SPECIAL ABILITIES
Specific jobs require specific skills. Salesmen and teachers, for example, need verbal ability; engineers need mechanical comprehension and dextelity in using their hands. Accounting emphasizes numerical ability, and the scientist needs to understand complex things, be oriented toward theory, and often be able to work with apparatus. The professional football player needs not only psychomotor skills and physical stamina but also split-second cognitive abilities for reading defense shifts. Special abilities relate to coordination, to verbal and quantitative things, to spatial comprehension and other things. Some of these abilities are discussed below.
Psychomotor Abilities
Let us begin by describing the clumsy person, who technically may be described as having "motor difficulties" or in need of remedial "perceptual motor learning." He can be the child who always gets chosen last in games, who is slow learning to ride a bike, and who cannot seem to catch a ball. He may even be handicapped in writing with a pencil. Whether or not he outgrows his clumsiness (and many do not) he has taken a lot of psychological punishment from his peers and has built up various compensations as he tries to work around his handicaps. But the clumsy person is not alone, at least statistically. It is estimated that some 20 percent of all school-age youngsters have psychomotor handicaps. And it is important to remember that they are. not "just stupid." They vary over the entire IQ range. Although' we do not know why, more boys than girls suffer from psychomotor difficulties. The causes may range from birth injuries to a lack of oxygen supply to the brain during the prenatal state. The perceptual-motor handicapped person often has an excellent hereditary background in terms of his or her gene structure. One authority says: "The prognosis for these kids is pretty good, if we catch them young enough. We give them writing help, have them practice tightrope walking and teach them to turn somersaults on padded mats. We try to add a little to their self-image."
The application of psychomotor skill ranges wicely, from threading a needle to flying an airplane. The ability to use one's sensory-motor equipment efficiently is necessary in many job situations and in many walks of life-for example, it! dentistry, surgery, science, engineering, and in the various skilled trades.
Athletic Ability
Many of us associate athletic ability with the word "psychomotor," and with reason. Psychomotor behavior, honed to a fine edge, is exhibited to us year-round when we observe sports. There are exceptions, but in general there is a positive relationship between success at sports at the professional level and intelligence. The learning and proble.n-solving involved in football offers a common example. Studies show that two factors are important in athletic success. The first is general good health, combined with initial psychomotor ability in running, jumping, and throwing. Second, in spite of many instances of all-around athletes, learning in terms of professional proficiency is usually specific. The person capable of a professional career in either baseball or football must choose between them. Both may play goif, but as an amateur on the side.
Mechanical Abilily
Psychomotor competence, of course, relates closely to mechanical ability, which is actually a combination of skills. In addition to the ability to perceive. mechanical relationships, strength, precision, speed of movement, and the ability to' combine all of them are needed. Complex tests of mechanics with general intelligence, but this does not mean' that intelligence is unnecessary for mechanical work. It means rather that sheer mechanical ability is distributed among people without much regard to the things that intelligence tests measure. Many intelligent people have great mechanical skill, and some have none. For success in a mechanical field, both special ability and general intelligence are necessary, but these two components must be measured separately. Such talents as music and art fit a similar pattern.
Musical Ability
"You have it or you don't have it" is a slightly exaggerated statement we can make about our potential in the area of music. In music perhaps more than in any other human activity, the existence of special talent is clearly recognized. Most great musicians have exhibited their ability at a very early age. The measurement of musical ability involves such things as sensitivity to pitch, intensity, time, and appreciation for rhythm, timbre, consonance, and volume. Manipulative skill is obviously essential in both vocal and instrumental music. Of course, one may have little or no performance ability to enjoy music. As a matter of fact, listening to music is our biggest national hobby.
Artistic Talent
Talent for drawing, painting, sculpture, or architectual and other design is also rather specific. Many of us cannot draw a straight line or paint a picture, regardless of our desire to express ourselves artistically. We have graphic arts scales for measuring drawings and measures of art judgment or "appreciation" resting on the ability to make fine discriminations, as well as measures of feeling and insight. But missing are valid measures of the creative aspects of art. Work samples are our best indicators.
Success in most special ability pursuits requires varying degrees of creative, innovative, and problem-solving ability.
Creativity
To be creative in any given area requires more than just some specific talent in art or science. From studies of creative people two generalizations can be made. First, the creativity involved in solving some difficult problem results from a tremendous preoccupation with that probl~m. Second, the creative problem solver must have a great tolerance for ambiguity. And for most people creativity comes at a price. So often the 'innovator is out of step with his times and therefore often rejected.
The creative person is self-motivated. Statistically speaking, he or she is in the minority. Most creative productions are contributed by a small number of people. We know several things about such people. First, creativity is often noticed in childhood. Second, the creative child (or college student) may get "turned off" at school. Third. creative people are less conventional than others, regardless of field. Fourth, they usually show independence. Fifth, they do not always know where the results of their efforts will lead. Sixth, creative people tend to live within themselves; they are often hard to live with.
