7.3: Intelligence in Middle Childhood
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Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Understand genetic and environmental influences on intelligence
- Describe different theories of intelligence
- Analyze various types of intelligence tests
- Describe intellectual disabilities and intellectual giftedness
Malik has been thinking about the range of strengths he sees in his fourth-grade students. While some clearly excel at reading or math, others struggle with schoolwork but are very artistic. A few are athletic or love music. He wants to find ways to help his students discover and develop their strengths because he understands that they will thrive when they feel competent; he knows that self-efficacy is important for optimal development.
At the broadest level, intelligence describes an individual’s ability to adapt to the world around them (Sternberg, 2014). It includes several skills, including creativity, problem-solving, abstract reasoning, and the ability to learn. You will learn about several theoretical approaches that consider how to define and measure intelligence as well as whether intelligence is a single ability or consists of multiple different abilities. But you’ll begin by considering both genetic and environmental contributions.
Genetic and Environmental Influences
Intelligence varies quite a bit across children and is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Studies of genetic influence on intelligence have often looked at adopted children and twins to examine similarities and differences in intelligence. Some researchers have explored whether specific areas of the genome, the individual’s complete set of genetic material, are associated with measures of intelligence (Bartels et al., 2022; Deary et al., 2022). Although this work has shown that there is a genetic influence on intelligence, it has not identified specific genes. In fact, intelligence is likely influenced by the combination of many genes (Sniekers et al., 2017).
Environmental factors also influence the development of intelligence in children. For example, prenatal and postnatal exposure to radiation or lead can negatively affect intelligence (McFarland et al., 2022). Access to healthy developmental resources is positively related to intelligence. For example, children who eat a daily breakfast score higher on intelligence tests than children who do not (Roberts et al., 2022). Experiences that stimulate the child’s brain, such as extracurricular activities, high-quality toys and books, and events such as travel can have a positive impact on intelligence (Dunkel et al., 2023) (Figure 7.11). Children from a lower SES tend to perform less well on intelligence tests than children from higher SES backgrounds (von Stumm & Plomin, 2015). These differences are likely due to the greater access to learning experiences and resources often available to families with a higher SES. Regardless of SES, parent characteristics such as their educational beliefs or having a growth mindset —the belief that abilities can improve through work and effort—have also been associated with higher child intelligence (Elansary et al., 2021). For example, when parents believe that the abilities of their children can change, children are more persistent and have better reading skills (Song et al., 2022). The number of contributing factors shows just how complicated it is to study and understand the way intelligence develops during childhood. You’ll consider various theories and factors in this section.
Link to Learning
Research supports the idea that environmental experiences can impact intelligence. Read this article from the Harvard Gazette about how parental beliefs about the cognitive abilities of children can impact intelligence to learn more.
Theories of Intelligence
Several theories of intelligence have been developed over the years. Some suggest that intelligence is a general ability, whereas others argue that many specific skills can be considered components of it.
General Intelligence
Around the turn of the twentieth century, French psychologist Alfred Binet, along with his colleague Theodore Simon, developed a test that the French government used to identify children who needed academic support. This intelligence test included a variety of tasks, such as defining words, naming objects, constructing and completing sentences, and comparing items. Although the questions were quite different from one another, children who did well on one typically got others correct as well.
English psychologist Charles Spearman used those results to suggest that this strong positive correlation was due to a general cognitive factor that underlies multiple cognitive skills, which he called the general intelligence factor (g) . For example, when a child is considered intelligent, many people generalize this judgment to all cognitive abilities, and expect a child to excel in all their academic classes. Although many psychologists generally agree that the “g-factor” does exist, there is also support for the presence of more specific skills, which Spearman referred to as specific intelligences.
One of Spearman’s biggest critics was Raymond Cattell, a student of his who argued that general intelligence is composed of fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence . The ability to use logic and solve problems in new ways is fluid intelligence; crystallized intelligence is the existing knowledge individuals have developed during their life through education and experience. Children using information they read in a book to complete homework or solve equations on a test are using crystallized intelligence, whereas figuring out a new way to get home from a friend’s house is demonstrating fluid intelligence (Figure 7.12).
Link to Learning
Although there are some good uses for intelligence tests, they are not without their criticisms. Watch this Ted talk about some of the criticisms of intelligence tests to learn more.
