Relationship between High Ability and Socio-affective Variables: Emergence of Special Educational Needs

Abstract

Based on the premises that for high ability to be expressed as outstanding performance, it requires attention to educational and socio-affective needs, that students with high ability have specific characteristics that make them vulnerable and that they have particular needs as they have giftedness as a particular quality; this study seeks to identify differences in socio-affective and attitudinal characteristics between students identified with and without high ability and, from this, it proposes special educational needs to be addressed. A battery of six instruments was applied to 371 students from 4th grade to 12th grade from different types of establishments according to their financing type and from different cities from the Biobío and Ñuble Regions. Descriptive statistics were analyzed, means were compared and the correlation between tests was studied using the statistical program SPSS, version 22. Significant differences were found in attitudinal and socio-affective variables between both groups, being possible to propose a set of special educational needs that require comprehensive educational opportunities. This study highlights the relevance of comprehensive education and attention to socio-affective needs in order to transform intellectual potential into outstanding performance and it seeks to inspire the creation of educational opportunities particularly aimed at this group.