Chapter 8 Flashcards
(24 cards)
Psychometric Theories
Psychometricians are psychologists who specialize in measuring psychological characteristics such as intelligence and personality.
- When psychometricians want to research a particular question, they usually begin by administering a large number of tests to many individuals. Then they look for patterns in performance across the different tests.
- if changes in performance on one psychological test are accompanied by changes in performance on a second test - that is, if the scores move together - then the tests appear to measure the same attribute or factor.
Some believe intelligence is very broad and general. They believe that some people are smart regardless of the situation, task, or problem, whereas others are not so smart.
- More than 100 years ago, Charles Spearman reported findings supporting the idea that a general factor for intelligence, or g, is responsible for performance on all mental tests.
Other researchers, however, have found that intelligence consists of distinct abilities.
- For example, Thurstone and Thurstone analyzed performance on a wide range of tasks and identified seven distinct patterns, each reflecting a unique ability: perceptual speed, word comprehension, word fluency, space, number, memory, and induction.
- Thurstone and Thurstone also acknowledged a general factor that operated in all tasks, but they emphasized that the specific factors were more useful in assessing and understanding intellectual ability.
These conflicting findings have led many psychometric theorists to propose hierarchical theories of intelligence that include both general and specific components.
John Carroll proposed the hierarchical theory with three levels
- At the top of the hierarchy is g, general intelligence.
- In the middle level are eight broad categories of intellectual skill. For example, fluid intelligence refers to the ability to perceive relations among stimuli. Each of the abilities in the second level is further divided into the skills listed in the bottom and most specific level. Crystallized intelligence, for example, comprises a person’s culturally influenced accumulated knowledge and skills, including understanding printed language, comprehending language, and knowing vocabulary.
- Carroll’s hierarchical theory is, in essence, a compromise between the two views of intelligence-general versus distinct abilities. But some critics still find it unsatisfactory because it ignores the research and theory on cognitive development. They believe we need to look beyond the psychometric approach to understand intelligence
Psychometric Theories
Psychometricians are psychologists who specialize in measuring psychological characteristics such as intelligence and personality.
- When psychometricians want to research a particular question, they usually begin by administering a large number of tests to many individuals. Then they look for patterns in performance across the different tests.
- if changes in performance on one psychological test are accompanied by changes in performance on a second test - that is, if the scores move together - then the tests appear to measure the same attribute or factor.
Some believe intelligence is very broad and general. They believe that some people are smart regardless of the situation, task, or problem, whereas others are not so smart.
- More than 100 years ago, Charles Spearman reported findings supporting the idea that a general factor for intelligence, or g, is responsible for performance on all mental tests.
Other researchers, however, have found that intelligence consists of distinct abilities.
- For example, Thurstone and Thurstone analyzed performance on a wide range of tasks and identified seven distinct patterns, each reflecting a unique ability: perceptual speed, word comprehension, word fluency, space, number, memory, and induction.
- Thurstone and Thurstone also acknowledged a general factor that operated in all tasks, but they emphasized that the specific factors were more useful in assessing and understanding intellectual ability.
These conflicting findings have led many psychometric theorists to propose hierarchical theories of intelligence that include both general and specific components.
John Carroll proposed the hierarchical theory with three levels
- At the top of the hierarchy is g, general intelligence.
- In the middle level are eight broad categories of intellectual skill. For example, fluid intelligence refers to the ability to perceive relations among stimuli. Each of the abilities in the second level is further divided into the skills listed in the bottom and most specific level. Crystallized intelligence, for example, comprises a person’s culturally influenced accumulated knowledge and skills, including understanding printed language, comprehending language, and knowing vocabulary.
- Carroll’s hierarchical theory is, in essence, a compromise between the two views of intelligence-general versus distinct abilities. But some critics still find it unsatisfactory because it ignores the research and theory on cognitive development. They believe we need to look beyond the psychometric approach to understand intelligence
Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Rather than using test scores as the basis for his theory, Gardner drew on research in child development, studies of brain-damaged persons, and studies of exceptionally talented people.
