Elaboração de um protocolo de rastreio do alto desempenho cognitivo para uso de professores

Abstract

Psychometrics characterizes cognitive giftedness as intellectual capacity far above the average of the normal population. The present study aimed to verify whether a high cognitive demand school test could successfully track high cognitive performance. The sample consisted of 93 children from the five Brazilian regions, aged between 9 and 10 years and 6 months, remotely evaluated by the Human Figure Drawing, WISC-IV Verbal Subtests, a Behavioral Scale (EC), and the School Test (PE). Factor analysis identified three factors that explained 46% of the variance in the results presented in the PE. The three factors were identified as F1 (Numerical Knowledge), F2 (Numerical Reasoning), and F3 (Reasoning/Knowledge Verbal). Factors F1 and F3 showed moderate loads on the higher-order factor (g factor), while Factor 2 was the one with the highest factor loading. Significative moderate correlations were found between F3 and ICV (Verbal Comprehension Index) and between F2 and IMO (Working Memory Index), results corroborated in regression analyses. Those results would indicate that, depending on the type of reasoning required by a school test, in this study, numerical reasoning, its association will be greater with equivalents cognitive abilities in intelligence tests. On the other hand, no significant correlation was found between the factors of PE and DFH. Low correlations, but significant were found between Factor 1 (Sociability) of EC and DFH and Factor 2 of EC (Cognitive Interests) and the ICV. Even so, these results would indicate that the DFH and the CE do not constitute valid forms of identification of giftedness. In general, the PE, especially the content that demanded logical thinking, managed to discriminate the high performance detected in cognitive tests. However, further studies with larger samples and preferably in faceto-face collections are needed.