Intelligence and Exceptional Learners

This is Unit Eight, part one, on intelligence and exceptional learners: measuring and theorizing intelligence, both ends of the curve, grouping and styles, and disability law. Unit Seven closed on rewards that backfire. Unit Eight turns to how learners differ. Carry one idea through this part: a score or a label describes a position, not a person, and teaching follows what a student needs. At the entry on levels of support, the part replaces a label with a description of need. By the end you will be able to compute a ratio IQ and read a deviation IQ. To match a talent to one of Gardner's intelligences. To read an IQ score on the normal curve. To describe intellectual disability by levels of support. And to decide which disability law applies.

Eight entries on measuring intelligence, from Spearman's g to IQ scores and test bias.

Individual and group differences.

EDP 0701 Individual and Group Differences

Individual differences are qualities unique to one person; group differences are shared by an identifiable group, such as a gender or an ethnic group. Group categories are convenient but arbitrary, and every group contains wide individual diversity.

One general intelligence.

EDP 0702 Spearman's g

Charles Spearman proposed a general intelligence factor, g, shown by positive correlations among scores on different test items, with specific abilities, called s, beneath it. Whether intelligence is one ability or several is the question every later theory answers.

The first intelligence test.

EDP 0703 Binet and the Stanford-Binet

Alfred Binet and his colleague Simon built the first intelligence test in nineteen oh four and nineteen oh five, for the French government, to identify children needing help with the regular curriculum; Lewis Terman later adapted it as the Stanford-Binet.

Norms and mental age.

EDP 0704 Standardization and Mental Age

Intelligence tests must be reliable, valid and standardized, with norms gathered by age; mental age is the age whose typical performance a child's score matches, so an eight-year-old performing like a typical ten-year-old has a mental age of ten.

Two ways to compute an IQ.

EDP 0705 Ratio and Deviation IQ

The original intelligence quotient was a ratio: mental age divided by chronological age, times one hundred. An eight-year-old with a mental age of ten scores ten divided by eight, times one hundred: 125. The modern deviation IQ places a score among same-age peers, on a scale with an average of one hundred and a standard deviation of fifteen, so 115 is one standard deviation above the mean. The ratio compares ages; the deviation compares peers, and modern tests report deviation scores.

Rising scores.

EDP 0706 The Flynn Effect

The Flynn effect is the rise in average IQ scores across generations, about three points a decade, so old norms make today's average child look above average. Its causes are debated: better nutrition, more schooling and greater familiarity with tests.

The Wechsler scales.

EDP 0707 The Wechsler Scales

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the WAIS-IV, covers ages sixteen to ninety with fifteen subtests and four index scores: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and processing speed. Its reliability exceeds point nine five, which alone does not guarantee validity.

Bias in intelligence tests.

EDP 0708 Test Bias

Since the nineteen seventies, intelligence tests have been criticized for bias: norms drawn from middle-class, Anglo-American students, and items that reward speed when some cultures prize reflection. A student taught to consider an answer carefully loses points on timed items.

Six entries on theories of intelligence: Sternberg's three, creativity, and Gardner's eight, with his evidence and critics.

Three intelligences.

EDP 0709 Sternberg's Triarchic Theory

Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory proposes three intelligences: analytical, for academic problems; creative, for new situations; and practical, for adapting to everyday life. Solving a proof is analytical, inventing a game creative, and talking a landlord into a repair practical.

Creativity and intelligence.

EDP 0710 Creativity and Intelligence

Creativity is only weakly related to analytical intelligence, so a student with average scores may produce the most original project; it depends on expertise, imaginative thinking, risk-taking, intrinsic interest and a supportive environment. Creative intelligence draws on divergent thinking, analytical intelligence more on convergent.

A doubt about practical intelligence.

EDP 0711 Is Practical Intelligence Distinct?

Whether practical intelligence is truly separate from g is contested: critics, notably Linda Gottfredson, find little evidence that it is distinct from general intelligence, and street smarts and school smarts may overlap. Naming three intelligences does not prove that three separate abilities exist.

Gardner's eight intelligences.

EDP 0712 Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, from Frames of Mind, names eight: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. A dancer excels in bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, a counselor in interpersonal. He proposed a ninth, existential intelligence, without strong support.

Matching a talent to an intelligence.

EDP 0713 Matching a Talent to an Intelligence

To classify a talent in Gardner's scheme, ask what it works with: words, linguistic; numbers and logic, logical-mathematical; images and space, spatial; sound and rhythm, musical; the body, bodily-kinesthetic; other people, interpersonal; oneself, intrapersonal; living things and natural patterns, naturalistic. A student who masters a dance routine after watching it once uses bodily-kinesthetic intelligence; one who pictures how folded paper will look when opened uses spatial. Classify by what the talent works with, not the setting, and vary presentation rather than labeling students.

Gardner's evidence, and his critics.

EDP 0714 Gardner's Evidence and Critics

Gardner drew evidence from selective loss of abilities after brain damage, from savants with isolated skills, and from developmental histories. Critics reply that the intelligences correlate, partly reflecting g, and that some look like talents. Popular appeal is not evidence.

Seven entries on both ends of the curve: reading IQ scores, intellectual disability, and giftedness.

IQ on the normal curve.

EDP 0715 IQ on the Normal Curve

IQ scores follow a normal distribution, a symmetrical bell curve with a mean of one hundred and a standard deviation of fifteen. About two percent score above 130, two standard deviations above the mean, and about two percent below 70. So 115 lies one standard deviation above the mean, 130 two above, higher than about 98 percent of same-age peers, and 85 one below. A score of 130 is two standard deviations above the mean, not two percent above it.

