Research Information System
Thesis Type: Doctorate
Institution Of The Thesis: Gazi University, Turkey
Approval Date: 2016
Thesis Language: Turkish
Student: Başak Karateke
Supervisor: ESRA ÖMEROĞLU
Abstract:In recent years, potentially gifted children are studied more often. The publications focusing on potentially gifted children are increasing in number day by day. Nonetheless, literature survey on this subject shows that these publications are mostly based on education. However, one should keep in mind that pace of mental development and pace of development of other areas for these children are not always the same and this inconsistency of the development pace may lead to social adaptation disabilities. To address this issue, this study aims to help potentially gifted children to overcome the possible problems they may have in life because of inadequate social skills by detecting children who are potentially gifted in pre-school and educating them by the means of social skill training. For this purpose, a study of two steps has been conducted. First step of this study is the verification of Coloured Progressive Matrices Test's reliability and validity. Instructions of the test have been translated into Turkish. Translated test material and instructions of practicing and scoring was examined by an expert for the content validity. Following the expert's opinion, 32 schools located in 8 central districts of Ankara were visited and through these visits 204 applications were administered. After the test results were thoroughly analyzed, it was confirmed that Colored Progressive Matrices Tests was a reliable and a valid form of measurement. Following the confirmation that the test was valid, the test was administered to a public kindergarten's students whose chronological age is 60-72 months. The results of the test determined that there were 17 children who scored in group's average score or higher than the average. These children were then given an observation by the educator. The observation in question consists of activities that are in accordance with the features that the Colored Progressive Matrices Test measured. After the activities of the observation period was administered and the results were evaluated, it ix was determined that four children scored higher than the average of the group. To evaluate the existing social skills of these two girls and two boys who scored higher than the average of the group in the observation, Pre-School Social Skills Evaluation Scale (OSBED) was administered to the children's parents and teachers. Then the training program of 36 sessions which was developed by the researcher was introduced to the parents and the teachers. After the training was over, Pre-School Social Skill Evaluation Test (OSBED) was given to the teachers and the parents for them to evaluate their children's skills. Following a month of this practice, Pre-School Social Skills Evaluation Test (OSBED) was readministered to the children to test whether or not the social skills gained during this period were permanent. Afterwards, face-to-face interviews were conducted with the mothers and teachers based on Social Skills Evaluation Test's questions. When the results of pre-tests and post-tests were compared, parents confirmed that there was no difference in social skills of children after the training sessions whereas it was determined that the rate of children's social skills in the group was converged. According to the data gathered from teachers, after the training session, out of four social skills categories children's Social Skills of Academic Interactions was improved. After the data gathered from the permanency practice was evaluated, data gathered from parent's observations determined that a month after the training children possessed the same social skills whereas the data gathered from teacher's observations determined that children's social skills kept improving. The conclusion of this study is to advise educators to guide parents with the data of observations and evaluations in the classroom to detect the gifted children in the pre-school era. Furthermore, educators should add the activities that can improve social skills to syllabus and alter these activities accordingly with every age group. Following this study, it is advised to parents to seek expert opinion on the grounds that children's improvement pace is faster than expected for their age, not to disregard children's social skill progress when the children in question is detected to be potentially gifted and take extra care of their need of learning and developing talent. In conclusion, it is advised to researchers who are interested in this particular subject to study large samples to detect potentially gifted children in pre-school era, screen and support the other progress areas other than cognitive progress and furthermore to introduce social skill training studies to those who need support in this area as well as to those who are detected to have social skills disabilities.