- Using these resources, Gardner identified seven distinct intelligences when he first proposed the theory in 1983.
- In subsequent work, Gardner has identified two additional intelligences
The first three intelligences in this list, linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, and spatial intelligence, are included in psychometric theories of intelligence.
- The last six intelligences are not: Musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential intelligences are unique to Gardner’s theory.
Types of intelligences:
1. Linguistic - Knowing the meanings of words, having the ability to use words to understand new ideas, and using language to convey ideas to others
- Logical-mathematical - Understanding relations that exist among objects, actions, and ideas, as well as the logical or mathematical operations that can be performed on them
- Spatial - Perceiving objects accurately and imagining in the “mind’s eye” the appearance of an object before and after it has been transformed
- Musical - Comprehending and producing sounds varying in pitch, rhythm, and emotional tone
- Bodily-kinesthetic - Using one’s body in highly differentiated ways, as dancers, craftspeople, and athletes do
- Interpersonal - Identifying different feelings, moods, motivations, and intentions in others
- Intrapersonal - Understanding one’s emotions and knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses
- Naturalistic - Recognizing and distinguishing among members of a group (species) and describing relations between such groups
- Existential - Considering “ultimate” issues, such as the purpose of life and the nature of death
How did Gardner arrive at these nine distinct intelligences?
- First, each has a unique developmental history. Linguistic intelligence, for example, develops much earlier than the other eight.
- Second, each intelligence is regulated by distinct regions of the brain. Spatial intelligence, for example, is regulated by particular regions in the brain’s right hemisphere.
- Third, each has special cases of talented individuals. Musical intelligence is often shown by savants, individuals with mental retardation who are extremely talented in one domain.
Prompted by Gardner’s theory, researchers have begun to look at other nontraditional aspects of intelligence. Probably the best known is emotional intelligence, which is the ability to use one’s own and others’ emotions effectively for solving problems and living happily.
- Emotional intelligence made headlines in 1995 due to a best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence, in which the author, Daniel
Goleman, argued that “emotions [are] at the center of aptitudes for living”
- One major model of emotional intelligence includes several distinct facets, including perceiving emotions accurately (e.g., recognizing a happy face), understanding emotions (e.g., distinguishing happiness from ecstasy), and regulating emotions (e.g., hiding one’s disappointment).
- People who are emotionally intelligent tend to have more satisfying interpersonal relationships, have greater self-esteem, and be more effective in the workplace
- Most of the research on emotional intelligence has been done with adults, in large part because Goleman has argued that emotional intelligence can be the key to a successful career.
IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION - Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligence has important implications for education.
- Gardner believes that schools should foster all intelligences, rather than just the traditional linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences.
- Teachers should capitalize on the strongest intelligences of individual children. That is, teachers need to know a child’s profile of intelligence - the child’s strengths and weaknesses - and gear instruction to the strengths
These guidelines do not mean that teachers should gear instruction solely to a child’s strongest intelligence, pigeonholing youngsters as numerical learners or spatial learners.
- Instead, whether the topic is the signing of the Declaration of Independence or Shakespeare’s Hamlet, instruction should try to engage as many different intelligences as possible
- The typical result is a much richer understanding of the topic by all students.
Some American schools have enthusiastically embraced Gardner’s ideas
- Are these schools better than those that have not? Educators in schools using the theory think so; they claim that their students have higher test scores and better discipline and that their parents are more involved
Sternberg’s Theory of Successful Intelligence
Robert Sternberg began by asking how adults solve problems on intelligence tests. Over the years, this work led to a comprehensive theory of intelligence
Robert Sternberg defines successful intelligence as using one’s abilities skillfully to achieve one’s personal goals. Goals can be short term or long term
- Achieving these goals by using one’s skills defines successful intelligence.
In achieving personal goals, people use three different kinds of abilities:
- Analytic ability involves analyzing problems and generating different solutions.