Multiple Intelligences
In response to Spearman’s concept of general intelligence, other psychologists proposed multiple multiple-factor theories of intelligence (Thurstone, 1946; Gardner & Hatch, 1989). Howard Gardner proposed multiple intelligences that compose to a person’s particular abilities (Gardner & Moran, 2006). Gardner’s theory proposes eight distinct types of intelligence that may better inform a student’s unique learning than a focus on a singular intelligence (Gardner & Moran, 2006) (Table 7.4).
| Intelligence | Description |
|---|---|
| Linguistic | Using language to communicate clearly |
| Logical-mathematical | Solving problems using logic and mathematical skills |
| Spatial | Thinking and reasoning about objects in three dimensions |
| Musical | Composing music or playing instruments |
| Kinesthetic (body) | Moving the body in sports or other physical activities |
| Interpersonal | Understanding others |
| Intrapersonal | Having insight into the self |
| Naturalistic | The ability to recognize animals, plants, and other living things |
Link to Learning
According to Gardner, there are several different types of intelligence. Take this short assessment about cognitive strengths to give you some insight about your own.
Essentially, Gardner believed individuals could excel in one or more of these areas but not necessarily all. For example, the star basketball player in school may have excellent kinesthetic intelligence, whereas the soloist in the school orchestra demonstrates outstanding musical intelligence. Gardner also argued that traditional tests of intelligence measure only linguistic, logical-mathematical, and spatial ability, and that the other five types of intelligence are less valued in school settings, although they can be valuable for career and personal development. Recent research in neuroscience supports the theory that unique neural patterns exist for each of the eight intelligences Gardner proposed (Shearer, 2018).
Although children clearly can demonstrate a specific strength in one or more areas, some critics have suggested that Gardner’s intelligences are better described as talent s, rather than separate types of intelligence (Visser et al., 2006). In addition, because there is substantial overlap between some areas such as mathematical and spatial intelligences, it may be misleading to consider them separate forms of intelligence (Visser et al., 2006). Another criticism regarding Gardner’s theory is that the association of multiple intelligences with differences in brain function is a myth that has not been substantiated by research (Waterhouse, 2023). However, some research has indicated that specific neurological processes are associated with each type of intelligence (Shearer & Karanian, 2017). Despite these criticisms, educators find Gardner’s theory to be a useful framework for viewing individual differences in student abilities.
Soon after Gardner proposed his theory, U.S. psychologist Robert Sternberg advocated for a triarchic theory of intelligence (Sternberg, 1984) that consisted of three parts (Figure 7.13):
- Analytical skills: the ability to conduct academic problem-solving. A child with strong analytical skills may be particularly adept at identifying the protagonist and theme in a book they are reading or be able to evaluate and compare different theoretical perspectives in a science class.
- Creative skills: the ability to come up with novel ideas or solve problems in novel ways. A child with creative abilities may be able to build a structure in the woods using only items found in nature or creating a unique piece of art.
- Practical skills: the ability to adapt to different contexts and apply learning to daily life experiences. Practical intelligence has also been referred to as “street smarts.” A child that has practical intelligence understands that if they see smoke coming from underneath a door, they should call 911, rather than open the door to investigate the source of the smoke. They also use their prior life experience to make good decisions in new experiences.
Analytical intelligence is assessed by traditional intelligence tests. However, these tests do not measure creative and practical intelligence. Research showing that analytical intelligence is not associated with creativity supports the idea that these are distinct forms of intelligence (Furnham & Bachtiar, 2008). Both Gardner and Sternberg expanded the definition of intelligence to include additional skills they believed were important predictors of career and personal success. However, Sternberg focused primarily on cognitive skills that traditional testing methods often fail to assess, whereas Gardner’s theory is designed to identify intellectual strengths that exist outside of typical school curricula.
The concept of multiple intelligence has made a notable impact on educators, who have used these ideas to support students’ learning needs. Many teachers recognize that their pupils demonstrate meaningful differences in cognitive abilities that may go unrecognized by traditional assessments, and that a multiple-intelligences approach can help personalize education for them (Chen et al., 2009; Shearer, 2018). Because traditional assessments of intelligence may underestimate cognitive abilities, a range of assessment strategies is beneficial for identifying the unique pattern of strengths across individual children.
Intelligence Testing
Human intelligence has been studied for more than 100 years. One of the first people to investigate it was Sir Francis Galton in the late 1800s. Galton attempted to use reaction time and physical characteristics to measure intelligence. Although he did not find that these physical characteristics captured human intelligence, he is considered one of the pioneers in human intelligence research. Alfred Binet’s intelligence test introduced the idea of standardized assessments, tests that use the same questions for all and are administered and scored the same way every time. Later in the twentieth century, U.S. psychologists Lewis Terman and David Wechsler used the Binet test as the basis for their updated and expanded intelligence tests. Psychologists have continued to revise and improve these tests, including researching how they are influenced by culture and environment.
