Understanding, identifying gifted blind and visually impaired children and development of their giftedness

In my thesis, I focus on a group of children with special needs - the gifted children, who are blind or visually impaired. I was interested in what characteristics they have, how to help them develop their talent and whether our educational system is adequate for them. The goal of my thesis is mainly to point out that talent can occur in different groups of children, including children with visual impairment. Furthermore, I would also like to point out that it is harder to identify gifted visually impaired children because of their deficit and lack of knowledge on the topic of giftedness in the educational staff. The research part of my thesis consists of a study of two case studies and a short questionnaire for mobile teachers. I came to the conclusion that in our educational system, children with visual impairment can be identified as gifted only if educated in elementary schools, where such detection exists. Such cases are very rare, due to small size of population in question. Lack of knowledge on the field of giftedness in blind and visually impaired children and the insufficient education of teachers on this topic is the main reason for the current situation. Problems arise when trying to determine intelligence in blind or visually impaired children, because at this time there are no proper tests which can be used to determine the overall intellectual functioning. In the future more attention should be devoted to identify talent among all groups of children more systematically. To achieve this goal, teachers need additional training to successfully identify these children