number of unfavorable reasons (difficult family circumstances, insufficient motivation, low level of self-regulation, lack of the necessary educational environment, etc.). Identification of potential giftedness requires high predictiveness of the diagnostic methods used, since we are talking about an unformed systemic quality, the further development of which can be judged only on the basis of individual signs. The integration of components required for high achievement is not yet available. Potential giftedness manifests itself under favorable conditions that provide a certain developmental influence on the child’s initial mental capabilities.

According to the criterion " form of manifestation"We can talk about:

obvious talent;

hidden talent.

Clearly gifted reveals itself in the child’s activities quite clearly and clearly (as if “on its own”), including under unfavorable conditions. The child’s achievements are so obvious that his talent is beyond doubt. Therefore, a specialist in the field of children's giftedness is highly likely to be able to draw a conclusion about the presence of giftedness or high potential of the child. He can adequately assess the “zone of proximal development” and correctly outline a program for further work with such a “promising child.” However, giftedness does not always reveal itself so clearly.

Hidden talent manifests itself in an atypical, disguised form, it is not noticed by others. As a result, the danger of erroneous conclusions about the lack of giftedness of such a child increases. He may be classified as “unpromising” and deprived of the necessary help and support. Often no one sees the future “beautiful swan” in the “ugly duckling,” although there are numerous examples of precisely such “unpromising children” achieving the highest results. The reasons that give rise to the phenomenon of latent giftedness lie in the specifics of the cultural environment in which the child is formed, in the peculiarities of his interaction with people around him, in the mistakes made by adults during his upbringing and development, etc. Hidden forms of giftedness are psychological phenomena that are complex in nature. In cases of latent giftedness, which does not manifest itself in successful activities until a certain time, understanding the personal characteristics of a gifted child is especially important. The personality of a gifted child bears clear evidence of his originality. It is precisely the peculiar personality traits, which, as a rule, are organically associated with giftedness, that give the right to assume that such a child has increased capabilities. Identification of children with latent giftedness cannot be reduced to a one-time psychodiagnostic examination of large groups of preschool and schoolchildren. Identification of children with this type of giftedness is a long process based on the use of a multi-level set of methods for analyzing the child’s behavior, including him in various types of real activities, organizing his communication with gifted adults, enriching his individual living environment, involving him in innovative forms of education, etc. .d.

According to the criterion " breadth of manifestations in various types of activities" we can highlight:

general talent;

special talent.

General talent manifests itself in relation to various types activities and acts as the basis for their productivity. The psychological core of general talent is the result of the integration of mental abilities, motivational sphere and value system, around which emotional, volitional and other personality qualities are built. The most important aspects of general giftedness are mental activity and its self-regulation. General talent determines, accordingly, the level of understanding of what is happening, the depth of motivational and emotional involvement in the activity, and the degree of its purposefulness.

Special talent finds itself in specific types of activities and is usually defined in relation to specific areas (poetry, mathematics, sports, communication, etc.).

The basis of talent for various types of art is a person’s special, involved attitude to the phenomena of life and the desire to embody the value content of his life experience in expressive artistic images. In addition, special abilities for music, painting and other forms of art are formed under the influence of the pronounced uniqueness of the sensory sphere, imagination, emotional experiences, etc. Another example of special abilities is social giftedness - giftedness in the field of leadership and social interaction (family, politics, business relations in the work team). General giftedness is associated with special types of giftedness. In particular, under the influence of general talent, manifestations of special talent reach a qualitatively higher level of mastery of specific activities (in the field of music, poetry, sports, leadership, etc.). In turn, special giftedness influences the selective specialization of the general, mental resources of the individual, thereby enhancing the individual uniqueness and originality of the gifted person.

By criterion “Features of age-related development” can be differentiated:

early giftedness;

late talent.

The decisive indicators here are the rate of mental development of the child, as well as those age stages at which giftedness manifests itself explicitly. It is necessary to take into account that accelerated mental development and, accordingly, early detection of talents (the phenomenon of “age-related giftedness”) are not always associated with high achievements at an older age. In turn, the absence of clear manifestations of giftedness in childhood does not mean a negative conclusion regarding the prospects for further mental development of the individual.

An example of early giftedness is children who are called “child prodigies.” A child prodigy (literally “wonderful child”) is a child, usually of preschool or primary school age, with extraordinary, brilliant success in any particular type of activity - mathematics, poetry, music, drawing, dancing, singing, etc.

A special place among such children is occupied by intellectual prodigies. These are precocious children, whose capabilities are manifested in an extremely high advanced rate of development of mental abilities. They are characterized by extremely early, from 2-3 years of age, mastering reading, writing and counting; mastering a three-year training program by the end of the first grade; choosing a complex activity of one’s own free will (a five-year-old boy writes a “book” about birds with his own illustrations, another boy at the same age compiles his own encyclopedia on history, etc.). They are distinguished by an unusually high development of individual cognitive abilities (brilliant memory, unusual power of abstract thinking, etc.).

