Motivation guide for children with high abilities
The children with high abilities they are divided between gifted, talented and intellectually precocious. Although they have always been called gifted students, the more than 12,000 Spanish children with high intellectual abilities, were considered a few years ago those with an Intellectual Coefficient (CI) higher than the average, specifically greater than 130. Keeping these children motivated is essential for their learning.
Currently, the definition of children with high abilities it has spread, collecting talent in the same way, when students excel in some concrete capacity; and intellectual precocity, referred to the acquisition of early development milestones. Detecting them at an early age is essential and for this there are tests to detect high capacity.
Characteristics of children with high abilities
These children with high abilities tend to lose concentration, have a great sense of curiosity and a very developed imagination. Regarding their behavior, they are defiant before authority and norms.
This is what children with high abilities are, some children who need a special educational system, in which stimulation and motivation in the classroom play a fundamental role, as pointed out by psychologist Celia Rodríguez.
Keeping children within their age group is fundamental for their adaptation. Although their intellectual abilities exceed those of their classmates, they need "a special attention that provides the necessary resources to ensure the maximum development of their abilities", explains the psychologist and pedagogue Celia Rodríguez.
However, this should not, in any case, lead these children away from their age group, since "there can often be a gap between their intellectual development and other areas of development that follow a normal development, which it would be increased by distancing them from their reference group ", affirms this psychologist.
Practical guide to motivate children with high abilities
Children with high intellectual or gifted abilities can easily lose interest in the classroom. To increase your motivation, it is advisable to follow these tips:
1. Stimulate your linguistic and mathematical skills, especially developed in these children.
2. Promote knowledge enrichment workshops, inside and outside the classroom, which allow these children to increase the content of their classes through research and exploration.
3. Make them mentors of the rest of their classmates, to be taught and mentored.
4. Encourage their active participation in the classroom, through the elaboration of questions and critical knowledge.
5. Do not limit your learning, allowing them to expand the information offered by teachers.
6. Use the sense of humor to favor positive moods that contribute to motivation.
7. Use games and tools of logic, enigmas, hieroglyphics ...
8. Design activities or classroom dynamics with different levels of difficulty.
9. Organize visits to museums, science and technology workshops.
10. Flexibility when establishing educational processes that ensure the development of the intellectual abilities of the students, since each one of them has specific needs to cover.
Marisol Nuevo Espín
Advice:Celia Rodríguez Ruiz. Clinical health psychologist. Specialist in pedagogy and child and youth psychology. Director of Educa and Learn. Author of the collection Stimulate Reading and Writing Processes.
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