Intellectual giftedness: an exploratory study on cognitive and psychosocial domains

Abstract

The identification of intellectually gifted adolescents and exploring their needs and vulnerabilities lacks systematic and empirical grounding in our culture Hence, understanding their cognitive strength and weaknesses, making them aware of the skills will benefit them in terms of academic, career and behavioural aspects. Even though a highly intelligent individual has a remarkable capacity for seeing and internalising the vast uncertainties, possibilities, and problems, this gift can also have psychological vulnerabilities. The present study aimed to identify intellectually gifted adolescents, to obtain cognitive and psychosocial profile of intellectually gifted adolescents (IGA) and to compare it with intellectually average adolescents (IAA) and finally to explore the link between intellectual giftedness and emotional and behavioural problems (EBP). The present study follows the descriptive correlational research. The sample of 106 IGA and 106 IAA was drawn from both State and CBSE schools with multi-stage purposive sampling. The study is carried out in two phases: The Phase 1 (exploration of tools and variables) includes scoping review, pilot study and expert suggestions. The selected cognitive domains are verbal comprehension (VC), perceptual reasoning (PR), working memory (WM) and processing speed (PS) and psychosocial domains are parenting style (PS) and emotional and behavioural problems (EBP). The Phase 2 includes screening and selection of IGA and IAA, understanding the sociodemographic and academic-non- academic characteristics, understanding the differences in cognitive and psychosocial domains compared to IAA, between low gifted and highly gifted adolescents and with respect to gender, exploring the relationship between intellectual giftedness and EBP, examine the predictive role of cognitive domains and parenting style on EBP among IGA and finally clustering the IGA . The tools used in the main study were Personal data sheet, Teacher nomination criteria, Standard Progressive Matrices, Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC -IV, India), Parenting authority questionnaire and Strength and difficulty questionnaire. Statistical analysis include descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Mann-Whitney U test, Spearman’s rank correlation rho, Multiple Regression and Cluster analysis. The findings of the study reveal that, about 3.60% intellectually gifted adolescents were identified from the school setting using WISC-IV. Though all the cognitive domains (VC, PR, WM and PS) might act as cognitive markers of intellectual giftedness, VC and PS relatively act as a higher cognitive strength among IGA.A subset of IGA has EBP at a ‘clinically significant level’. The perceptual reasoning has a significant positive association with conduct problems, peer problems and total EBP. The authoritarian parenting is positively correlated with emotional symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems and total difficulty in the study. Perceptual reasoning and authoritarian parenting positively predicted total EBP and authoritative parenting negatively predicted total EBP. The findings highlight the need for greater awareness and appropriate support from teachers, parents, and clinicians to promote the positive mental health of gifted children.