There is a certain relationship between the age at which giftedness manifests itself and the area of ​​activity. Talents manifest themselves most early in the field of art, especially in music. Somewhat later, talent manifests itself in the field of fine arts. In science, achieving significant results in the form of outstanding discoveries, creating new areas and research methods, etc. usually occurs later than in art. This is due, in particular, to the need to acquire deep and extensive knowledge, without which scientific discoveries are impossible. Mathematical talents manifest themselves earlier than others (Leibniz, Galois, Gauss). This pattern is confirmed by the facts of the biographies of great people.

So, any individual case of childhood giftedness can be assessed from the point of view of all of the above criteria for classifying types of giftedness. Giftedness thus turns out to be a multidimensional phenomenon in nature. For a practitioner, this is an opportunity and at the same time a necessity for a broader view of the uniqueness of a particular child’s giftedness.

Personality characteristics of a gifted child

It was already noted above that differences in giftedness can be associated both with the measure of manifestation of signs of giftedness and with an assessment of the child’s level of achievement. The division of giftedness on this basis, despite its conventionality, occurs on the basis of a comparison of various indicators characterizing children's giftedness with the average age norm of achievement.

Children who are so superior in their abilities and achievements to others are usually spoken of as children with exceptional, special gifts. The success of their activities may be unusually high. However, it is these children who most often have serious problems that require special attention and appropriate assistance from teachers and psychologists.

Therefore, when grading giftedness, it should be borne in mind that it should be differentiated (naturally, in real life there is no such clear line) between giftedness and harmonious and disharmonious types of development.

Giftedness with a harmonious type of development can be called a “happy” option for a child’s life. Such children are distinguished by physical maturity appropriate for their age. Their high, objectively significant achievements in a certain subject area are organically combined with a high level of intellectual and personal development. As a rule, it is these gifted children who, as adults, achieve extraordinary success in their chosen professional activities.

Another thing is gifted children with a disharmonious type of development. The differences lie not only in the very high level of individual abilities and achievements (often these children have IQ scores from 130 to 180). This variant of giftedness may be based on another genetic resource, as well as other mechanisms of age-stage development, which is most often characterized by an accelerated, but sometimes slower pace. In addition, its basis may be another structure with a violation of integrative processes, which leads to uneven development of various mental qualities, and sometimes calls into question the presence of giftedness as such.

The process of developing the giftedness of such children is almost always accompanied by a complex set of various kinds of psychological, psychosomatic and even psychopathological problems, due to which they can be included in the “risk group”.

Personality features of gifted children with a harmonious type of development

Personality qualities

The desire for creative activity is considered a distinctive characteristic of such gifted children. They express their own ideas and defend them. Due to the fact that they are not limited in their activities by the requirements that the task contains, they discover new ways of solving problems. They often abandon traditional methods of solution if their methods are more rational and beautiful.

These students, as a rule, show increased independence in the learning process and therefore need adult help to a lesser extent than their classmates. Sometimes teachers mistake a student’s independence in completing assignments for giftedness: he chose the material himself, analyzed it and wrote an essay, etc. However, the independence of gifted children is associated with the formation of “self-regulatory strategies” for learning, which they easily transfer to new tasks. According to experts, the measure of “autonomous self-learning” can act as a unique indicator of the presence of outstanding abilities. For self-education, it is necessary to acquire metacognitive skills that underlie the child’s ability to, to one degree or another, manage his own cognitive processes, plan his activities, systematize and evaluate acquired knowledge. Excessive interference from teachers and excessive care from parents can have a negative impact on the progress of gifted students’ education, inhibit the development of self-regulation processes, and lead to loss of independence and motivation to learn new things.

Taking into account these characteristics of gifted children and adolescents, when organizing the educational process, it is necessary to provide for opportunities to increase the independence, initiative and, to a certain extent, responsibility of the student himself. Gifted children often strive to independently choose which subjects and sections of the curriculum they would like to study at an accelerated and/or in-depth level, plan their learning process and determine the frequency of assessment of acquired knowledge. They should be given these opportunities. IN modern pedagogy There are many innovative developments that allow the child to initiate his own learning. At the same time, such training requires the organization of special forms of interaction with adults (primarily teachers). A gifted child needs adult mentors no less than other children, but he makes special demands both on the level of knowledge of such a mentor and on the way he interacts with him.

As noted above, the motivational signs of gifted children are a high level of cognitive need, great curiosity, passionate dedication to what they love, and the presence of pronounced internal motivation. From early childhood, gifted children demonstrate an intense interest in learning, showing an amazing ability to concentrate on a problem and even a kind of obsession.

