Precocity Identification Scale and Indicators of Giftedness, Early Childhood Education Version (EIPIAHS-EI)

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the study of precocity and indicators of giftedness in Early Childhood Education, understanding that students who manifest such phenomena need to be recognized and informed, because they are also the audience of Special Education and require specialized monitoring according to their needs. Aware that precociousness is expressed in children in their first years of life, and, in this stage, most of them are already enrolled in Early Childhood Education, as well as considering the existence of mistaken thoughts about individuals with giftedness or precociousness, in addition to the lack of research and instruments in this area, which are able to assist the teacher in identifying precocious children, we defined as an objective of this research to analyze the validity of an instrument to identify precociousness and indicators of giftedness for the Early Childhood Education stage. Thus, we evaluated the psychometric qualities of the instrument, so that, at first, preschool teachers situated in three cities of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, filled out a form based on their students. Then, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (AFE) was performed, as well as its internal consistency, in order to evaluate its psychometric qualities. After the analysis, we obtained the Precocity Identification Scale and Indicators of Giftedness, Early Childhood Education version (Escala de Identificação de Precocidade e Indicadores de Altas Habilidades/Superdotação, versão Educação Infantil – EIPIAHS-EI), with 14 items divided into three dimensions: “Learning and processing of information”, “Motivation and genuine interest”, and “Aspects with a tendency to negative interpretation”.