3.3.10 Assessment of the Gifted Adolescents' Functional State of the Organism Under the Psychological Stress

ASSESSMENT OF THE GIFTED ADOLESCENTS’ FUNCTIONAL STATE OF THE ORGANISM UNDER THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS

Objectives • Carry out EGG testing with young adolescents to assess the level of adaptability of the organism under external stressor. • Find out if an unresolved task can cause a stressful situation for gifted adolescents. Materials and methods The research has been conducted in schools of Yerevan for five years. The initial sample consisted of 500 high school students aged 16-18. Renzulli's Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness was used to reveal gifted adolescents. In the course of study 35 of 500 participants (7%) were defined as gifted. The quasi-experimental design has been used with 35 participants in the comparison and experiment group each (total sample size: 70 adolescents). The experiment group consisted of 14 females and 21 males. For comparative analyses, we used Cardiograph’s signal analysis software developed by laboratory of Integrative Biology in L. A. Orbeli Institute of Physiology NAS RA. As a potential stressor, the intellectual workload (running one unsolved math and one logic exercise) was selected. The exercises were presented with simple formulations and a 10-minute solution period. The ECG indicators have been recorded for 5 minutes each before and after the intellectual workload. Many indicators record the physiological manifestation of the stress. We are presenting the results through PARs (Parameter of activity of regulatory systems) - indicator of complex heart rate assessment, with a scale of 1-10. Results According to the results, we can say that gifted adolescents demonstrate expressed - 62% (5-6 scales), and moderate - 26% (2-4) functional tension levels. The levels of pronounced -10% (7-8) and Overstrain-3% (9) were recorded only after the intellectual workload, fixing the maximum degree of tension. The picture of the control group is as follows: moderate-59%, expressed-26%, norm-14%. Conclusions As the results show, the level of stress in gifted adolescents is higher than that of the control group and rises in case of inability to unsolved exercises. This means that the functional resources of these adolescents are reduced, they are under an emotional stress, with inadequate adaptability of the organism, the chronic nature of which can cause many psychological and physiological diseases. Further research is needed to understand the psychological background of such reactions - the level of aspiration, self-esteem, anxiety, perfectionism, and so on.

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