My thesis deals with cognitive, social and emotional characteristics and needs of (potentially) gifted pre-school children. In the theoretical part, I first described some developmental characteristics of pre-school children and defined the concept of giftedness. Then I described the characteristics and needs of gifted children in each of three chosen areas of development in more detail. I also described how to recognise gifted children in kindergarten and what are some possible ways of working with them. I researched the state of provision for potentially gifted children in Slovenian kindergartens as well as the preschool teachers’ attitudes towards this topic, and which programs have been carried out. Finally, I concluded the theoretical part with an overview of options for social pedagogues’ employment in kindergartens and specific competences of social pedagogues that can aid them when working with gifted children.
For the empirical part, I carried out a case study of a potentially gifted child in kindergarten, during which I conducted an observation of the child and two interviews, one with his teacher and one with his parents. Based on these results, I determined the cognitive, social and emotional characteristics and needs of this particular child and assessed how these needs are taken care of in the kindergarten. I discovered that the boy shows an explicit need for contact with adults in all three areas of development, but at the same time needs some support in the social and emotional areas. I also learned that his parents are happy with the work that’s being done in his kindergarten group, while the teacher believes that the child definitely shows a need for additional work.
In the conclusion, I summarised my findings and used them to form a suggestion for how a social pedagogue could work with the child in question as well as with the general population of potentially gifted preschool children.
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