• Psychologists argued whether test score is an
accurate measurement for intelligence
• Intelligence is a set of ability defined in various
ways by different psychologists but generally
agreed to include the ability to reason abstractly,
the ability to profit from experience, and the
ability to adapt to varying environmental contexts
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Intelligence Test
First found in 1905 by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon
Purpose → Identify children who might have difficulty in school
E.g. Could a child describe the difference between a wood and a
glass?
• Stanford-Binet is the best known U.S intelligence test. It was
written by Lewis Terman and his associates at Stanford University
and based on the first test by Binet and Simon
• Intelligence quotient (IQ) is originally defined in terms of a child’s
mental age and chronological age, IQ is now computed by
comparing a child’s performance with that of other children of
the same chronological age
• Mental age is the term used by Binet and Simon and Terman in
the early calculation of IQ scores to refer to the age level of IQ
test items a child could successfully answer
• E.g. A child who is 5 but can solve a question that is for age 6
• IQ score = mental age / chronological age x 100 (old method)
• Now, IQ score calculation is based on a direct comparison of a
child performance with the average performance of a larger
group of children with the same age
• Secular trend in IQ score is the historical shift upward in scores
on cognitive ability
• Studies showed that children today can solve more difficult
problems compared to the same age children 60 years ago
• Three test most frequently used today by psychologist are the
Standford-Binet V, WPPSI-III, and WISC-IV
• WPPSI-III is the third revision of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary
Scale of Intelligence (age 2.5 to 7)
• WISC-IV is the most recent revision of the Wechsler Intelligence
Scales for the Children, a well known IQ test developed in the U.S
that includes both Verbal and performance subtest (age 6-16)
• WISC-IV is most often used to diagnose children’s learning problems
• Verbal comprehension index is tests on the WISC-IV that tap verbal
skills such as knowledge of vocabulary and general information
• The nonverbal tests consist in the WISC-IV includes perceptual
reasoning index, processing speed index and working memory index
• WISC-IV provides a comprehensive full IQ score
• Infant Tests
 Bayley Scales of Infant Development is the best known and
most widely used test of infant intelligence
 Measures primary sensory and motor skills (e.g. touching and
reaching objects)
 E.g. putting cubes into a container (9 month old)
• Achievement Tests
 Test designed to assess a child’s learning of specific material
taught in school, such as math, vocabulary, and grammar
 IQ test evaluate a person’s intelligence and achievement test
evaluates a person ability to learn
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query
=modern+IQ+Tests&nfpr=0
• Psychologists use the term reliability to refer to
the stability of a test score
• Research showed that infant’s test scores are often
inconsistent
• At about age 3, children began to get more
consistent IQ test score
• The general rule of thumb is that the older the
child, the more stable the IQ score becomes
• Validity measures whether a test is measuring what it is designed
to measure
• Does IQ test predict school performance?
 Studies showed that IQ test has a strong reflection on a child’s
school performance but no direct connections
 Children with higher IQ scores trend to get better grade
• Such finding has led a number of theorist to argue that
intelligence adds to the child’s resilience
• Poor children with higher IQ scores are more likely to develop
and move away from poverty
• Emotional intelligence, a theoretical approach that represents a
new way of thinking about children’s understanding of their own
and other’s emotions. (chapter 12)
• Intelligence or IQ of a child is inborn
• But intelligence is not fixed at birth, the environment and people
around the baby can affect a child’s mental development
• Evidence for the importance of Heredity
 Identical twins are more like one another in IQ scores than
are fraternal twins
 The IQ of adopted children are better predicted from the IQs
of their natural parents than from adopted parents
• Evidence showed that the IQ scores of adopted children is clearly
influenced by the environment they grow up in
• If a lower class child is adopted by a middle class parent, the
child’s IQ scores is generally 10 to 15 points higher than those
who stayed with birth mothers
• The children reared in upper-class homes had IQ scores that
were about 11 points higher than those of children reared in
lower class families, regardless of social class or education of
birth parents
Social class of Adoptive Parents
High
Low
Social Class of
Biological Parents
High
Low
119.6
103.6
107.5
92.4
• Social Class Difference
 Every society is divided into social strata of some kinds
 An individual’s social status or social class is typically defined
or measured in terms of three dimensions: education, income
and occupation
 Dozens of researches showed that children from lower class
families have relatively lower IQ scores
 The average IQ score of children rises as the family’s social
class rises and as the mother’s education rises (Figure 7.2)
 Cumulative deficit is any difference between groups in IQ or
achievement test that becomes larger over time
 The longer a child lives in proverty, the more negative effect
on IQ test scores and other measures of cognitive functioning
• Specific Family Characteristics and IQ Scores
 Parents of children who have higher IQ scores tend to do several
things:
o They provide an interesting and complex physical environment for
their children (includes play materials that are appropriate for child’s
age and development level)
o They are emotional responsive to and involved with their children
o They talk with their children using language that is diverse,
descriptive, and accurate
o They use zone of proximal development when interact with their
children
o They avoid over restrictiveness, or control, instead fiving their
children room to explore and make mistakes
• Differences in Environments within Families
 It is different being the oldest child in a family to the youngest child of a
family
 On average, the more children in a family, the lower the IQ scores of the
children (Figure 7.3)
 On average, first born children have the highest IQ scores, with average
score declining steadily down the birth order (Figure 7.3)
 Children who are born very close together also have slightly lower IQ
scores on average than do those born further apart (Figure 7.3)
 The oldest child interact with adult (parents) when he was born, and
second or third child interacts with both parents and other children in the
household which will affect their thinking process (Robert Zajonc)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5QtWHySK
K4
• Does special education, day-care, and school affect a child’s IQ?
