Identificação de Altas Habilidades em artigos publicados na Revista Educação Especial

The identification of people with high abilities (PHA), although it is a widely discussed theme in the academic environment, has been characterized as a complex and challenging process, especially in the school context, due to the lack of validated instruments and the educators training in what concerns the identification and care of PHA. The objectives of this study were: (i) to characterize the scientific production on High Abilities (HA) in the Special Education Journal of the Federal University of Santa Maria- Brazil, in relation to the temporal distribution, the type of scientific production, the authorship, the institutional linkage, and the themes; (ii) to analyze the empirical researches on PHA identification according to the method, procedures, instruments, and results. For this, a bibliographic research and qualitative and quantitative analysis of the published papers from 2000 to 2018 were performed. The results showed that there is a limited production (56) on HA at the journal with twelve (12) papers on identification of PHA. Of this total, only eight (n = 8) were empirical studies. In addition, it was found, mainly, that there were: (i) increasing in the number of published papers on HA varying in ascendancy and decline during the surveyed period; (ii) higher index of publications in some themes;(iii) methodological weaknesses in studies published due to gaps in the selection and characterization of participants, description of collection and data analysis procedures. It is concluded that it is necessary to conduct more empirical researches with / about this Special Education public and to develop studies with more methodological rigor.