- Creative ability involves dealing adaptively with novel situations and problems.
- Finally, practical ability involves knowing what solution or plan will actually work.
Hypothesis: If successful intelligence consists of three distinct abilities - analytic, creative, and practical - then this leads to an important hypothesis: Scores from tests that measure different abilities should be unrelated. Creative ability scores should be unrelated to practical ability scores; and both should be unrelated to analytic ability scores.
Result: Intelligence includes analytic, creative, and practical abilities, but these may not be completely independent as Sternberg had proposed initially.
Sternberg emphasizes that successful intelligence is revealed in people’s pursuit of goals
How Culture Defines What Is Intelligent
In Brazil, elementary-school-age boys sell candy and fruit to bus passengers and
pedestrians.
- These children cannot identify the numbers on paper money, but they know how to purchase their goods from wholesale stores, make change for customers, and keep track of their sales
Adolescents who live on Pacific Ocean islands near New Guinea learn to sail boats hundreds of miles across open seas to get from one small island to the next.
- They have no formal training in mathematics, yet they can use a complex navigational system based on the positions of stars and estimates of the boat’s speed
If either the Brazilian vendors or the island navigators were given the tests that measure intelligence in U.S. students, they would fare poorly.
- Does this mean they are less intelligent than U.S. children? Of course not.
- The specific skills and goals that are important to American conceptions of successful intelligence and that are assessed on many intelligence tests are less valued in these other cultures and so are not cultivated in the young.
- Each culture defines what it means to be intelligent
American schools faced a crisis at the beginning of the 20th century.
American schools faced a crisis at the beginning of the 20th century. Between 1890 and 1915, school enrollment nearly doubled nationally as great numbers of immi- grants arrived and as reforms restricted child labor and emphasized education.
Increased enrollment meant that teachers now had larger numbers of students who did not learn as readily as the “select few” who had populated their classes previously.
Binet and the Development of Intelligence Testing
The problems facing educators at the beginning of the 20th century were not unique to the United States.
- In 1904, the minister of public instruction in France asked two noted psychologists, Alfred Binet and Theophile Simon, to formulate a way to identify children who were likely to succeed in school.
- Binet and Simon’s approach was to select simple tasks that French children of different ages ought to be able to do, such as naming colors, counting backwards, and remembering numbers in order.
Based on preliminary testing, Binet and Simon determined problems that normal 3-year-olds could solve, that normal 4-year-olds could solve, and so on.
Children’s mental age or MA referred to the difficulty of the problems that they could solve correctly.
- A child who solved problems that the average 7-year-old could pass would have an MA of 7.
- Binet and Simon used mental age to distinguish “bright” from “dull” children. A bright child would have the MA of an older child; for example, a 6-year-old with an MA of 9 was considered bright. A dull child would have the MA of a younger child, for example, a 6-year-old with an MA of 4.
Binet and Simon confirmed that bright children did better in school than dull children.
THE STANFORD-BINET.
Lewis Terman, of Stanford University, revised Binet and Simon’s test and published a version known as the Stanford-Binet in 1916.
- Terman described performance as an intelligence quotient, or IQ, which was simply the ratio of mental age to chronological age, multiplied by 100
At any age, children who are perfectly average will have an IQ of 100 because their mental age equals their chronological age.
- Roughly two thirds of children taking a test will have IQ scores between 85 and 115 and 95% will have scores between
70 and 130.
The IQ score can also be used to compare intelligence in children of different
ages. A 4-year-old with an MA of 5 has an IQ of 125 (5/4 X 100), the same as an 8-year-old with an MA of 10 (l0/8 X 100).
IQ scores are no longer computed in this manner. Instead, children’s IQ scores are determined by comparing their test performance to that of others their age.
- When children perform at the average for their age, their IQ is 100.
- Children who perform above the average have IQs greater than 100; children who perform below the average have IQs less than 100.
