Five Overexcitabilities
There are five forms of overexcitability. These five forms are psychomotor, sensual, emotional, imaginational and intellectual. Psychomotor: OE is a heightened excitability of the neuromuscular system.
Gifted children often experience overexcitabilities, also called intensities. These areas of heightened stimulation are categorized in five areas: psychomotor, sensual, imaginational, intellectual, and emotional.
Emotional overexcitability is easy enough to take notice of. The child who is so nervous they make themselves sick. The child who doesn't want you to leave because they're so attached to you. The daughter who screams when her brothers laugh at her.
Psychomotor Overexcitabilities And ADHD
The difference between ADHD and psychomotor overexcitabilities is that a child with ADHD needs to move and fidget constantly, while a gifted child with overexcitabilities does it more with purpose.
Sensory overload can happen to anyone, but it is more common in autistic people and people with ADHD, PTSD, and certain other conditions. It causes feelings of discomfort and being overwhelmed. Moving away from sources of sensory input, such as loud sounds or strong smells, can reduce these feelings.
Symptoms of Sensory Overload in ADHD
Headaches, dizziness, or light-headedness. Feeling ill, faint, or nauseous. Increased anxiety and stress. Irritability and agitation.
Children, with psychomotor OE, have an enormous amount of energy. They have a strong need to engage in physical activities, liking to move, dance, run, climb, play fight as well as fast games and sports. They often express strong enthusiasm when engaged and might talk rapidly and excessively.
Emotionally overexcitable people have a remarkable capacity for deep relationships; they show strong emotional attachments to people, places, and things (Dabrowski & Piechowski, 1977). They have compassion, empathy, and sensitivity in relation-ships.
Mildly gifted: 115 to 130. Moderately gifted: 130 to 145. Highly gifted: 145 to 160. Profoundly gifted: 160 or higher.
Although there are no standard IQ levels of intellectual giftedness, some experts suggest the following IQ ranges: Mildly gifted: 115 to 129. Moderately gifted: 130 to 144. ighly gifted: 145 to 159.
Although IQ represents only a partial expression of giftedness, according to a purely psychometric view, giftedness is defined by an IQ of 130 or higher, placing gifted individuals at least two standard deviations above the population mean.
Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski identified five areas in which children exhibit intense behaviors, also known as "overexcitabilities" or "supersensitivities." They are psychomotor, sensual, emotional, intellectual, and imaginational.
Intellectual overexcitabilities are characterized by intense and accelerated mental activity. This is not necessarily high academic pursuits, but more an intense quest for understanding and learning.
Signs of this overexcitability are a high level of curiosity, deep concentration, the capacity for sustained intellectual effort, and a wide variety of interests. Children with this overexcitability tend to be avid readers in their quest for knowledge. They are also excellent problem solvers and love to strategize.
Gifted children, characterized often by heightened emotional sensitivity, are often highly empathetic, as well. In fact, their empathy may seem overly present in their experience of the world, as any parent whose child has burst into tears about a dead bug on the sidewalk can tell you.
Intellectual complexity goes hand in hand with emotional depth. Just as gifted children's thinking is more complex and has more depth than other children's, so too are their emotions more complex and more intense.
The higher the intellect, the more out-of-sync with emotional and physical development they may be. A gifted child understands concepts that he is not able to deal with emotionally. Death, the future, or world hunger may become overwhelming concerns. Situations like this can create frustration and distress.
Sensual overexcitability means you experience sounds, sights, touch, smell and/or tastes in a heightened way. You might intensely enjoy or even crave certain sensory experiences, while other forms of sensory stimulation make you feel stressed, angry or upset.
Psychomotor skills involve aspects that must be learned and practiced in order to perform. These aspects include speed, dexterity, and flexibility.
Similarly, people with ADHD can also experience 'meltdowns' more commonly than others, which is where emotions build up so extremely that someone acts out, often crying, angering, laughing, yelling and moving all at once, driven by many different emotions at once – this essentially resembles a child tantrum and can ...
Adults with SPD may exhibit the following signs: Feeling that a shade is pulled over the outside world. Experiencing muted sights, sounds, and touch. Frequent feelings of sensory overload.