Modern Intelligence Tests
Modern intelligence tests calculate an intelligence quotient (IQ) , a score intended to quantify human intelligence. The way IQ scores are calculated has changed some over time though the average score of intelligence has stayed set at 100. Scoring generally involves comparing an individual’s test score, sometimes called mental age, to the average scores of their chronological age group. The age at which a person is performing is their mental age ; this is obtained from an intelligence test. For example, a five-year-old child who has the same abilities as most other five-year-olds would have an average IQ, an IQ of 100, while a ten-year-old child who can do what an average twelve-year-old is able to do would have a higher IQ, around 120.
IQ scores are calculated by measuring the deviation IQ, or the degree to which an individual deviates from what is average for that particular age. This entails finding the norms or expected scores for a specific population by having a large number of individuals of different ages complete the intelligence test. Through compiling population data, researchers can better capture the bell curve, or normal distribution, of data to understand where most people score. For each age group, the average score on the test is set to 100, with a standard deviation of 15 (Figure 7.14). Standard deviations describe how data points are distributed, or spread out, in a population. Seeing a person’s score in comparison to a normal distribution can also help determine their unique learning needs and skills. For example, a score of 70 would be described as “two standard deviations below the mean,” and an individual with that score may benefit from extra support in some academic settings. Similarly, someone with a score of 130 or above, two standard deviations above the mean, would benefit from specific enrichments or supports in academic settings as well. Finally, scores that fall within one standard deviation of the mean (between 85 and 115) are considered average, with 68 percent of the population having IQ scores in this range.
The intelligence tests most often used today are the Wechsler Scales and the Stanford-Binet , which assess a variety of cognitive abilities including memory, reasoning, arithmetic, general knowledge, and vocabulary. The Wechsler Scales include three tests based on the individual’s age. Tasks might involve things like comprehension and logic questions, memory tasks, and tasks designed to measure visual and spatial skills. For example, a child might complete a block puzzle or design to assess their visual spatial skills.
A good intelligence test has both reliability , which means results are consistent over time, and validity , which means the test accurately measures what it says it is measuring. In other words, a good intelligence test should give the same score (or at least very close to it) if taken more than once, and it should measure intelligence rather than something else. However, the skills used to measure intelligence change with age. For example, questions considered difficult for a ten-year-old may not be challenging for a thirty-year-old, so norms are established for tests given to different age groups.
Intelligence tests are also regularly updated, because levels of intelligence may change over time in a population. In fact, the Flynn effect describes the significant rise in intelligence scores observed over the past few decades (Flynn, 2012). Although the size of the increase varies from country to country, it has been about three points every ten years (Pietschnig & Voracek, 2015). Environmental factors such as parental education and family size seem to account for much of the Flynn effect (Bratsberg & Rogeberg, 2018). As children are exposed to new information and ideas, their thinking likely changes (te Nijenhuis, 2013). However, some evidence suggests it has reversed in several countries (Dutton et al., 2016).
Uses for Intelligence Tests
Intelligence tests have been used to make decisions about individuals in a variety of ways. For example, the United States military has used intelligence tests that include non-verbal reasoning questions to assess differences in intelligence among adults, regardless of whether they were literate (Richelson, 2018). Intelligence tests have also been used to make decisions about whether inmates are eligible for the death penalty (for example, in Hall v Florida, 2024 ), and to predict academic performance in children (Blume et al., 2009). Children with higher IQs also tend to have higher grades in school (Lozano-Basco et al., 2022). Thus, IQ tests are sometimes used to make decisions about school and college admissions, as well as employment opportunities (Ganuthula & Sinha, 2019).
Educators have also used intelligence tests as one criterion used to diagnose learning and/or intellectual disabilities as well as to identify gifted children. For example, in addition to IQ tests, assessment of adaptive functioning, which refers to an individual’s ability to complete daily living tasks, is also used to diagnose an intellectual disability (Tassé et al., 2016). Tests may also be useful in identifying areas of cognitive strength for a child as well as cognitive skills that may require extra support in an educational setting.
Cultural and Environmental Factors in Intelligence Testing
As discussed earlier, intelligence is influenced by a variety of environmental factors, including culture and SES. Intelligence tests have been criticized for many years for bias against racial and ethnic minorities, because marginalized and underrepresented groups tend to score lower than White and middle-class individuals. Intelligence changes with experience, which is impossible to assess well using an intelligence test. Since individuals from different cultural groups have different values and face different demands from their environments, the behaviors needed to successfully adapt to their environments can be quite different. For example, Aboriginal people in Australia rely more on visual skills on memory tasks, and approach spatial relationships differently than non-Aboriginal Australians (Rock & Price, 2019). (This study (Rock & Price, 2019) uses the terms “Aboriginal Australians” and “non-Aboriginal Australians.”) Thus, what is needed to adapt to the environment and thus what is considered intelligent often differs across populations and cultures.