Contrary to the popular belief that giftedness is always “global”, due to which gifted children do well in all school subjects, because they generally like to study, this phenomenon is not so natural. A specific direction of cognitive motivation of gifted children is often observed: a high level of motivation is observed only in those areas of knowledge that are associated with their leading abilities. At the same time, a gifted child may not only not show interest in other areas of knowledge, but also ignore school subjects that are “unnecessary” from his point of view, coming into conflict with teachers because of this. A characteristic feature of the motivation of a different area of ​​gifted children and adolescents is associated with the specificity of the questions with which they literally “bombard” those around them. The number, complexity, and depth of questions gifted children ask far exceed those of their peers. It is not easy for teachers to satisfy this increased curiosity in the classroom. In addition, many questions can be so complex and require such deep and varied knowledge that they are difficult to answer even for specialists. In this regard, it is necessary to develop pedagogical technologies that allow gifted students to independently search and find answers to questions that interest them. For these purposes, new information technologies (including the Internet) can be used, teaching students how to independently work with literature, methods research activities, including them in professional communication with specialists, etc.

A significant portion of gifted children are characterized by so-called perfectionism, that is, the desire to achieve perfection in performing activities. Sometimes a child spends hours redoing an already completed work (an essay, a drawing, a model), achieving compliance with one criterion of perfection known to him. Although in general this characteristic is positive, in the future turning into a guarantee of a high level of professional achievements, teachers and psychologists nevertheless need to introduce such exactingness within a reasonable framework. Otherwise, this quality turns into a kind of “self-criticism”, the inability to complete the work.

Since a child’s giftedness is often judged by his achievements primarily in school, the following characteristics can be used to distinguish a gifted child from one who is simply very capable and well-trained, whose certain amount of knowledge, skills and abilities exceeds the usual average level. A gifted child strives for new cognitive situations; they not only do not frighten him, but, on the contrary, give him a feeling of joy. Even if difficulties arise in this new situation, the gifted child does not lose interest in it. A capable student with high achievement motivation perceives any new situation as a threat to his self-esteem and his high status. A gifted child enjoys the process of learning itself, while a simply capable child is much more concerned about the result. A gifted child quite easily admits his misunderstanding, simply saying that he doesn’t know something. For a capable child with external motivation, this is always a stressful situation, a situation of failure. Hence the different attitudes towards grades: the gifted gives priority to the content of the activity, for the capable the result and its evaluation are important.

Consistently high self-esteem, on the one hand, is a distinctive characteristic of a gifted child. On the other hand, his current self-esteem may fluctuate. It is this inconsistency of self-esteem that is the condition for the progressive development of his personality and abilities. Hence, the strategy for encouraging a gifted child, or any child, should be quite restrained - you cannot constantly praise him. It is necessary to accustom him to the idea of ​​the possibility of failure. Moreover, the child himself should perceive the presence of constant success as evidence of the insufficient difficulty of the activity that is offered to him and which he undertakes.

One of the main characteristics of gifted children and adolescents is independence (autonomy): the lack of inclination to act, think and act in accordance with the opinion of the majority. Whatever field of activity their talent is manifested, they are guided not by general opinion, but by personally acquired knowledge. Although this personal characteristic helps them in their activities, it is nevertheless what makes them uncomfortable for others. Gifted children behave less predictably than others would like, which sometimes leads to conflicts. The teacher should always take this into account psychological feature, understanding its nature. For example, an obviously gifted teenager, completing an assignment to write an essay on geography, writes an essay “Is geography a science?”, where he vividly, but defiantly in form, proves the descriptive nature of this subject and deprives geography of the status of a science. He doesn’t care that the school principal teaches geography. All this cannot but cause a certain wariness of the teaching staff towards such children, their internal and often open rejection. In many cases, such manifestations of a gifted child are incorrectly interpreted as his lack of education or desire to be outside the team. In general, apparently, we can talk about a certain non-conformity of brightly gifted, creative children.

Rooted interests and inclinations, developed since childhood, serve as a good basis for successful personal and professional self-determination of gifted children. The difficulties in vocational guidance that arise in some cases, when students continue to be “scattered” right up to graduation, are associated with the high development of their abilities in many areas.

Role of the family

The development of giftedness in such children is facilitated by the high cognitive interests of the parents themselves, who, as a rule, are not only engaged in intellectual professions, but also have various kinds of intellectual “hobbies.” When communicating with a child, they always go beyond the circle of everyday problems; their communication very early introduces the so-called joint cognitive activity - common games, joint work on the computer, discussion of complex tasks and problems. Often parents and children are united by common cognitive interests, on the basis of which stable friendships arise between them. The attitude towards schooling among the parents of these children never takes on a self-sufficient character. The content side of a child’s development is always a higher priority for them than grades themselves. In these families, there is a significantly smaller distance between parents and children, the very fact of reduction of which can have not only clearly positive, but sometimes also negative features.