By the 1920s, the Stanford-Binet had been joined by many other intelligence tests. Educators enthusiastically embraced the tests as an efficient and objective way to assess a student’s chances of succeeding in school
- Nearly 100 years later, the Stanford-Binet remains a popular test
The modern Stanford-Binet consists of various cognitive and motor tasks, ranging from the extremely easy to the extremely
difficult.
- The test may be administered to individuals ranging in age from approximately 2 years to adulthood, but the test items depend on the child’s age.
- For example, preschool children may be asked to name pictures of familiar objects, string beads, answer questions about everyday life, or fold paper into shapes.
- Older individuals may be asked to define vocabulary words, solve an abstract problem, or decipher an unfamiliar code.
- Based on a person’s performance, a total IQ score is calculated, along with scores measuring five specific cognitive factors: fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory.
Another test used frequently with 6- to 16-year-olds is the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV, or WISC-IV for short.
- The WISC-IV includes subtests for verbal and performance skills
- Based on their performance, children receive an overall IQ score as well as scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
The Stanford-Binet and the WISC-IV are alike in that they are administered to one person at a time.
- Other tests can be administered to groups of individuals, with the advantage of providing information about many individuals quickly and inexpensively, typically without the need of trained psychologists.
INFANT TESTS
The Stanford-Binet and the WISC-IV cannot be used to test intelligence in infants.
- many psychologists use the Bayley Scales of Infant Development
Designed for 1- to 42-month-olds, the Bayley Scales consist of five scales: cognitive, language, motor, social-emotional, and adaptive behavior.
The motor scale assesses an infant’s control of its body, its coordination, and its ability to manipulate objects.
- For example, 6-month-olds should turn their head toward an object that the examiner drops on the floor, 12-month- olds should imitate the examiner’s actions, and 16-month-olds should build a tower from three blocks.
STABILITY OF IQ SCORES
If intelligence is a stable property of a child, then scores obtained at younger ages should predict IQ scores at older ages.
In fact, scores from infant intelligence tests are not related to IQ scores obtained later in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood
- Not until 18 or 24 months old ofage do infant IQ scores predict later IQ scores
- Why? Infant tests measure different abilities than tests administered to children and adolescents: Infant tests place more emphasis on sensorimotor skills and less on tasks involving cognitive processes such as language, thinking, and problem solving.
According to this reasoning, a measure of infant cognitive processing might yield more accurate predictions of later IQ.
- In fact, habituation, a measure of information processing does predict later IQ more effectively than do scores from the Bayley.
- The average correlation between habituation and IQ in childhood is approximately .5 and one study found that infants’ information-processing efficiency was correlated .34 with their intelligence as young adults.
- infants who habituate to visual stimuli more rapidly tend to have higher IQs as children and adults. Apparently, infants who rapidly make sense of their world are smarter during the elementary-school years.
If scores on the Bayley Scales do not predict later IQs, why are these tests used at all?
- The answer is that they are important diagnostic tools: Researchers and health care professionals use scores from the Bayley Scales to determine whether development is progressing normally.
- low scores on these tests are often a signal that a child may be at risk for problems later.
Although infant test scores don’t reliably predict IQ later in life, scores obtained in childhood do.
- For example, the correlation between IQ scores at 6 years of age and adult IQ scores is about 0.7. This is a relatively large correlation and shows that IQ scores are reasonably stable during childhood and adolescence.
- Nevertheless, during these years, many children’s IQ scores will fluctuate between 10 and 20 points
What Do IQ Scores Predict?
IQ scores are remarkably powerful predictors of developmental outcomes.
- In fact, one expert argued that IQ is the most important predictor of an individual’s ultimate position within American society
IQ scores predict school grades, scores on achievement tests, and number of years of education; the correlations are usually between 0.5 and 0.7
- These correlations are far from perfect
- some researchers find that self-discipline predicts grades in school even better than IQ scores do
- In general, however, tests do a reasonable job of predicting school success.
