[High ability children and their differential cognitive functioning]

From the neuroconstructivist point of view, cognitive development is understood as a process of successive and continuous reorganization whose changing mechanisms and differential outcomes (typical and atypical) must be studied. High intellectual abilities are one of their differential manifestations but its concept and nature is confused conditioning the validity of its identification and the efficacy of the interventional programs.

To propose a clarifying definition of the nature of high intellectual abilities and their manifestations: giftedness, talent and genious, as well as their cognitive functioning and neurological correlates.

A qualitative task analysis is applied to 41 participants with intellectual profiles corresponding to: giftedness, talent and typical intelligence, previously obtained.

Results show differences on the cognitive results, not only referred to the quantity of informations produced but in the data organization more complex and hard interrelated among the gifted participants.

It must be a differential process of resolution adjusted to each one of the profiles studied.