Timetable > 19.11.2020 > Social-emotional needs of gifted and talented students

Parallel sessions II.

Social-emotional needs of gifted and talented students
English

Thu 19.11.2020 16:15-17:45
Lecture hall: Room C
Chair: Borut Seničar
  • High Ability Students’ family drawings and their parents’ needs: Α case study
    Paper
    Scientific
    English
    Through the last seven years, some parents in Greece, who failed to find the adequate understanding for the specific needs of their children with high abilities at school, were looking for guidance in another “school environment” such as the Laboratory for the Development of Creativity, at the Department of Psychology, of the NKUA. The purpose of this study is to present characteristics of children with high abilities and their parents’ effort to find a way to support them. The sample consists of 42 families, in which children with high abilities presented a core set of advanced cognitive and learning characteristics, b specific difficulties at school, as well as in social or emotional domains. This presentation focuses on the descriptive results of the 42 families’ characteristics, mapping also the characteristics of these children through their parents' requests. Additionally, specific qualitative data were collected from the children themselves, via their family drawings. Two drawings are analyzed in details as a case study. A main result is that gifted children's parents are primarily worried about finding age-appropriate activities to address their gifted children's emotional needs and their desire for acquiring a “huge” number of knowledge in one or more domains. The design and the implementation of interventions to promote the creative/gifted/talented children’s and adolescents’ learning, school adaptation, relationships with peers and their potential development within family, school and community are discussed as necessary demands for the Greek state educational system.
  • Help gifted children to learn from conflicts
    Workshop
    Practice
    English
    Presenter(s): Noks Nauta
    People are often afraid to get into conflicts. We collected many cases and studied multiple experiences of gifted persons of different ages who experienced (serious) conflicts. We discovered specific patterns concerning giftedness. We see these patterns start at young ages already. Many admitted as adults that they have not learned from these conflicts in their lives but have experienced a lot of damage and also mental health problems.
    As we see giftedness basically as a set of positive characteristics, not as a disease or a handicap, we wonder whether the gifted can learn to get more insight and cope better with conflicts. We developed theoretical and practical insights that we want to share with people working with gifted of all ages.
    We show you in a practical (and humoristic) way how to ‘make’ a conflict. We then offer theoretical backgrounds about conflicts, we explain the patterns we see in conflicts of the gifted and we tell some case studies. We then want to discuss these examples and invite attendees to bring in their own examples. We hope this can be done in small groups in break-out rooms. Together we want to explore the ways to deal with conflict situations constructively.
    We believe that studying the conflicts of the gifted can prevent escalation and serious damage. We recommend looking at a gifted person more as part of a system (e.g. home, school, peer group). The gifted are not victims but taken together with the system, an action is possible. Action for us means: maintaining a connection, always looking for the dialogue.
    This workshop aims to give insight into the specific process of conflicts of the gifted from a young age, to explain these situations, and to give suggestions for other scenarios. When gifted children learn from for instance parents and teachers how to cope with conflicts then they can learn from these situations in finding back their autonomy. This will be a great benefit for them for the rest of their lives.
  • Twice exceptional with ADHD: Characteristics and challenges
    Paper
    Scientific
    English
    Presenter(s): Andree Therrien
    Many gifted children are recognized as having neurobiological problems that interfere with academic, home, and social/emotional functioning. These twice-exceptional (2e) children with ADHD struggle to actualise their full potential because of an inefficient neurobiological system. They usually show difficulties in one or more cognitive areas, rather than affecting all intellectual abilities.

    They will show a heterogeneous cognitive profile. They are often overlooked because: 1) their strengths outweigh their ADHD difficulties, 2) their weakness outweighs their giftedness or 3) their strengths and weakness cancel each other and they just don’t get identified as gifted or as having ADHD. Without appropriate identifications, they don’t get adapted services. As a result, they sometimes become ‘’trice-exceptional’ where anxiety, depression, underachievement, frustration etc. occurs. Thus, it is important to know how to identify gifted and talented students with ADHD because these children have real challenges that require real accommodations.

    Andrée Therrien, psychologist from Quebec, Canada. Canadian delegate of the World Council, member of the Asian-Pacific Federation on Giftedness, of the European Council for High Ability and of the Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance.

    Speaker at the 22nd and 23rd Biennial Conference (WCGTC), 3rd and 4th International Conference (MIB), 13th and 15th National Conference (CADDRA), 15th Conference (APFG), 1st Thematic conference (ECHA), 16th Conference (ICIE), and the 6th Biennial conference (IRATDE).