Not only do intelligence scores predict success in school, they predict occu- pational success
- Individuals with higher IQ scores are more likely to hold high-paying, high-prestige positions within medicine, law, and engineering
- Some of the link between IQ and occupational success occurs because these professions require more education and we’ve already seen that IQ scores predict educational success.
- But even within a profession - where all individuals have the same amount of education - IQ scores predict job performance and earnings, particularly for more complex jobs
IMPROVING PREDICTIONS WITH DYNAMIC TESTING.
Traditional tests of intelligence such as the Stanford-Binet and the WISC-IV measure knowledge and skills that a child has accumulated up to the time of testing.
- These tests do not directly measure a child’s potential for future learning; instead, the usual assumption is that children who have learned more in the past will probably learn more in the future.
- Critics argue that tests would be more valid if they directly assessed a child’s potential for future learning.
Dynamic testing measures a child’s learning potential by having the child learn something new in the presence of the examiner and with the examiner’s help.
- dynamic testing is interactive and measures new achievement rather than past achievement.
- It is based on Vygotsky’s ideas of the zone of proximal development and scaffolding
- Learning potential can be estimated by the amount of material the child learns during interaction with the examiner and from the amount of help the child needs to learn the new material
Dynamic testing is a recent innovation that is still being evaluated. Preliminary research does indicate, however, that static and dynamic testing both provide useful and independent information.
If the aim is to predict future levels of a child’s skill, it is valuable to know a child’s current level of skill (static testing) as well as the child’s potential to acquire greater skill (dynamic testing). By combining both forms of testing, we achieve a more comprehensive view of a child’s talents than by relying on either method alone
Hereditary and Environmental Factors
If genes influence intelligence, then siblings’ test scores should become more alike as siblings become more similar genetically
- since identical twins are identical genetically, they typically have virtually identical test scores, which would be a correlation of 1.
- Fraternal twins have about 50% of their genes in common, just like nontwin siblings of the same biological parents. Consequently, we could predict that their test scores should be (a) less similar than scores for identical twins, (b) similar to scores of other siblings who have the same biological parents, and (c) more similar than scores of children and their adopted siblings
Heredity also influences developmental profiles for IQ scores
- Developmental profiles for IQ are more alike for identical twins than for fraternal twins. If one identical twin gets higher IQ scores with age, the other twin almost certainly will, too.
- In contrast, if one fraternal twin gets higher scores with age, the other twin may not necessarily show the same pattern.
- Thus, identical twins are not only more alike in overall IQ, but in developmental change in IQ as well.
Studies of adopted children also suggest the impact of heredity on IQ: If heredity helps determine IQ, then children’s IQs should be more like those of their biological parents than of their adoptive parents.
- the correlation between children’s IQ and their biological parents’ IQ is greater than the correlation between children’s IQ and their adoptive parents’ IQ.
- Also as adopted children get older, their test scores increasingly resemble those of their biological parents. These results are evidence for the greater impact of heredity on IQ as a child grows.
Do these results mean that heredity is the sole determiner of intelligence? No. Three areas of research show the importance of environment on intelligence:
- The first is research on characteristics of families and homes.
- If intelligence were solely due to heredity, environment should have little or no impact on children’s intelligence.
- But we know that many characteristics of parents’ behavior and home environments are related to children’s intelligence.
- For example, children with high test scores tend to come from homes that are well organized and have plenty of appropriate play materials - The impact of the environment on intelligence is also implicated by research on historical change in IQ scores.
- During most of the 20th century, IQ test scores rose dramatically
- For example, scores on the WISC
increased by nearly lO points over a 25-year period
- The change might reflect smaller, better-educated families with more leisure time. Or it might be due to movies, television, and, more recently, the computer and the Internet providing children with an incredible wealth of virtual experience
- Yet another possibility is suggested by the fact that improvements in IQ scores are particularly striking at the lower end of the distribution: Fewer children are receiving very low IQ scores, which may show the benefits of improved health care, nutrition’ and education for children who had limited access to these resources in previous generations
- Although the exact cause of increased IQ scores remains a mystery, the increase shows the impact of changing environmental conditions on intelligence - The importance of a stimulating environment for intelligence is also demonstrated by intervention programs that prepare economically disadvantaged children for school.