Relationships with peers and teachers

In general, this group of gifted children is characterized by high, compared to their peers, adaptation to school learning and, accordingly, to the group of fellow students. Peers generally treat gifted children with great respect. Thanks to their higher learning ability and creative attitude to the learning process, including social and everyday skills, and physical strength, many gifted children are highly popular among their peers. In schools where learning is a value, such children become leaders, the “stars” of the class.

True, these children may also have problems if their increased capabilities are not taken into account: when learning becomes too easy. It is very important to create conditions for these children that are optimal in terms of difficulty for the development of their talent.

Firstly, a gifted student must have a real opportunity not only to get acquainted with different points of view on an issue that interests him (including those that contradict each other), but also, if desired, to interact with other specialists (teachers, consultants, etc.). ).

Secondly, since the position of a gifted child can be very active, he should be given the opportunity to realize it. Therefore, the teacher must be prepared for the fact that his student can challenge other people’s points of view (including very authoritative ones), defend his opinion, justify his own point of view, etc.

The personality development of these children rarely causes significant concern among teachers and their parents. Sometimes they express, as noted above, ambition and criticism towards teachers and peers. In rare cases, a conflict with a teacher (most often not professional enough) still arises, taking the form of open confrontation, however, with a calm and respectful attitude towards the student, this conflict can be extinguished relatively easily.

Personality features of gifted children with a disharmonious type of development. Uneven mental development

The idea of ​​a gifted child as a frail, weak and socially awkward creature does not always correspond to reality. However, some children who are exceptionally gifted in any one area actually exhibit a pronounced unevenness of mental development (dyssynchrony), which directly affects the personality during its formation and is the source of many problems of an unusual child.

For such children, a significant advance in mental or artistic and aesthetic development is quite typical. It is clear that all other mental spheres - emotional, social and physical - do not always keep up with such rapid growth, which leads to pronounced uneven development. This unevenness in development is reinforced by excessive specialization of interests in the form of dominance of the interest corresponding to their extraordinary abilities. The most important characteristic of the personality of children with manifestations of bright talent is a special value system, i.e. a system of personal priorities, the most important place in which is occupied by activities corresponding to the content of giftedness. The overwhelming majority of gifted children have a biased, personal attitude towards activities that constitute their area of ​​interest.

Such children also have their own characteristics of self-esteem, which characterizes their idea of ​​their strengths and capabilities. It is quite natural that these children and adolescents have extremely high self-esteem. However, sometimes in especially emotional children, self-esteem is distinguished by a certain inconsistency and instability - from very high self-esteem in some cases, the same teenager rushes to the other extreme in others, believing that he cannot and does not know how to do anything. Both children need psychological support.

The desire to achieve perfection (so-called perfectionism) is also characteristic of this category of gifted children. In general, perfectionism is, as already mentioned, positive in nature, contributing to the achievement of the peaks of professional excellence. However, increased demands can turn into painful and painful dissatisfaction with oneself and the results of one’s work, which negatively affects the creative process and the life of the creator himself. Often, the tasks that a child sets for himself may far exceed his real capabilities at a given stage of learning and development. There are a number of examples where the inability to achieve a set goal gave rise to severe stress and prolonged experience of one’s failures.

Often such children have problems in emotional development. Most of them have increased impressionability and associated special emotional sensitivity, which is selective in nature and associated primarily with the sphere of their subject interest. Events that are not very significant for ordinary children become a source of vivid experiences for these children. For example, these children are characterized by accepting responsibility for the results of their activities, recognizing that they are the reason for successes and failures, which very often leads to not always justified feelings of guilt, self-flagellation, and sometimes even to depressive states.

Increased reactivity in some cases manifests itself in a tendency to violent emotions. These children may appear hysterical when difficult situations exhibit a clearly infantile reaction, for example, a critical remark causes them to immediately cry, and any failure leads to despair. In other cases, their emotionality is of a hidden, internal nature, revealing itself in excessive shyness in communication, difficulties falling asleep, and sometimes some psychosomatic diseases.

A very difficult problem from the point of view of helping these children is the problem of volitional skills or, more broadly, self-regulation. For especially gifted children, the developmental situation often develops in such a way that they engage only in activities that are quite interesting and easy for them, which constitute the essence of their giftedness. Most gifted children avoid any other activity that is not within the scope of their inclinations, taking advantage of the condescending attitude of adults towards this. Many gifted children have noticeable problems associated with their physical development. Thus, some children clearly avoid anything that requires physical effort, are clearly burdened by physical education lessons, and do not play sports. In this case, the physical retardation manifests itself as if in a multiplied version, when the natural age discrepancy is superimposed on the child’s obvious reluctance to do something boring, in his opinion. To a certain extent, the parents of such a child condone this.

