Which kind of clever is your child.
Parents have always known that IQ scores don’t tell the whole story. How can a written test show that Susan plays the piano like a dream, or that Paul can take two broken radios and make a new one that works? But because IQ scores are often too serious, some children suffer.
Take Leslie. At the age of ten she was excluded from a class for the academically gifted because her IQ was only 100 instead of the required 125. Leslie’s father, however, says that his daughter has something more than high IQ – intuition about the people. When Leslie completed her law qualifications, she did so well in the interviews that she won the competition for a very prestigious job.
As Leslie’s story indicates, children have many abilities, that tests can not measure. Professor Howard Gardner, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine developed the theory of Multiple Intelligences. In his book “Frames of Mind” he says that there are seven basic kinds of intelligence. IQ tests focus mainly on two intelligences: the linguistic and the logical-mathematical. But the other five – the bodily-kinaesthetic, musical, spatial, and interpersonal and intrapersonal should get some attention too. How to understand and develop the potential of a child?
Linguistic. A linguistically gifted child is an early talker. He can make his own language. He will memorize long strings of words and pick up some foreign phrases. Such a child learns to read at an early age.
How to encourage a linguistically gifted child? Read to him every night at bedtime. Give him books and take him to the library. Ask him to recite poems. Buy him a good dictionary.
Musical. The musically gifted child loves making music. He will listen to sounds, taxi horns, typewriter keys, even washing machines. He will touch piano keys, recognize familiar songs when played even without their lyrics.
How can you develop his musical intelligence? Sing to him, buy a piano, find a good teacher. Look for schools with extra-curricular music lessons.
Logical-Mathematical. A child who is strong at maths and logic likes category and pattern. Are these building blocks the same or different? He is also good at chess and draughts and is quick to learn equivalences (two days equals 48 hours). He may construct rule-governed imaginary worlds. (Lewis Carroll, who wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” was a mathematician).
What are the ways of encouraging him? He would like to have building blocks, to store small toys by category. Give him a Monopoly game. Play cards with him, even though he will usually win. Find a mathematical club in your area.
Spatial. These children are superb visualizers. Take Kitty. At four she was trying to draw milk cartons in perspective. Now she is 15, she gets top marks for art, and is thinking of becoming a photographer.
It’s easy to encourage this gift. Give a child paints and a special area for drawing. Supply various clays, plasticized and scissors. Go on long walk over unfamiliar area and encourage a child to draw maps of where you’ve been.
Bodily-Kinaesthetic. This intelligence consists of two main skills: how to manage our own movements gracefully and how to handle objects skilfully. Athletes are bodily-kinaesthetically gifted; so are many engineers. If your child finds it easy to swim, and ride a bicycle with no hands, he or she may be bodily-kinaesthetically gifted. This child can work with tools, taking apart and fixing clocks, radios, and even computers.
What to do for these children? Take them to science museums, buy them tools, take them to junior sport clubs, dance and gymnastics classes.
Personal – knowledge of self and others. It’s hard to recognize a child who is gifted in this way – usually we notice the lack of this gift. Self-intelligent children can be noticed at older age. They know how to plan and how to use their own abilities. The child who has intrapersonal intelligence notices changes in other people: “Why was Grandma sad today?” he’ll ask. If he is reading a mystery story or watching a detective programme on television, he may quickly identify the criminal.
How can you encourage the personal forms of intelligence? Praise him on his insight. Let him join the group with chances for leadership, take him to drama classes. After a theater performance, talk about the characters. Ask him to describe the characters of the family members.
“Children make their mark in life by doing what that can do, no by what they can’t,” Howard Gardner says. “School is important, but life is more important. Being happy is using your skills productively, no matter what they are.”
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES TEST
To find out in which way your child is gifted, answer these questions. True or false:
- Your child can memorize poetry.
- Your child notices when you are sad or happy.
- Your child often asks questions like “When did time begin?”
- Your child seldom gets lost.
- Your child is especially graceful.
- Your child sings in key.
- Your child often asks questions about how thunder and lightning work, what makes it rain and so on.
- If you change a word in an often-read story, your child corrects you.
- Your child learned to tie shoe-laces and ride a bicycle easily.
10. Your child enjoys acting out roles and making up plays.
11. On a car trips your child often remembers landmarks and points
them out, saying, “This is where we were when ….”
12. Your child likes to listen to different instruments and can easily
recognize them by sounds they make.
13. Your child draws maps well and depicts objects clearly.
14. Your child mimics physical movements and expressions.
15. Your child likes to store toys into categories by size and colour.
16. Your child can connect actions with feelings – saying, for example, “I did it because I was angry!”
17. Your child likes to tell stories, and tells them well.
18. Your child comments on different sounds.
19. When someone is introduces for the first time, your child may
say, “She reminds me of so-and-so.”
20. Your child is an accurate judge of what he or she can and can’t
do.
Answers: questions 1, 8, 17 – linguistic intelligence;
questions 6, 12, 18 – musical intelligence;
questions 3, 7, 15 – logical-mathematical intelligence;
questions 4, 11, 13 – spatial intelligence;
questions 5, 9, 14 – bodily- kinaesthetic intelligence;
questions 10, 16, 20 – knowing oneself;
questions 2, 10, 19 – knowing other people.
If you answered “true” to all three questions for one type of intelligence, your child is strong in that area.