Psychological Adjustment among Intellectually Gifted Secondary School Children

Abstract

This paper describes and discusses the significance of IQ in the psychological adjustment of adolescent children. In considering these variables, we have focused our research on intellectually gifted secondary school children, and their comparison with intellectually non-gifted counterparts. Out of 197 participants; 93 secondary school children were intellectually gifted with IQ scores 130 or above and 104 were non-gifted secondary school children with IQ scores between 90 and109. The age range of the participants was from 12 years to 16 years. Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales (RIAS; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2003) and Reynolds Adolescent Adjustment Screening Inventory (RAASI; Reynolds, 2001) were administered to assess the intellectual functioning and psychological adjustment of the participants respectively. The results showed significant mean difference on the scores of adjustment [t (195) = -9.46, p<.05] between intellectually gifted and non-gifted secondary school children. Findings of present study reflect that the gifted children tend to show lower level of adjustment problems in comparison to their non-gifted counterparts.