Ultimately, a specific situation arises when especially gifted children, being in a certain respect “workaholics”, i.e. While showing an obvious inclination towards the work they love, they still do not know how to work in cases where pronounced volitional efforts are required of them. To a much lesser extent this applies to children with psychomotor (sports) giftedness and to a much greater extent to children with increased cognitive abilities. Another serious problem for some children with the highest intellectual abilities is the dominance of a focus only on acquiring knowledge. This is especially common in children who have an accelerated rate of mental and general age development. From early childhood, they receive the approval of others for the volume and strength of knowledge that amazes everyone, which subsequently becomes the leading motivation for their cognitive activity. Because of this, their achievements are not creative in nature, and true talent has not been formed. At the same time, with an appropriate system of training and education, with a clearly thought-out system for the development of motivation, this problem of intellectually gifted children can be successfully overcome. At the same time, the system for the development of a child’s giftedness must be carefully built, strictly individualized, and its implementation must occur at a fairly favorable age period.

Role of the family

No matter how we consider the role and weight of natural factors or the influence of targeted training and upbringing (school) on the development of a child’s personality and talent, the importance of the family is decisive. Even seemingly unfavorable conditions (poor living conditions, insufficient material security, single-parent family, etc.) turn out to be relatively indifferent to the development of abilities. Particularly important for the development of the personality of a gifted child is the increased attention of parents.

As a rule, in families of gifted children, a high value of education is clearly observed, and the parents themselves are often very educated. This circumstance is a favorable factor that largely determines the development of high abilities of the child.

The main, almost obligatory feature of the family of any especially gifted child is extreme, unusually high attention to the child, when the whole life of the family is focused on him. In many cases, such attention leads to symbiosis, i.e. close intertwining of cognitive and personal interests of parents and child. Although such attention may subsequently become a brake on his mental autonomy, it is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in the development of extraordinary abilities. Often the parents of such gifted children are elderly people, for whom a child is the only meaning of life. Even more often, gifted children are the only children in the family, or at least, in fact, the only ones (the eldest has already grown up and does not require attention), and the parents’ attention is directed only to this child. In many cases, it is the parents who begin to teach a gifted child, and often, although not always, one of them becomes his mentor for many years in a variety of activities: artistic and aesthetic, sports, one or another type of scientific knowledge. This circumstance is one of the reasons for consolidating certain cognitive or other interests of the child.

A certain “child-centricity” of the family of a gifted child, the fanatical desire of parents to develop his abilities, has its own in some cases negative sides. Thus, in these families there is a certain permissive attitude towards the development of a number of social and everyday skills in their child.

Parents of gifted children pay special attention to their child's school education, choosing textbooks or additional literature for him and consulting with the teacher on how best to study them. This circumstance sometimes has negative sides: parents often interfere in the educational process and in some cases even provoke a conflict with the administration and teachers.

Relationships with peers and adults

Great importance To understand the personality characteristics of a gifted child with a disharmonious type of development, it is necessary to analyze his relationships with peers and adults, which, being a consequence of the unusualness of the child himself, largely determine the history of his life and thereby shape his personality. Often, special cognitive development occurs in some sense at the expense of other areas. Thus, until a certain time, communication with peers in the area of ​​personal interests takes up much less space for many gifted children than for other children of the same age. That is why such children extremely rarely become leaders in their yard or school group.

Thus, due to the uneven development already described above, some children with sharply increased intellectual, artistic and aesthetic capabilities often lack sufficiently developed and effective skills of social behavior and have problems in communication. This may manifest itself in excessive conflict. In many cases, special talent is accompanied by unusual behavior and oddities, which causes bewilderment or ridicule among classmates.

Sometimes the life of such a child in a group develops in the most dramatic way (the child is beaten, offensive nicknames are invented for him, humiliating pranks are played).

As a result of such relationships with peers, communication problems are generated and further intensified. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for their non-compliance with some of the norms and requirements of the team. The inherent non-conformity of all gifted children in this case reinforces this negative aspect. As a result, this leads to a kind of alienation of the child from the peer group, and he begins to look for other niches for communication: the society of younger or, conversely, much older children or only adults.

True, much depends on the age of the children and the value system adopted in a given children's community. In specialized schools, there is a much higher likelihood that the special intellectual abilities of such a gifted child or adolescent will be appreciated and, accordingly, his relationships with peers will develop in a more favorable way.

Teachers also have ambivalent attitudes towards especially gifted children, but it all depends on the personality of the teacher himself. If this is a teacher who knows how to abandon the position of infallibility, who does not accept methods of education “from a position of strength,” then in this case the increased criticality of an intellectually gifted child, his high mental development, exceeding the level of the teacher himself, will cause him respect and understanding. In other cases, relationships with the teacher are characterized by conflict and rejection of each other. Some of the personality traits of these gifted individuals cause resentment among teachers due to their perception of these children as extreme individualists, which is reinforced by the lack of a sense of distance from adults in many of these children. That is why understanding the unique personality of a gifted child with a disharmonious type of development is fundamentally important for the successful work of a teacher with such a contingent of children and adolescents.