- Without preschool, children from low-income families often enter kindergarten or first grade lacking key readiness skills for academic success, which means they rapidly fall behind their peers who have these skills.
- Consequently, providing preschool experiences for children from poor families has long been a part of federal policies to eliminate poverty.
For more than 40 years, Head Start has been helping to foster the development of preschool children from low-income families
- It started because it was argued that environmental influences on children’s development were much stronger than had been estimated previously AND when President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1964, Sargent Shriver, the OEO’s first director, found himself with a huge budget surplus.
- How effectively do these programs meet the needs of preschool youngsters? Hard to answer because of the nature of Head Start. Since the beginnings in the 1960s, Head Start has been tailored to cope with the needs of individual communities; no two Head Start programs are exactly alike. Because Head Start takes on different forms in different communities, this makes it difficult to make statements about the overall effectiveness of the program.
- However, high-quality Head Start programs are effective overall. When children attend good Head Start programs, they are healthier and do better in school
- Head Start graduates are less likely to repeat a grade level or to be placed in special education classes. And they are more likely to graduate from high school.
One of the success stories is the Carolina Abecedarian Project
- This project included children born to African American mothers who had less than a high-school education, an average IQ score of 85, and typically no income.
- Youngsters in the treatment group (daycare) have above-average IQ scores but those in the control group have below-average scores. For the remaining 15 years, scores for both groups decline slowly, but the children who participated in the special preschool programs always have higher scores, even as young adults.
Impact of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status
On many intelligence tests, ethnic groups differ in their average scores: Asian Americans tend to have the
highest scores, followed by European Americans, Hispanic Americans, and African Americans
To a certain extent, these differences
in test scores reflect group differences in socioeconomic status.
- Children from economically advantaged homes tend to have higher test scores than children from economically disadvantaged homes; and European American and Asian American families
are more likely to be economically advantaged, whereas Hispanic American and African American families are more likely to be economically disadvantaged.
- Nevertheless, when children of comparable socioeconomic status are compared, group differences in IQ test scores are reduced but not eliminated
Let’s look at four explanations for this difference:
1. A ROLE FOR GENETICS?
2. EXPERIENCE WITH TEST CONTENTS
3. STEREOTYPE THREAT
4. TEST-TAKING SKILLS
CONCLUSION: INTERPRETING TEST SCORES.
- If all tests reflect cultural influences, at least to some degree, how should we interpret test scores?
- Remember that tests assess successful adaptation to a particular cultural context.
- Most intelligence tests predict success in a school environment, which usually espouses middle-class values.
- Regardless of ethnic group-African American, Hispanic American, or European American-a child with a high test score has the intellectual skills needed for academic work based on middle-class values
- A child with a low test score apparently lacks those skills. Does a low score mean the student is destined to fail in school? No. It simply means that, based on their current skills, they are unlikely to do well
A ROLE FOR GENETICS? - Impact of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status
Heredity helps determine a child’s intelligence: Smart parents tend to beget smart children.
- Does this also mean that group differences in IQ scores reflect genetic differences? NO.
- Most researchers agree that there is no evidence that some ethnic groups have more “smart genes” than others.
- Instead, they believe that the environment is largely responsible for these differences
EXPERIENCE WITH TEST CONTENTS - Impact of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status
Some critics contend that differences in test scores reflect bias in the tests themselves. They argue that test items reflect the cultural heritage of the test creators, most of whom are economically advantaged European Americans, and so tests are biased against economically disadvantaged children from other groups
The problem of bias led to the development of culture-fair intelligence tests, which include test items based on experiences common to many cultures.
Although questions have been improved to reduce the impact of specific experience, ethnic group differences remain in performance on so called culture-fair intelligence tests
- Apparently, familiarity with test-related items per se is not the key factor responsible for group differences in performance.
