Psychoeducational intervention for gifted children is as complicated as any other intervention for other SEN. Intervention in these cases is not a simple task and requires time, dedication and collaboration by the teachers, families, therapists, educational psychologists... in short, that the whole of the child's environment goes in the same direction and collaborate with each other so that the child's education is as good as possible.
The three main strategies of educational intervention for gifted children are Acceleration, Grouping and Enrichment.
ACCELERATION
This first strategy is the more known, and consists of advancing the gifted child one or more school years in order to place him in a curricular context of adequate difficulty in his abilities. This strategy aims to provide the student with the level of difficulty that corresponds to his intellectual abilities. It is quick and easy to apply and inexpensive measure with which no changes or curricular adaptations need to be made by the teachers.
It tends to be very motivating for the student, since the greater the difficulty the more effort must be made to increase his or her level of competence. But it is true that this measure often has negative consequences for the child, since even if they have advanced course abilities, emotionally and physically they tend to be like those of their age, this can cause isolation or social exclusion.
GROUPING
This second strategy is based on forming groups of gifted children, either full time or part time, according to their capacity and abilities. These children are designed with an enriched educational curriculum that is different from that of children their age.
This strategy avoids the decontextualisation of the child's development and promotes motivation and academic performance. But it has a clear disadvantage and that is the lack of inclusion and the rejection that these children can receive for being excluded and regrouped.
Therefore, in this case, it would perhaps be more appropriate than separating them into full-time groups to do so at specific times, when the child can take advantage of this differentiated and advanced education.
ENRICHMENT
This third strategy is an individualized education plan. It consists of the design of programmes adjusted to the needs of each student, allowing work with classmates, without the need to separate them into other groups as in the previous strategy.
According to the article from which I am writing this post, it depends on who is teaching this strategy, it will be done in different ways (the article explains the point of view of Genovard and Castelló together with Davis and Rimm).
Other aspects or techniques that the authors of the article comment could be used in educational intervention are:
Organisation of the classroom (so that the child feels as comfortable as possible, can have the necessary help...)
Individualized teaching
Psychological support
Mentored (so the child can always have someone to turn to for help and support)
These aspects can be applied separately or in combination with each other, always with the aim of making the psycho-educational intervention the most appropriate for the child, in this case with high capacities.
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