Identify And Develop Talent
All people are good at something. The problem is that, sometimes, it is difficult to know what it excels at. In this sense, it is important that children, from an early age, identify their strengths in order to be able to adequately empower them. That is, you have to help them detect and develop talent, in this way, they will grow up happy and feeling fulfilled.
But do you know what we mean when we talk about talent ? There are many authors who, over the years, have dealt with this issue and have formulated multiple definitions of this concept. In this article we are going to focus on Howard Gardner’s vision.
What is talent?
According to psychologist Howard Gardner , talent can be defined as:
In addition, according to Gardner, human talents are developed based on eight areas or intellectual capacities:
- Linguistics : ease of writing, learning languages, using language to achieve certain goals, expressing thoughts and opinions, etc.
- Spatial : ability to recognize and manipulate patterns and large spaces and smaller spaces.
- Musical : easy to interpret, compose and learn musical patterns.
- Body or kinesthetics : ability to use the body as a means of solving problems or creating products.
- Logic and mathematics : ability to analyze and solve problems using logic and to conduct research in a scientific way.
- Naturalist : easy to distinguish, classify and use elements (objects, animals, plants and minerals) of the environment, urban or rural.
- Intrapersonal : ease of understanding yourself, knowing your own desires, fears and strengths, using this information effectively for the regulation of life.
- Interpersonal : ability to understand others, understanding the intentions, motivations and desires of other people.
Thus, some children show ease in solving mathematical problems. Meanwhile, others excel in verbal communication, others in sports, others in social skills, etc.
They are all talented, as they are prone to doing something well. But it is necessary to train and enhance these special skills through education at home and at school so that they can be optimally developed.
Identify and develop talent
It should be noted that talent arises from the combination of four factors:
- Genetic dispositions.
- The experiences lived in the family, school and social context.
- The interests and motivations.
- The learning style.
Parents and teachers need to take this into account and closely observe children, looking for specific intellectual skills or abilities they tend to display or practice more frequently and with better results.
Once the talents in the little ones are identified, they must be promoted through work, stimulation and reinforcement, but without forgetting the fun.
In this way, talent grows while children enhance their skills, aptitudes, interests and motivations. Likewise, it is necessary that, little by little, they become aware of their abilities, recognizing and understanding their own strengths in order to develop their own talent autonomously and independently, striving and being constant.