In general, a situation arises of some maladaptation of a particularly gifted child, which can become quite serious, at times completely justifying the classification of gifted children of this type as a high-risk group.

It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the sample of gifted children is heterogeneous and the characteristics inherent in one group cannot be extended to all gifted children. It is important to emphasize that the problems they encounter are not a consequence of giftedness itself, but its inherent characteristic.

Speech at the Republican seminar

“Who is a gifted child?”

Prepared by senior

teacher of preschool educational institution No. 21

Almazova A.V.

02/27/2017

Geniuses don't fall from the sky

they should be able to

form and develop.

A. Bebel

In a preschool group there may be a child who will be noticeably different from other children in the group. He asks a lot of questions, showing interest in the surroundings, as a rule, is successful in activities, knows more than his peers, answers questions before the teacher has time to fully formulate them; brings new interesting books to kindergarten, captivatingly retells their contents, invents unusual stories and fairy tales, builds amazing buildings, experiments with objects, trying to understand various patterns. It is interesting to communicate with such a child, but sometimes he is not “convenient” in general work with children: he interrupts, trying to give an answer faster, asks questions that confuse you, imposes his opinion, and interferes with the teacher’s work with others. It is possible that this is a gifted child.

Giftedness is a high level of development of a child’s abilities, which is also accompanied by significant cognitive activity.

Gifted child - This is a child who stands out for his bright, obvious, sometimes outstanding achievements (or has internal prerequisites for such achievements) in one activity or another.

Today, most psychologists recognize that the level, qualitative originality and nature of the development of giftedness are always the result of a complex interaction between heredity (natural inclinations) and the social environment. At the same time, the role of psychological mechanisms of personality self-development cannot be ignored.

Some psychologists believe that gifted children in a regular school do not receive proper understanding from adults and peers, and are subject to ridicule and almost bullying.

Among modern concepts of giftedness, the theory of the famous American specialist in the field of studying gifted children, Joseph Renzulli, can be called the most popular. In his opinion, giftedness is a complex result of the superposition of 3 factors:

• above average abilities
• creativity,
• involvement in an active task

In general, many psychologists note active cognitive activity as the main component of activity inherent in a gifted child.

There is giftedness that affects success in many activities, and then it can be called general giftedness. General talent is usually divided intomental and artistic.

Mentally gifted childrenare able to correctly solve a wide variety of cognitive tasks. Children clearly see the condition, identify significant relationships in the problem, and find a solution through restructuring the conditions. The problem is often solved in the mind, easily and quickly. A child can come up with a completely unexpected, original way to solve a problem.

Mentally gifted children also have insatiable cognitive activity, the need to acquire new knowledge, curiosity, and the desire to find and solve various cognitive problems.

General artistic talentdetected if the child demonstrates success in several activities artistic activity, for example, visual, musical, literary.

It is possible to highlight features that make it possible to assume a high level of development of abilities, giftedness. They manifest themselves in everyday life, in children’s independent activities, when performing various tasks at home, in kindergarten, in a circle.

These features can be discovered by directly observing the child and in conversations with adults around the child.

1. curiosity, cognitive activity,

aimed at getting to know the world around us, at understanding this world. Cognitive interests can manifest themselves in different areas and different forms. This includes experimenting with various mechanisms, the desire to break and assemble complex devices.

A gifted child asks a question for educational purposes and is interested in receiving substantiated, informal answers. The presence of cognitive interests is also evidenced by the child’s behavior in class, aimed at obtaining new information and solving cognitive problems.

1. A feature of the thinking of a gifted child with a high level of development of mental abilities islogic and consistency of reasoning,which is not typical for most people of this age.
2. One of the most striking manifestations of giftedness in preschool age iswealth of fantasy.Gifted children, as a rule, are more likely than others to invent and compose something. The process of fantasizing is easy; the adult does not need to create a situation that would provoke the child - he willingly creates it himself. The characters discussed in a fictional story are most often unusual, non-standard, and fantastic.
3. And finally, the central manifestation of giftedness, in which all the characteristics of gifted children are focused, can be consideredthe nature of children's plans,related to different types of activities of preschool children. The way a child conceives a game, how he composes a story, how he plans a future construction, drawing or application helps determine the level of development of his abilities.

In addition to the comprehensiveness and thoughtfulness of the plan, children can be distinguished byhigh degree of originality- inconsistency with the generally accepted, which, as a rule, is transmitted to children from adults through directed learning when one of the children invents a children's group and is transmitted from child to child. Everything that a gifted child comes up with reflects his individuality, his inner world and the uniqueness of his perception of the world around him.

