The creative abilities of children with social and emotional problems

The specific creative abilities of children with social and emotional problems were at issue. The children's responses on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were compared to those from the standardization sample. Thirty-eight emotionally disturbed children constituted the initial sample, and 40 emotionally disturbed children made up a cross-validation sample. The children in both samples were close to the average standardization score in their ability to arrive at a number of different ideas, experienced some difficulty in coming up with original ideas, and were substantially below the average in the other areas of creativity. Presenting particular difficulty for the disturbed children was the area of elaboration, that is, the addition of details to ideas. The discussion focused on comparisons with learning-disabled children.