Creative Thinking Abilities of Cleft Palate Children

Abstract

A great amount of research activity is being devoted to studying creative thought from various dimensions. Generally, experimenters have limited their work to studying the creative process, person, product, or environmental factors related to, and perhaps influencing, creativity. The impetus for this line of investigation has come from Guilford's report on the Structure of Intellect (4) wherein he identified, theoretically, 120 possible factors of intellect. Immediately, psychologists began developing tests to assess ability in each of these areas. Additionally, attention has been directed toward relating constellations of these factors to more global concepts. The contemporary research in creative thought has evolved from and is primarily based on certain dimensions of the Structure of Intellect model, notably the factors related to divergent thinking. These factors are evaluated by tests which allow an individual to respond to a stimulus in as many ways as he can. Basically, the instruments evaluate verbal and nonverbal fluency, flexibility, originality, and the elaboration of ideas (3). Interestingly enough, scores from the creativity tests evalu— ating these factors of intellect do not correlate significantly with scores from standardized intelligence tests such as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test or the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (14). This indicates that the tests are measuring dimensions of intelligence other than those evaluated by standard intelligence tests. Consideration has also been given to describing characteristics of the creative person, as well as those aspects of the environment which facili— tate or inhibit creativity. In summary, the research indicates that the creative person tends to be unusually perceptive, able to evaluate himself from an internal frame of reference, skilled in relieving anxieties in ways other than through repression or suppression, exhibit humor frequently, and show a tendency towards self-autonomy, which seems to be associ-Dr. Smith,