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Description:
Kazimierz Dabrowski identified five types of overexcitabilities that he believed connected strongly to giftedness: intellectual, psychomotor, imaginative, sensual, and emotional.
1. Intellectual Overexcitability: These students ask questions the stump you, they are curious, make connections that surprise you, and arrive at amazing conclusions. They want to go deep into topics, concepts, and can accelerate through curriculum quickly.
2. Imaginational Overexcitability: These students are creative and tend to daydream, doodle, or otherwise occupy their minds.
3. Sensual Overexcitability: These students receive more insensitivities of their five senses. They could have strong reactions to light, sound, tastes, or textures.
4. Psychomotor Overexcitability: Theses students tend to have too much energy with can often be confused with ADHD. They tend to fidget, excessively talk, or have rapid physical behaviors.
5. Emotional Overexcitability: This can manifest as a strong compassion, empathy, or caring for others. To a teacher, it might appear they are over-dramatic or attention-seeking. These students feel emotions more intensely.
Why is this important?
Knowing how these overexcitabilities might play out in the classroom, can help with classroom disruptions and distractions. Also to recognize how these overexcitabilities might overshadow a student's giftedness.
Tips/Suggestions:
Give students time to mini-research their inquiries: If you notice a high ability student monopolizing a conversation in class or at home with many questions, give them time online to get those questions answered.
Provide anchor activities: Give students creative outlets and open-ended options for when they finish their work earlier.
Provide movement during lessons and work time: Offer options for moving around, constructing, or other activities to get energy out.
Provide cool-down time: After the student has had a chance to cool down, generate ideas on how to deal with strong emotions before they become too overwhelming.
Identify triggers: Help the student or child to recognize what bothers them and build a structure to avoid certain sounds, sights, or textures.
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