STEREOTYPE THREAT - Impact of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status
When people know that they belong to a group that is said to lack skill in a domain, this makes them anxious when performing in that domain for fear of confirming the stereotype, and they often do poorly as a result.
This self-fulfilling prophecy, in which knowledge of stereotypes leads to anxiety and reduced performance consistent with the original stereotype, is called stereotype threat.
- Applied to intelligence, the argument is that African American children experience stereotype threat when they take intelligence tests, and this contributes to their lower scores
To improve this, when African American students experience self-affirmation - they remind themselves of values that are important to them and why - threat is reduced and their performance improves
TEST-TAKING SKILLS - Impact of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status
The impact of experience and cultural
values can extend beyond particular items to a child’s familiarity with
the entire testing situation.
Tests underestimate a child’s intelligence
if, for example, the child’s culture encourages children to solve problems in collaboration with others and discourages them from excelling as individuals.
What’s more, because they are wary of questions posed by unfamiliar adults, many economically disadvantaged children often answer test questions by saying, “I don’t know.”
- Obviously, this strategy guarantees an artificially low test score. When these
children are given extra time to feel at ease with the examiner, they respond less often with “I don’t know” and their test scores improve considerably
Gifted and Creative Children
Gifted traditionally has referred to individuals with scores of 130 or greater on intelligence tests
- Because giftedness was traditionally defined in terms of IQ scores, exceptional ability is often associated primarily with academic skill.
- But modern definitions of giftedness are broader and include exceptional talent in an assortment of areas, including art, music, creative writing, and dance
Whether the field is music or math, though, exceptional talent seems to have several prerequisites:
- The child loves the subject and has an almost overwhelming desire to master it.
- Instruction to develop the child’s special talent usually begins at an early age with inspiring and talented teachers.
- Parents are committed to promoting their child’s talent.
The message here is that exceptional talent must be nurtured.
- Without encouragement and support from parents and stimulating and challenging mentors, a youngster’s talents will wither.
- Talented children need a curriculum that is challenging and complex; they need teachers who know how to foster talent; and they need like-minded peers who stimulate their interests
- With this support, gifted children’s achievement can be remarkable.
In a 20-year-Iongitudinal study, gifted teens were, as adults, extraordinarily successful in school and in their careers
The stereotype is that gifted children are often thought to be emotionally troubled and unable to get along with their peers.
- In reality, gifted youngsters tend to be more mature than their peers and have fewer emotional problems
- and as adults, they report being highly satisfied with their careers, relationships with others, and life in general
CREATIVITY
Intelligence is associated with CONVERGENT thinking, using information that is provided to determine a standard, correct answer.
In contrast, creativity is associated with DIVERGENT thinking, where the aim is not a single correct answer (often there isn’t one) but novel and unusual lines of thought
Divergent thinking is often measured by asking children to produce many ideas in response to some specific stimulus
- Both the number of responses and the originality of the responses are used to measure creativity.
Creativity, like giftedness, must be cultivated.
How to foster children’s creativity:
- Encourage children to take risks. Not all novel ideas bear fruit; some won’t work and some are silly. But only by repeatedly thinking in novel and unusual ways are children likely to produce something truly original.
- Encourage children to think of alternatives to conventional wisdom. Have them think what would happen if accepted practices were changed.
- Praise children for working hard. As the saying goes, creativity is one part inspiration and nine parts perspiration. The raw creative insight must be polished to achieve the luster of a finished product.
- Help children get over the ‘‘I’m not creative” hurdle. Too often they believe that only others are creative. Assure children that anyone who follows these guidelines will become more creative.
Children with Mental Retardation
Down syndrome - An extra 21st chromosome
Mental retardation refers to substantially below-average intelligence and problems adapting to an environment that emerge before the age of 18.
Below-average intelligence is defined as a score of 70 or less on an intelligence test such as the Stanford-Binet.
