Emotional Development of Gifted Students: Comparative Study About Overexcitabilities

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare gifted, with academic and artistic talent, and non-gifted students regarding overexcitability, as well as to investigate the perceptions of teachers from a specialized educational program for the gifted about their students’ emotional development. The study included 150 students and six teachers. As instruments, we used participants characterization questionnaires, an overexcitability scale and a semi-structured interview script. Data were analyzed using inferential statistics and content analysis. The results indicated significant differences between gifted and non-gifted students in the patterns of intellectual and imaginative over-excitability, as well as a tendency for teachers to emotionally characterize gifted students with an emphasis on psychological disorders and weaknesses. To invest in educational strategies that use information derived from overexcitability patterns as facilitating tools for the learning process of the gifted can contribute to increasing student engagement at school, keeping them motivated.

The Evaluation of Gifted Students A Systematic Literature Review (SLR)

“…Among the scales used by these studies, as listed in Table 1, are Motor Test Battery (Krombholz, 2018), Online Short Spatial Ability Battery (OSSAB) (Budakova et al, 2021), and Battery of Intellectual and Creative Evaluation -Children's Version (BAICI) (Wechsler et al, 2022). Three studies used scales that focus on the characteristics of gifted students (Zaia et al, 2018;Jawabreh et al, 2022;de Sousa & Fleith, 2021). Some studies used self-report measures, such as the Science Self-Regulation Scale (Nacaroglu et al, 2021); the Pictorial Scale for Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance and the Behavioral Academic Self-Esteem Scale (Papadopoulos, 2021); and the Big Three Perfectionism Scale and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Alshurman et al, 2021).…”

“…Most samples in the studies were students as shown in Figure 2: (Dori et al, 2018;Zaia et al, 2018;Vogelaar et al, 2019;Tushnova, 2020;Al-Gaseem et al, 2020;Nacaroglu et al, 2021;Alshurman et al, 2021;Ewies et al, 2021;Rosa et al, 2022;Wechsler et al, 2022;Pezzuti et al, 2022). Some studies included samples from among students and teachers (Sorrentino, 2019;de Sousa & Fleith, 2021). A study sampled 263 mothers and 90 children in the Czech Republic (Jabůrek et al, 2021).…”

“…; they were not concentrated in a certain geographical context. Brazil was the most represented with four articles (20% of total studies):(Zaia et al, 2018), (de Sousa & Fleith, 2021,(Rosa et al, 2022), and(Wechsler et al, 2022) carried out their studies and published in Brazil. Two studies were undertaken in Italy(Sorrentino, 2019),(Pezzuti et al, 2022), Jordan(Alshurman et al, 2021),(Ewies et al, 2021), and Russia(Tushnova, 2020), 13].…”

A Comparison of Gifted Children and Children With Low, Average, and Above-Average Cognitive Abilities in Sensory Processing Sensitivity in the Primary School Context

“…These studies defined sensitivity differently than the definition of SPS in the present study or included specific components but showed considerable overlap with SPS. Best known are Dabrowski’s (1964) overexcitabilities (OEs), which are often related to giftedness (e.g., Alias et al, 2013; Mendaglio, 2022; Sousa & Fleith, 2022). SPS shares some characteristics with OEs, but these constructs are not identical, as illustrated in Table 1.…”