Creativity in Children: The Role of Child Abuse, Socio-Economic Status and Age

Present study endeavored to investigate the role of child abuse, socio-economic status and age in creative development of children. A 2x3x3 factorial design with two groups (abused and non-abused), socio-economic status (High, Middle, Low) and three age group (Childs i.e., 6 – 10 Yrs., Preadolescents i.e., 11 – 14 Yrs. & Adolescents i.e., 15 – 18 Yrs.). A total of 90 children from Gorakhpur belonging to deferent strata of society participated as respondents. Child abuse checklist (Pandey, 2002) was used to determine various forms of abused and non-abused cases, and to determine the deferent forms of creativity in children, verbal and non-verbal tests of creative  thinking (Mehdi, 1973)  was also used.

Results revealed that the level of creativity varied across different group of children. Moreover, abused children were found inferior on verbal fluency, verbal flexibility, elaboration N (picture), elaboration V (title), originality N (picture), and originality V (title) than non-abused children. Low SES children achieved poor on verbal related fluency, flexibility, originality as well as non-verbal related elaboration N (picture), elaboration V (title), originality N (picture), and originality V (title) than middle and high SES. Furthermore, Childs scored very poor on various dimensions of verbal and non-verbal creativity than pre-adolescents and adolescents respectively. Results have been discussed in the light of individual and social factors