Gifted children often also have a number of similar personality traits.It is typical for them

- persistence in achieving a goal, accompanied by the fact that the child can be engrossed in a task for several hours in a row, returning to it within a few days if something is very interesting to the child or he is not satisfied with the result. This is often associated with the child’s desire for perfection, the desire to do something very well, to achieve the highest level of completing a task (drawing, building, reading a poem, writing a story, etc.).

A heightened sense of justice that arises due to advanced moral development. They react sharply to the injustice of the world around them and place high demands on themselves and others.

Increased vulnerability and exaggerated fears, they are extremely sensitive to non-verbal signals from others, such as gaze, gesture, posture.

High energy potential: they stop sleeping early during the day and are active throughout their entire stay in kindergarten.

Mentally gifted children, as a rule, are also characterized by uneven development: advanced mental development compared to emotional and personal development.This discrepancy creates many problems in the life of a gifted child. Increased receptivity and sensitivity to the environment leads to vulnerability and vulnerability of the psyche, which is unable to adequately respond to such a number of influences. Children take a lot personally and feel guilty even when they are not accused of anything.

Why are there difficulties in diagnosing gifted children?

Identification of gifted children -long lastingthe process involved in analyzing the development of a particular child.

Effective diagnostics giftedness through some one-time proceduretesting (in terms of intelligence, memory, etc.)simply not feasible.

It's not just the inability to createcomprehensive test, but in a special way the property of giftedness as a systemic and developing quality of the psyche, which determines a person’s ability to achieve outstanding results.

Seven principles for supporting gifted children

Psychological science suggests using seven basic principles for identifying and supporting gifted children.

First principle. The nature of the assessment of various aspects of the child’s behavior and activity should be comprehensive. It is necessary to use a variety of different methods and technologies:

• various options for monitoring children;
• special psychodiagnostic trainings;
• conducting trial lessons on special programs, including children in special play and subject-oriented classes;
• organization of various intellectual games, subject Olympiads, scientific conferences, sports competitions, creative competitions, festivals, etc.;
• expert assessment of children's behavior by teachers, parents, and educators;
• expert assessment of specific products of children's activities by professionals;
• conducting psychodiagnostic research using various psychometric techniques depending on the task of analyzing a specific case of giftedness.

An integrated approach to identifying children's giftedness also does not guarantee complete infallibility. Alabeling as “gifted” or “not gifted” can be a very negative factor further development child's personality.

Second principle. Duration of identification is required, which involves observation of a given child’s behavior over several years in different situations: life and school.

Third principle. It is important to analyze the child’s behavior in those areas of activity that best correspond to his inclinations and interests (inclusion of the child in specially organized object-based play activities, involving him in various forms of relevant developmental activities, etc.).

Fourth principle.It is relevant to use training methods, within the framework of which it is possible to organize certain developmental influences, remove psychological barriers typical for a given child, stardom or inferiority complexes, etc.

Fifth principle. It is advisable to involve experts in the assessment of the child: highly qualified specialists in the relevant subject area of ​​activity (mathematicians, humanists, engineers, etc.).

Sixth principle. Assessing the signs of a child’s giftedness not only in relation to the current level of his mental development, but also taking into account his zone of proximal development (in particular, based on the organization of a specific educational environment with the building of an individual learning trajectory for a given child).

Seventh principle.Reliance on psychodiagnostic methods dealing with the assessment of the child’s actual behavior in a specific situation, such as:

• analysis of activity products
• observation
• conversation
• expert assessments
• natural experiment.

What can we do in a preschool setting:

Necessary create conditions for the development of a gifted child.

This problem is solved by the ability to correctly use the means of research, development, methodological, and organizational work.

Tasks:

• Create individual routes for psychological and pedagogical support for gifted children.
• Coordinate and integrate the activities of specialists and parents in this direction.
• Develop an action plan for developing the creative abilities of kindergarten students.

Creating conditions for the development of the subject position of a gifted child.

Such conditions are (realization of the goal)

• the presence of specially trained, highly qualified additional education teachers and educators;
• the presence of a rich subject-development environment that stimulates a wide variety of child activities;
• creating an atmosphere of goodwill and caring towards the child, an environment that creates a feeling in the child self-importance, encouraging the manifestation of his individuality;
• the presence of a personality-oriented educational system, which includes developmental programs in various areas of children’s giftedness, taking into account both personal and age characteristics child;
• introduction of a system of psychological and pedagogical monitoring aimed at identifying the special abilities of children and tracking their further development;
• the use of various non-traditional methods and techniques, gaming technologies in the work of teachers,
• engaging children in free activities with educational games,
• the work of clubs and sections that develop the child’s creative orientation;
• participation of children in various holidays, sports competitions, role-playing games, exhibitions of children's creativity
• close cooperation with families on the development of giftedness in their children;
• continuity and consistency of support
• Increasing the psychological and pedagogical competence of educators, parents, and other adults on issues of supporting the development of a gifted child.
• An individual development path for each gifted child, taking into account the specifics of age and individual development.

