The 5 Types Of Intellectual Giftedness (and Their Characteristics)
Human intelligence is the ability that allows a person to learn, understand, reason and make decisions in relation to what surrounds them. When these abilities are innately superior to those of other people, we can speak of giftedness
Gifted people are those who enjoy superior intelligence, notable creativity and extreme curiosity. All of this turns these people into beings with special needs and demands, with specialized professional guidance being of great importance in the case of children.
The term intellectually gifted refers to those people with superior intellectual abilities compared to the average abilities determined by the various IQ assessment tests. Specifically, the World Health Organization (WHO) establishes that A gifted person is one who has an IQ greater than 130 points
Likewise, a distinction must be made between giftedness and a person with notable specific abilities, since the former is considered innate and cannot be achieved through practice and the latter is achieved through teaching and/or repetition.
However, giftedness does not have to be at a general level, it can occur in a specific field of knowledge. A person can be born with special aptitudes or gifts for music but not for mathematics.
Three rings model
The gifted specialist Joseph Renzulli (1936) developed a model called the Three Rings Model, which examines the particularities that a gifted child or person should have to be distinguished as such.
According to this model, a gifted person must possess a perfect and balanced combination of these three qualities:
Within the framework of Spanish legislation, specifically in the Regulation of Students with Special Educational Needs, the existence of different types of giftedness is distinguished.
This distinction is made based on whether the person is creatively gifted or gifted with a high IQ.
1. Creative giftedness
People who are attributed creative giftedness They are characterized by a hyperdevelopment of their sense of humor, and a playful disposition that is extrapolated to all areas of your life.
Professionals usually encounter many difficulties when it comes to recognizing this type of giftedness, since traditional intelligence tests are not useful for it. However, there is a little-known test to evaluate people with these types of skills and it is The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTTC).
The traits examined in this test are:
2. Giftedness with high IQ
People with an IQ score above 140 points They are considered people with high general intelligence. But within this category three groups can be distinguished:
2.1. Gifted from a privileged background with an IQ around 140
These people understand teaching as something playful. In children, they are able to keep their minds active and attentive for much longer than the rest of their peers. who have an intelligence closer to average. They are able to sustain their activity for longer and tend to have a sleep pattern with fewer hours than usual.
In terms of personality traits, they tend to be trusting and non-conformist, and show very critical attitudes compared to other children, sometimes overestimating themselves.
In addition, they have a great talent for solving problems, as well as a high capacity for reaction and endurance in tense or stressful situations. Although, occasionally, they fail in their sensitivity due to their high self-esteem and self-confidence.
Unlike the previous ones, Gifted people with limited economic resources have considerable emotional sensitivity to the point of blaming themselves for possessing abilities at a much higher level than their peers.
This emotional sensitivity makes them much kinder to their peers and develop a great sense of friendship. In addition, they usually feel the need to make a good impression and please as many people as possible.
For all this, they tend to be highly valued by classmates and teachers, and they tend to end up being group leaders but without presenting authoritative or dominant positions. Likewise, they are characterized by being more conformist and less spontaneous, having a much higher integration of norms and rules.
Gifted people raised in contexts of limited resources have a great fear of failure, so they usually do not tend to take too many risks. In children, they tend to be much more aware of the reality that surrounds them; this vision can be reflected in different areas:
23. Gifted with extreme precocity
The third subgroup of this category is made up of those people who, together with their giftedness have some type of serious personality disorder which in most cases presents as schizophrenia.
These people take refuge in intellectual occupations and hobbies that separate them from psychosis and help them simulate an ordinary way of life; it can be said that it is a defense mechanism in the form of regulatory therapy.
During childhood, these children have great obstacles to maintaining any type of relationship with their peers, which is why they generally end up being marginalized by their peers, reaching the point of suffering from some affective disorder.
Furthermore, they are able to relate everything they have learned to reality, sometimes presenting strange behaviors and sudden, unexpected reactions. This capacity for understanding leads them to not tolerate certain behaviors, and when they are aware of their high capacities, they respond in an aggressive and biting way.
Despite this, They have a significant speed of learning, as well as outstanding communication skills the elaborate and concise speech being very characteristic of these people.