Adaptive behavior is usually evaluated from interviews with a parent or other caregiver and refers to the daily living skills needed to live, work, and play in the community - skills for caring for oneself and social skills.
Only individuals who are under 18, have problems in these areas, and IQ scores of 70 or less are considered mentally retarded
TYPES OF MENTAL RETARDATION.
Mentally retarded individuals are just as varied as nonretarded people. How can we describe this variety?
- One approach is to distinguish the causes of mental retardation.
- Some cases of mental retardation - no more than 2S% - can be traced to a specific biological or physical problem and are known as ORGANIC mental retardation.
- Down syndrome is the most common organic form of mental retardation.
Familial mental retardation simply represents the lower end of the normal distribution of intelligence.
Organic mental retardation is usually substantial, and familial mental retardation is usually less pronounced.
The American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) identifies four levels of retardation.
Fortunately, the most severe forms of mental retardation are relatively uncommon. Profound, severe, and moderate retardation together make up only 10% of all cases.
- Individuals who are profoundly and severely retarded usually have so few skills that they must be supervised constantly.
- Consequently, they usually live in institutions for persons with mental retardation, where they can sometimes be taught self-help skills such as dressing, feeding, and toileting
Persons who are moderately retarded may develop the intellectual skills of a nonretarded 7- or 8-year-old.
- With this level of functioning, they can sometimes support themselves,
typically at a sheltered workshop, where they perform simple tasks under close supervision.
The remaining 90% of individuals with mental retardation are classified as mildly or educably mentally retarded.
- These individuals go to school and can master many academic skills, but at an older age than a nonretarded child.
- Individuals with mild mental retardation can lead independent lives.
- Many people who are mildly retarded work. Some marry.
- Comprehensive training programs that focus on vocational and social skills help individuals with mild mental retardation be productive citizens and satisfied human beings
Children with Learning Disabilities
For some children with normal intelligence, learning is a struggle. These youngsters have a learning disability: they (a) have difficulty mastering an academic subject
(b) have normal intelligence, and
(c) are not suffering from other conditions that could explain poor performance, such as sensory impairment or inadequate instruction
In the United States, about 5% of school-age children are classified as learning disabled, which translates into nearly 3 million youngsters.
- The number of distinct disabilities and the degree of overlap among them are still debated
- However, one common classification scheme distinguishes disability in language (including listening, speaking, and writing), in reading, and in arithmetic
Reading is the most common area of learning disability.
- Many children with a reading disability have problems in phonological awareness, which refers to understanding and using the sounds in written and oral language.
- for example, pin sounds like pen, which sounds like pan.
- One idea is that phonological representations - information in long-term memory about the sounds of words - may be less detailed or less precise in children who have reading disability.
- For words that end with lateral and nasal consonants, children with reading disability need to hear more of a word to recognize it.
Children with reading disability typically benefit from explicit, extensive instruction on the connections between letters and their sounds
- However, scientists have not yet identified the most effective way to teach letter-sound correspondence.
- Some emphasize exercises in which children manipulate sounds and letters in syllables.
- Others emphasize articulatory awareness in which children learn the positions of their mouth and tongue as they make different vowel and consonant sounds.
- Both of these methods work
Another common form of learning disability is mathematical disability.
- Roughly 5 to 10% of young children struggle with arithmetic instruction from the very beginning.
- These youngsters progress slowly in their efforts to learn to count, to add, and to subtract; many are also diagnosed with reading disability.
- As they move into second and third grade (and beyond), these children often use inefficient methods for computing solutions, for example, still using their fingers as third graders to solve problems such as 9 + 7
- Some scientists propose that the heart of the problem is a poorly developed number sense, which includes such skills as understanding and comparing quantities and representing quantity on a number line
- Others suggest that mathematical disability reflects problems in the basic cognitive processes that are used in doing arithmetic, such as working memory and processing speed
The key to helping these children with learning disabilities is to pinpoint specific cognitive and academic deficits that hamper an individual child’s performance in school