Implementation of Tasks:

In kindergarten, teachers conduct a psychological and pedagogical consultation, to which competent teachers are also invited. Members of the council summarize all information about the child, determine the support group and conditions for the development of a gifted child.

Support specialists (additional education specialists, teachers, etc.) are invited to participate in the implementation of specific tasks for each child and recommendations for accompanying a gifted child.

The use of the method of intermediate results of accompanying a gifted child helps to more accurately identify the stage of development of his giftedness. The work is as follows: a psychologist, teacher, educator and other specialists carry out in the middle, end school year and, if necessary, more often diagnosing the successful development of a gifted child and adjusting his individual program or recommendations. The teacher, together with the preschool and additional education teacher, organizes various forms of presentations of the development results of a gifted child in the kindergarten: exhibitions of original works, solo concerts, festivals, competitions, etc.

The effectiveness of accompanying a gifted child is possible if the support system is carefully built and strictly individualized. My belief is that a child is the main value of society, above which there is nothing be not Maybe. Regardless of gender, appearance, health, intelligence, manners, character, abilities, a child is a “sealed source” in which a potential unknown to us is hidden and which must necessarily be realized.

About the power of words.

One day, young Thomas Edison returned home from school and gave his mother a letter from his teacher. The mother read the letter out loud to her son, with tears in her eyes: “Your son is a genius. This school is too small, and there are no teachers here who can teach him anything. Please teach him yourself.”

Many years after his mother's death (Edison by that time was already one of the greatest inventors of the century), he was once looking through old family archives and came across this letter. He opened it and read: “Your son is mentally retarded. We can no longer teach him at school with everyone else. Therefore, we recommend that you teach him yourself at home.”

Edison cried for several hours. Then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally retarded child. Thanks to his heroic mother, he became one of the greatest geniuses of his century.”

We have reached a very interesting group of non-standard children. These are gifted children.

As soon as they are not called: nerds, bespectacled, indigo, hyperactive. Yes, some people consider hyperactive people to be not mediocre. There are different mythical ideas about these children. The most common: very smart, obedient, good students. There is no hassle with them - a continuous source of parental and teacher pride. In reality, everything is far from so rosy. What qualities do representatives of this group have, and how we often make mistakes in identifying them? Read

Types of talents by area of ​​manifestation

So who are these gifted children, these strange owners of Eldorado? What is giftedness?

1. Intellectual - an innate cognitive ability, which is based mainly on the talent for learning (to assimilate, analyze information). It has the following well-developed basic components:

• Memory,
• speed of perception,
• time of retention of information in memory.

2. Creative. Its author P. Torrence believed that the main thing is not how a student or preschooler learns. The main thing is the degree of originality, unconventionality of his thinking, unconventional perception. Creative talent manifests itself very early. Children begin to “go out of step” already at 3-5 years old. More about the phenomenon

3. Academic. The most prosperous in our society. Most excellent students have it. Easy assimilation of the program is achieved by decent development of attention, memory, and hard work. Colossal hard work is their characteristic feature.

4. Artistic. Musical and artistic talents. It is believed that they do not occur in mental retardation. But here's what's interesting. Many autistic people, most of them studying in programs for the mentally retarded, have such abilities. It can only be explained by the fact that in fact these are not mentally retarded schoolchildren, but the specialists who determined their level of development are not sufficiently qualified, or the testing methods used are weak.

5. Leadership – the ability to communicate, organize and lead. Leadership can be developed with preschool childhood. There are educational systems that allow any child to play the role of leader. And understand: is it for me or not?

6. And finally, psychomotor - the basis of sports achievements.

Giftedness by nature of manifestation

1. wide (for example, Leonardo da Vinci) and narrow;
2. different in level: from simply increased development of abilities to genius (here the lack of mother’s love has a significant impact);
3. different in the time of onset of development: child prodigy - anti-prodigy.

Child prodigies are students and preschoolers with early and rapid development. They are usually the first or last born in the family (according to the biographies of historical figures), or single children. They have enormous self-confidence, to the point of self-confidence. Anti-wunderkinds should be discussed separately.

Attitudes towards gifted children are reflected in teaching. Different countries have their own approaches. In Scandinavian countries, France gifted children They are not taught separately so as not to violate the principle of equality. Within the educational system, everyone is equal.

There is another explanation for this approach. Gifted children may cease to be gifted. And there are indeed many examples of this, sometimes turning out to be tragic (the example of Nika Turbina). However, this does not reflect on the students. Classes are small, training follows individual programs. In the summer, talented students go to camps.

Do I need to work with them specifically? In many countries, including ours, it is believed that it is necessary. However, in our country, schools and classes for advanced students often turn into those for prosperous students (= students from “good families”). It's sad because it's not the same thing. In recent years, centers for talented people have appeared in the Russian educational system. Truly gifted children gather there.