Page 71 - Kukanja Gabrijelčič, Mojca, and Maruška Seničar Željeznov, eds. 2018. Teaching Gifted and Talented Children in A New Educational Era. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 71
Gifted Children’s Drawings and Significant Others’ Needs
thors, another important thing to bear in mind, are the dangers of overesti-
mating diagnostic capacities of children’s drawings. They ‘manage’ to stress
the importance of having additional ‘diagnostic means,’ in order to formulate
and re-evaluate a hypothesis about a child’s emotional needs. In conclusion,
we suggest that particularly in the case of gifted children, drawings can be
utilized as an additional source of information for psycho-social assessment
as they could assist psychologists and teachers to detect emotional prob-
lems, motivational barriers and generally factors that may be crucial for the
gifted/talented students’ effective development.
Conclusions
The gifted children parents of the sample seem to be more confused and
anxious about how to address their gifted child’s advanced learning needs,
rather than worried about their peer and relationships problems. At ‘the end
of each day,’ parents may trust their child’s ability to adapt successfully to
school and peer environment, but they do not trust themselves in which ex-
tent they are able to address their child learning and emotional needs. As
regards the teachers who had already effectively highlighted students’ ex-
ceptional skills, they had mentioned more often some particular emotional
and behavioural difficulties of the gifted students’ social life. Let bear in mind
that the gifted children of the sample demonstrate high performance pre-
dominately in verbal intelligence, in Arts and in general knowledge high and
fast acquisition. Therefore, education policies of the near future for all stu-
dents, and much more for the high ability/gifted/talented students, have to
be designated to focus on the enrichment of the existing curriculum with
activities, materials and teaching strategies that embrace children’s great va-
riety of abilities, interests and socioemotional needs, instead of limiting their
prospective and creativity into an ‘old fashion way’ of learning based on the
‘average student’s ability.’
High ability children’s drawings can be proved to be a helpful tool of non-
verbal expression of experiences and feelings in different settings. Class
drawing, along with family drawing, could be particularly helpful for hypoth-
esizing some emotional difficulties, such as social anxiety, need for isolation,
negative feelings for the teacher, or the preference for free time and games
rather than the classroom time. Family drawings can be also more useful in
the detection of anxiety, anger and need for isolation, but also they may pro-
vide important information about the family relationships dynamics, within
two or three generations of family members, that may influence the child’s
adaptation within family and school. Finally, the general child’s designing
69
thors, another important thing to bear in mind, are the dangers of overesti-
mating diagnostic capacities of children’s drawings. They ‘manage’ to stress
the importance of having additional ‘diagnostic means,’ in order to formulate
and re-evaluate a hypothesis about a child’s emotional needs. In conclusion,
we suggest that particularly in the case of gifted children, drawings can be
utilized as an additional source of information for psycho-social assessment
as they could assist psychologists and teachers to detect emotional prob-
lems, motivational barriers and generally factors that may be crucial for the
gifted/talented students’ effective development.
Conclusions
The gifted children parents of the sample seem to be more confused and
anxious about how to address their gifted child’s advanced learning needs,
rather than worried about their peer and relationships problems. At ‘the end
of each day,’ parents may trust their child’s ability to adapt successfully to
school and peer environment, but they do not trust themselves in which ex-
tent they are able to address their child learning and emotional needs. As
regards the teachers who had already effectively highlighted students’ ex-
ceptional skills, they had mentioned more often some particular emotional
and behavioural difficulties of the gifted students’ social life. Let bear in mind
that the gifted children of the sample demonstrate high performance pre-
dominately in verbal intelligence, in Arts and in general knowledge high and
fast acquisition. Therefore, education policies of the near future for all stu-
dents, and much more for the high ability/gifted/talented students, have to
be designated to focus on the enrichment of the existing curriculum with
activities, materials and teaching strategies that embrace children’s great va-
riety of abilities, interests and socioemotional needs, instead of limiting their
prospective and creativity into an ‘old fashion way’ of learning based on the
‘average student’s ability.’
High ability children’s drawings can be proved to be a helpful tool of non-
verbal expression of experiences and feelings in different settings. Class
drawing, along with family drawing, could be particularly helpful for hypoth-
esizing some emotional difficulties, such as social anxiety, need for isolation,
negative feelings for the teacher, or the preference for free time and games
rather than the classroom time. Family drawings can be also more useful in
the detection of anxiety, anger and need for isolation, but also they may pro-
vide important information about the family relationships dynamics, within
two or three generations of family members, that may influence the child’s
adaptation within family and school. Finally, the general child’s designing
69
