The future problem solving program international: an intervention to promote creative skills in portuguese adolescents

The Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI) is an internationally applied educational program that involves young people. Its theoretical foundation is both the Creative Problem Solving Model and the Futurist Thinking. It aims to promote creative and critical thinking through a futurist approach to problems. This study intended to analyze the effects of the program on creative skills evaluated by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Figural Version). The participants’ perceptions of the efficacy of the program were also assessed. This intervention was carried out with 131 adolescents over a period of 7 months in an extra-curricular context. The evaluation of the program takes into account periods both before and after interventions, using similar experimental and control groups. The results showed significant statistical differences for the all skills studied and very positive perceptions of the efficacy of FPSPI. Two significant gender differences in creative performance were also found. The results are described and discussed in order to promote awareness for future research concerning this program(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Creativity in savant artists with autism

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often display impairments in creativity, yet savant artists with ASD can produce highly novel and original artistic outputs. To date, there have been no systematic attempts to explore creativity in savant artists with ASD. Methods: Nine savant artists with ASD were compared with nine talented artists, nine non-artistically talented individuals with ASD, and nine individuals with moderate learning difficulties (MLD), on tasks in and out of their domain of expertise. This was to ascertain whether the performance of the savant artists was related to their artistic ability, their diagnosis of ASD or their level of intellectual functioning. Results: On a drawing task (the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking; Torrance, 1974), the responses of the art students were more creative (scoring higher on measures of fluency, originality, elaboration and flexibility) than the savant, ASD and MLD groups. However, the savants did produce more elaborative responses than the ASD and MLD groups. On a non-drawing construction task (figural synthesis; Finke & Slayton, 1988), the savants produced more original outputs than the ASD and MLD groups (scoring similarly to the art students). No group differences were found regarding fluency on this task. Conclusions: On standardised creativity tasks, savant artists with ASD display high levels of elaboration (on drawing tasks) and originality (on non-drawing construction tasks), relative to groups with ASD or MLD. High elaboration and originality may result from a local processing bias, coupled with artistic talent, in this group