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1. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS |
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1. The 4th Latin American Conference for the Intellectually Gifted and Talented would like to manifest its preoccupation with the lack of attention that the Latin American States are showing in regards to their legal, ethical and political obligation to detect and encourage the gifted and talented as well as to train teachers to work with them and to support initiatives directed at the detection and support of national talent. |
2. The pressure created in the 90's by groups of psychologists, researchers, teachers, at all the teaching levels, and parents in Latin America has begun, in a slow but positive way, to show the fruits of the labors. National legislation has recognized the advantage and obligation of the States to detect and support those students with intellectual gifts and talents that make them stand out. |
3. Even though the present response of the Latin American States has improved, it is still less than what is needed and it continues to miss taking advantage of the great majority of the national talent and covering the special educational attention that each of these students needs and demands. |
4. The policies of integration that have presently been adopted in Latin America do not offer a response to the special educational needs of the gifted and continue to show a lack of knowledge about the complexity and diversity of these exceptional people. Group models, enrichment and acceleration programs have proven to be valid alternatives for the development of special gifts and talents on the cognitive level as well as the social friendship level. |
5. If national development depends on taking adequate advantage of its natural resources, social and intellectual capital and its competitive opportunities, then it must be a priority to encourage intellectual potential and to make education the center of planning, politics and programs. |
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1. To be able to create an adequate system of detection, it is necessary that there be a greater conceptual differentiation between the terms gifted, talented, exceptional, prodigious and precocious. |
2. This detection should be done at a young age, preferably from four years of age and on. In the case of talented children and depending on the area in which the talent is shown, it is not always possible to detect this at such an early age. |
3. It is necessary and advantageous to continue looking for valid, reliable and practical as well as research-supported instruments for this detection. |
4. Today, a diverse dimension of talent and gifts must be recognized. The monolithic visions of intelligence and gifts dominant during the greater part of the 20th century should be improved upon. |
5. The Intelligence Quotient should be considered as one necessary, but not sufficient condition for the identification of gifts. In this way, it is necessary to use additional criteria and instruments other than the I.Q. to determine exceptionality. Some of these that stand out are the passion for knowledge, autonomy and creativity. |
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1. Training programs which prepare teachers and psychologists to deal better with the nature and complex, unsynchronized dimensions of the intellectually gifted exist only marginally. Furthermore, training to help these professionals by offering them the didactic and pedagogical program tools required to supply the special education that these exceptional and talented children and young people demand are also lacking. |
2. Especially worrisome is the sparse attention given to the themes of the intellectually gifted, exceptionality and talent in undergraduate university programs as well as the constant formation and training of university docents and pedagogical psychologists. |
3. The general public and the media continue to show a low level of understanding with regards to the topic of exceptionality and talent. |
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1. Despite some very important and timely progress, there is a general lack of research into the nature, characteristics and the processes involved with the intellectually gifted, exceptional and talented. |
2. In general, there is a need for research to clarify the lack of uniformities that exist with respect to the exceptional. Psychological research on the nature and characteristics of the exceptional is lacking as well as pedagogical research about the possible impacts that can be achieved through innovative pedagogical interventions. |
3. The high level of psychological research carried out in Spain by the "Huerta del Rey" Center stands out and at a psychological and pedagogical level, Colombia has made a mark through the leadership of IAM. |
4. In the proceedings of the 4th Latin American Conference, the Latin American Magazine of the Intellectually Gifted and Talented was presented and approved. This is an electronic publication which will be prepared editorially by the Alberto Merani Institute of the Ministry of Publications. The Honorary Editorial Ministry came together in this event where all of the international delegates attending the 4th Latin American Conference of the Intellectually Gifted and Talented from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Cuba, Peru and Colombia were invited to take their seats. (They were called on one by one). |
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1. The division between individualism and collectivism should be resolved through a proposal that complies with the purpose of favoring the development of autonomous beings being formed and transformed through their relationships with others. |
2. Moral education with the exceptional takes two central aspects: social justice and understood equality, not in the sense of distribution but rather in the recognition of diversity. The exceptional person should be understood in their singularity and this is a reason that the exceptional people should be spoken about rather than speaking about exceptionality in general. |
3. To attend adequately to the exceptional people, an interdisciplinary team that consists of at least an assembly of specialized psychologists and docents is required. |
4. In general, it can be observed in the Latin American countries that there is a lack of depth to take on the education of the gifted pedagogically and didactically. This can be seen in the automatic transfer of the traditional focus of the classroom without any previous work being dedicated to the rethinking of objectives, teaching, evaluations and didactics so that these are in accordance with the special educational needs of the exceptional students. |
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A. Ask the States of Latin America to comply with what has been laid out by the diverse national legislations of the Latin American countries insofar as early detection, giving support through national awareness raising campaigns in the different countries and creating and supporting the programs presently being carried out in the diverse countries. |
B. The 4th Latin American Conference salutes the creation and socialization of the Screening Test instrument for early identification because of its reliability, ease and economy and recommends its generalized use at a pre-diagnostic level. |
C. The 4th Latin American Conference encourages the Latin American Federation for the Intellectually Gifted and Talented to develop itself into an advisory organization on the very theme of study of this event for the governments of the different Latin American countries. |
D. The 4th Latin American Conference welcomes the diverse proposals of its participants to construct Latin American networks of researchers and docents on the different themes as well as those of parents to be able to strengthen the special education programs in the region. |
E. The 4th Latin American Conference recommends the establishment of joint research programs which are supported and subsidized by national and international organisms. |
F. The 4th Latin American Conference recommends that the nine participant countries create student and professor exchange programs. To achieve this, the Organizing Committee of the 4th Latin American Conference will put itself in charge of sending a written request to all of the delegates to form a consensus in this area. |
G. The pedagogical attention towards the diversity of the gifted requires a reformation of the objectives, teachings, methods and the accepted evaluations in regular education and a spreading of the experiences brought forth in regards to this at a regional level. This can also be done by taking advantage of the recently created Latin American Magazine for the Intellectually Gifted and Talented. |
Bogotá, October 11, 2002 |
Dr. Julián de Zubiría |
Dr. Juan A. Alonso |
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