Cognitive abilities of gifted schoolchildren: Development and specific features of Olympiads participants

Introduction. Nowadays children’s cognitive abilities undergo significant changes, determined by developing a ‘clip thinking’, distraction of attention, inability to concentrate on one thing. These changes affect success in solving educational tasks; in the case of gifted children it influences their successful self-fulfillment. Peculiarities of cognitive abilities of gifted children affect successfulness of solving problematic tasks and they are clearly seen in the period of participation in Olympiads and contests in Humanities. The purpose of this article is to analyze specific features of gifted children’s cognitive abilities in the context of their participation in Humanities Olympiads. Materials and Methods. Theoretical-methodological basis of the research is the existential and creative activity-focused approaches and their ideas. The major diagnostic methods are content analysis of the works completed by participants of regional Olympiads level and interviews with students from Kostroma secondary schools who took part in the regional and final levels of National Russian Olympiad among schoolchildren in History, Social Studies, and World Art. The sample included 62 gifted schoolchildren. Results. The authors have identified peculiarities in developing gifted schoolchildren’s cognitive abilities. The research suggests that the majority of those surveyed relied on the convergent way of thinking while completing Olympiad tasks. The divergent way of thinking, which enables students to abstract from something specific, see hidden connections and give alternative illogical ideas, is demonstrated by not more than 25% of the Olympiad participants. Gifted children transmit obtained specific knowledge successfully; however, they have difficulties with revealing cause-and-effect connections. The majority of the respondents, when asked some sophisticated tasks that demand generalization of obtained knowledge and its usage for arguments, are not able to conclude and substitute analysis with description. Conclusions. The research results enable us to identify peculiarities of developing cognitive abilities of gifted schoolchildren (Olympiad participants): meta-subject knowledge, ability to analyze textual and graphic information, skills in reading maps, skills of analyzing and finding succession of actions with specific conclusions (the convergent way of thinking) without building up new connections and without finding new variants of solving tasks.