• Attunement → a permanent gain over the level of performance
the child would have shown without the added enrichment
• On average, children enrolled in Head Start or other enrich
preschool programs show a gain of 10 IQ points during the year
of the Head Start experience compared to similar children
without such experience
• Studies also showed that children in enrich preschool programs
are less likely to fail school or place under special education
programs
• In summary, children in special program had the highest scores,
followed by those who had had some kind of day-care
experience, with those reared entirely at home having the lowest
• Reaction range is the term used by some psychologist for the
range of possible outcomes for some variable, given basic
genetic patterning
• In the case of IQ scores, the reaction range is estimated at 20 to
25 points
• That is, given a specific genetic heritage, a child’s actual IQ test
performance may vary by as much as 20 to 25 points depending
on the environment the child grows up in
• The argument is that the lower end of any given child’s reaction
range is likely to be manifested only if the child is reared in an
environment that falls below the critical threshold
• Asian and Asian American students typically test 3 to 6 points
higher on IQ tests and do consistently better on achievement
tests than do Caucasian children
• African American children consistently score lower than
Caucasian children on standard measure of intelligence
• Some scientist argue that IQ test differences must reflect some
genetic differences between races
• Studies also showed that Asian family emphasis more on
academic achievement, which can explain why Asian student
tend to do good on IQ tests
• In dynamic assessment, children are informed about the purpose
of an intelligence test and are given a chance to practice with
each kind of problem-solving task on the test prior to actually
being tested
• Awareness of different emphases is the key to study variation in
IQ scores cross cultures
• Psychologists pointed out that the study of cross culture IQ
differences is pointless because different culture emphases
different strength
• Cross national comparisons of intellectual skills focus more on
math and science rather than IQ scores
• Teachers in Asian nations take a different approach in teaching
than do teachers in North America
• Computational fluency is the degree to which an individual can
automatically produce solutions to simple calculation problems
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfr2rTW3U
Mk&feature=related
• Girls are better at verbal tasks and boys are better at numerical
problems
• Researchers showed that boys and girls are good at different
tasks, but those aspects should not greatly affect their IQ score
• For examples, boys tend to be better in math and engineering,
but that does not mean no girls is qualified for the jobs
• Specifically, boys show greater coherence in brain function in
areas of the brain devoted to spatial tasks, while girls display
more organized functioning in part of the brain where language
and social information are processed
• Using IQ tests to define and explain individual and
group differences in intelligence is called the
psychometric approach
• Developmentalists believe that psychologist have
placed too much emphasis on defining intelligence
in correlation between IQ scores and achievement
tests
• Several alternative approaches to defining and
measuring intelligence have been proposed in
recent years
• Speeding of Information Processing
 Difference in processing speed may also underline individual
difference in IQ scores
 Participants with faster reaction times or speed of
performance on a variety of simple tasks also have higher
average IQ scores on standard tests
 Some studies have even directly linked central nervous
system functioning and to IQ
• Other Links between IQ and Information Processing
 Comparing the information processing strategies used by
children with normal intelligence with those used by retarded
children
 E.g. Looking for a hidden object (the two group did not in
search strategies and skills)
• Evaluating the Information-Processing Approach
 Looking at things such as inborn intelligence
 Practice makes perfect
 Memory of the child
• Triarchic theory of intelligence is a theory advanced by Robert Sternberg,
proposing the existence of three types of intelligence: analytical, creative
and practical
• Analytical intelligence one of three types of intelligence in Sternberg’s
triarchic theory of intelligence; the types of intelligence typically
measured on IQ tests, including the ability to plan, remember facts, and
organizing information
• Creative intelligence is the second types of intelligence described by
Stermberg in his triarchic theory of intelligence; including insightfulness
and the ability to see new relationships among events or experiences
• Practical intelligence is the third intelligence in Sternberg’s triarchic theory
of intelligence; often called “street smart”, this types of intelligence
include skill in applying information to the real world or solving practical
problems
• Multiple intelligence is eight types of intelligence proposed by
Howard Gardner
• The Eight Types include:
 Linguistic → good readers, speakers and who can learn language easily
 Logical/mathematical → learn math and generate logical solutions to
various kinds of problems
 Spatial → painting and sculpture
 Bodily kinesthetic → profession athletes
 Musical → singer and song writer
 Intrapersonal → good at identifying one’s own strength
 Naturalistic → recognize patterns in nature
• Do you think IQ test is a good
method of measuring one’s
intelligence? If so, in what way?
• To what extend do you think
family and the environment
around an individual affects
his/her intelligence?
• We don’t necessarily need high
IQ scores to be successful in the
future. (e.g. the president of the
United States) Agree or
Disagree? Why?
• Do you think it is a good idea to
force elementary school children
into learning and achieve a high
IQ score in the future? (China
and U.S school system)