Enfants à haut potentiel intellectuel : psychopathologie, socialisation et comportements adaptatifs

Abstract

Aim The overall objective of this work is to observe whether or not the differences in social and cognitive performance between two groups of gifted children distributed according to the presence or absence of psychological difficulties associated. In specialized literature, some authors point out that these children have social integration problems whereas others consider gifted children's social abilities as normal and even superior in comparison to typical children of the same age. We hypothesize that these contrasted points of view result from a biased recruitment of the studies’ participants, which mainly present psychopathologic symptoms. Method Thirty-five children participated in the study; WISC III was used to identify their IQ as ≥ 130. Further, we used WISC IV to update psychometric data. We made two groups: a “clinical” group (12 gifted children being followed in our Service of Medical Psychology) and a group control “non-consulting” (23 gifted children following an adapted scholarship). Results Those two groups have distinctive social and adaptative behaviors: “control” group children present normal abilities whereas “clinical” group children present lower abilities. Conclusions We confirm that social adaptation abilities in gifted children with psychopathologic affections are lower than in gifted children without these affections. These results claim that attention should be paid when recruiting study participants; we also think that study method should divide participants in subgroups, considering that giftedness presents a certain degree of heterogeneity. We try to out light the observed difficulties in “clinical” gifted children referencing to developmental psychopathology.