One solution has been to develop culture-free tests of intelligence intended to eliminate cultural bias completely. More recently, these tests have been referred to as culture-fair test s. To be truly culture-free or culture-fair, tests need to identify and assess universal skills that occur across cultures. Some versions of these culture-free tests also focus on assessments using nonverbal skills, such as determining the next pattern in a series of patterns (Raven, 2000). However, recent research suggests that even culture-free tests need to be adapted to the culture of the child to accurately assess cognitive performance (Lozano-Ruiz et al., 2021). Ultimately, counselors, teachers, and other professionals should focus more on the child being tested and less on the score. Since intelligence tests measure how a child has developed cognitively as a result of their life experiences, the tests may not fully capture the cognitive strengths of a child and should be considered only one piece of the puzzle.
Variations in Intelligence
The intellectual abilities of children vary considerably, and types of intellectual strengths may vary across children. Additionally, ranges include extremes in intellectual ability, such as intellectual disabilities and intellectual giftedness, that may impact academic achievement.
Intellectual Disability
Since IQ scores are normally distributed, few children will have extremely high or extremely low scores. In fact, about 2 percent of children will score below 70, which is often used as the part of the criteria for diagnosing intellectual disability. An intellectual disability typically is diagnosed when an individual has a very low IQ that creates limits in intellectual functioning and has challenges in adaptive behavior, or handling the tasks associated with daily life. Many children who have intellectual disabilities will need support throughout their lives, although some go on to live independently. Some common causes of intellectual disabilities include genetic conditions, pregnancy or birth complications, and exposure to diseases, toxins, or teratogens (Lee et al., 2023).
Individuals between the ages of three and twenty-one who are diagnosed with an intellectual disability , or other developmental or learning disability, qualify for special education services through their local school district. These services are individualized for each child’s unique needs (Heward, 2018). In the United States as well as in some other countries like Canada, it is legally required that children with disabilities are placed in a least-restrictive environment . In the United States, the least-restrictive environment is mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), which states that children with disabilities have the right to a free and appropriate education (U.S. Department of Education). In some cases, this may include a separate environment, or a classroom that is designed to be as similar as possible to other classrooms. In other cases, children with disabilities will be integrated into mainstream academic classrooms. This approach to education is called inclusion . Children with disabilities in a mainstream classroom may also have a teacher or teacher’s assistant who works directly with that child (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2007). Inclusive practices have been shown to be beneficial to children across multiple countries and resource levels, and is most impactful when supported by effective teacher training, accessible facilities, and inclusion of individual and small group instruction (Mendoza & Heymann, 2024).
Link to Learning
We can do a lot to help children with intellectual disabilities reach their full potential. Watch this video that provides a powerful example of how the expectations of parents and teachers can impact these children to learn more.
Giftedness
Approximately 2 percent of children will score above an IQ of 130, often considered one of the markers for giftedness or accelerated learning, although there is no universally accepted definition (National Association for Gifted Children, 2018). Intellectually gifted children may have significant strengths in cognitive flexibility and specific ability areas, such as music or geography, in addition to advanced cognitive performance (Castejón et al., 2016). Gifted children often go on to achieve a high level of professional success (Schleger, 2022).
Although gifted children learn easily, they still need support from schools to achieve their potential and stay curious, engaged learners. In elementary school, teaching gifted children may involve providing opportunities for children to cover the same curriculum as other children but in greater depth (Olszewski-Kubilius & Thomson, 2015). As they get older, gifted children are typically placed in accelerated classes that move through the curriculum more quickly than standard classes. They may remain in their current grade but take some classes with older students or they may skip an entire grade. Despite concerns that gifted children who move through school more quickly will struggle emotionally or socially, most research has not found any negative social or emotional outcomes (Jolly & Matthews, 2012). In fact, most gifted children are happiest when they are with older peers at the same cognitive level than when they are with children of the same age (Neihart, 2021).
Educators, caregivers, and psychologists also discuss and sometimes debate the terminology itself. They propose alternative names for students with high IQ or similar test outcomes, including "high-ability," "high aptitude," "accelerated learner," and so on. There is no consensus that the term itself causes distress or concern among either students termed gifted or other students in their schools and communities.
Link to Learning
Although many schools use intellectual ability to identify children who are gifted, other programs focus on identifying unique talents in individuals. Read about how programs identify these talents and challenge gifted girls.
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