Very Young Creative

Paul Torrance, who extensively studied the creativity of very young children (under the age of 7), described creative behavior as, “the process of becoming sensitive to or aware of problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on; bringing together in new relationships available information; defining the difficulty of identifying the missing elements; searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses about the problems or deficiencies; testing and resting them; perfecting them; and finally communicating the results” (1969, p. viii). In addition, personality traits, which may begin as inborn temperaments, can contribute greatly to the creativity of the young child, including openness to experience, independence, and nonconformity. Some creative behavior is available to everyone because it can be elicited through a variety of ...