EN
The article presents the findings of research on preschool and early elementary teachers’ knowledge of gifted students’ psychosocial characteristics and on methods of identifying them in a peer group. First, the Author makes some terminological comments on the gifted student concept and cognate terms, and – based on the literature on the subject - provides a psychosocial description of gifted children and the methods of identifying them. A diagnostic poll was the method used in the research and the participants were surveyed with the survey questionnaire Test on Gifted Education, designed by the Author. The research findings showed that the preschool and early elementary teachers participating in the research rightly saw gifted students as creative and inquisitive individuals with a high IQ on the one hand, and on the other hand, relatively stereotypically, as good, well-behaved students. It should be pointed out that all children – both gifted and non-gifted ones – may have emotional and social problems that may effectively conceal a child’s giftedness; however, the participants – especially the early elementary teachers – seemed to perceive the occurrence of behavior issues among gifted children to a significantly smaller extent, which could reinforce the popular view of gifted children in their opinions. On the other hand, the usefulness of all the methods of identifying gifted students was assessed positively, which could be helpful and favorable for identifying gifted children to later support their development in a broad way.