Divergent Thinking in Children with Down Syndrome

Abstract

The present study was focused on comparing the factors of divergent thinking between children with Down syndrome and children with typical development. The sample was composed by 63 children, divided in 30 typically developed and 33 disabled children. We used the Test of Divergent Thinking (Williams, 1994) to analyze creative performances and Logical Operations Tasks (Vianello & Marin, 1991) to measure the cognitive level of children. We matched the two groups in relation to cognitive levels. Results showed that, at the pre-operational and intermediate cognitive level, children with Down syndrome scored equally on fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration than children with typical development. At the concrete operational cognitive level, significant differences between the two groups emerged only for creative verbal production: children with Down syndrome scored lower than typically developed ones. These findings could be used for educational programs focused on creativity in the school-context and useful both for disabled and typically developed children.