Intellectual disability.

EDP 0716 Intellectual Disability

Intellectual disability involves limits in both intellectual functioning and adaptive functioning, the everyday skills of living, and affects about one percent of people; a low IQ score with strong everyday skills does not meet the definition. The accepted term, replacing mental retardation, is intellectual disability.

The payoff: levels of support.

EDP 0717 Levels of Support

Here the part's idea does its work. Severity of intellectual disability is now described by the support a person needs, not by an IQ score alone. The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities names four levels: intermittent, needed only occasionally, as when changing schools; limited, regular but time-limited, like a job coach for a year; extensive, ongoing and regular, like daily help in class; and pervasive, constant and intense across settings. The levels describe the support needed, not the person, and point to what the school must provide.

Teaching students with intellectual disability.

EDP 0718 Teaching Students with Intellectual Disability

Students with intellectual disability benefit from more time and practice, well-timed specific praise, goals broken into doable steps, adaptive and functional skills, and inclusion in group activities, like making a sandwich taught in six praised steps. Materials should be simpler without being insultingly childish.

Giftedness.

EDP 0719 Giftedness

Gifted and talented students were traditionally identified by an IQ of 130 or above; the concept has broadened to exceptional talents in specific areas. Gifted students are not typically socially awkward, which is a myth, but they may grow bored without challenge.

A long study of high scorers.

EDP 0720 Terman's Longitudinal Study

Lewis Terman followed about fifteen hundred high-scoring students for decades and found them, on average, healthier and better adjusted than average, with many in high-status careers. His group was selected by test scores, so it tells us about high scorers, not every kind of talent.

Faster, or deeper.

EDP 0721 Acceleration and Enrichment

Acceleration moves gifted students through the curriculum faster, like a ten-year-old taking high school algebra; enrichment deepens and broadens it at the usual pace. Both work up to a point, and the best programs combine and differentiate them.

Six entries on what research says about ability grouping, and on learning styles and cognitive styles.

Grouping between classes, and within them.

EDP 0722 Between-Class and Within-Class Grouping

Between-class grouping sorts students into separate classes by ability; within-class grouping forms groups inside one class. Within-class grouping brings small benefits, and between-class grouping almost none. Grouping works best for specific subjects, with students mixed most of the day.

Grouping for acceleration.

EDP 0723 Grouping for Acceleration

Cross-grade grouping by subject and special grouping for the gifted both raise achievement, and accelerated students outperform same-age peers who were not accelerated. These effects did not vary by ability level, and between-class tracking in secondary schools showed no effect at any level.

Learning styles.

EDP 0724 Learning Styles

A learning style is a preferred way of learning, through pictures, words or activity; teachers may support preferences sometimes but should never label students or lock them into a style. Research has found virtually no evidence that matching instruction to a diagnosed style improves learning.

Wholes, or parts.

EDP 0725 Field Dependence and Independence

Cognitive styles are tendencies in how people process information: a field-dependent style perceives patterns as wholes, and a field-independent style analyzes the parts separately. A cognitive style concerns processing, not a preferred mode like a learning style, and it is only modestly stable.

Fast, or careful.

EDP 0726 Impulsivity and Reflectivity

An impulsive style works quickly at the cost of accuracy; a reflective style works slowly and carefully. Reflection helps in mathematics and some reading, while spontaneity helps in group discussion and team play, so neither style is better in general.

Using cognitive styles.

EDP 0727 Using Cognitive Styles

Teachers use cognitive styles by building on a student's strengths and coaching balance, so the student can also work in the opposite style when a task demands it, as when an impulsive student brainstorms freely, then learns to check each answer.

Four entries on disability law: Section 504, the ADA, IDEA's history and rights, and which law applies.

Two civil-rights laws.

EDP 0728 Section 504 and the ADA

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of nineteen seventy-three requires programs receiving federal funds to accommodate people with disabilities; the Americans with Disabilities Act of nineteen ninety extends protection to all employment and public facilities. Neither is an education law; that is IDEA.

From EHA to IDEA.

EDP 0729 From EHA to IDEA

The special education law began in nineteen seventy-five as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Public Law ninety-four one forty-two; it was renamed IDEA in nineteen ninety and last reauthorized in two thousand four. Dating IDEA to nineteen seventy-five dates its predecessor.

IDEA's five rights.

EDP 0730 IDEA's Five Rights

IDEA guarantees students with disabilities a free appropriate public education, due process, fair evaluation, the least restrictive environment and an individualized education program; parents who disagree with a placement can request a hearing. IDEA covers education from birth to age twenty-one.

Which law applies?

EDP 0731 Which Law Applies?

Three laws protect people with disabilities, each with its own reach. Section 504 covers programs receiving federal funds, including public schools, and requires accommodation. The ADA covers all employment and public facilities, public or private. IDEA covers education, with its five rights. A private employer refusing a deaf applicant an interpreter is an ADA question; a public school needing a ramp for a wheelchair user is a 504 question; parents seeking an evaluation and an individualized program for a struggling reader is an IDEA question. The laws overlap, so ask which protection is at issue.

Look at what you can now do. You can compute a ratio IQ, mental age over chronological age times one hundred, and read a deviation IQ by its distance from the mean. You can match a talent to one of Gardner's intelligences by asking what it works with. You can read an IQ score on the normal curve: 130 is two standard deviations above the mean, higher than about 98 percent. You can describe intellectual disability by the support a person needs, not by a label. And you can decide which disability law applies: 504, the ADA or IDEA. Part two turns to specific disabilities and to the IEP.