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IQ test does not tell everything about a child

Parents have various opinions, all made with good intentions, on factors considered positive and negative to the inculcation of knowledge in children, for whom parents wish only the best.

Parents have various opinions, all made with good intentions, on factors considered positive and negative to the inculcation of knowledge in children, for whom parents wish only the best.

However, one supposed scientific factor, the Intelligence Quotient test, seems to be regarded as truth, for example, by the pre-school that made my five-year-old grandson take the test before admission.

I find this questionable. A wrong assessment, even if honestly made, can be deleterious to a child’s psyche, so I wonder how such pre-school tests are administered. Are these in line with the Singapore Psychological Society on the use of IQ scores?

The scientific findings are not even absolute. An IQ test does not measure everything about a child and there are reservations about its relation to learning potential.

To put it another way, the word “intelligence”, through semantics, has become different things to different people, taking on nuances that have led to endless polemic on its abstract quality.

For example, Francis Galton, author of Hereditary Genius, saw intelligence as the sum of intellect, zeal and power of work. Louis Thurstone, author of The Nature of Intelligence, analysed it into seven factors, such as verbal ability, inductive reasoning and memory.

Psychologist J P Guilford multiplied this relatively simple recipe into 120 abilities. The list goes on.

In 1948, sociologist Robert Merton coined the phrase “self-fulfilling prophesy”, which has become the focus of numerous studies. A classic one was done on children in the lower grades of Oak School in the United States.

The experimenters randomly chose 20 per cent of the children, including high and low IQ test scorers. The teachers were told that these children were “spurters” and could be expected to make unusual intellectual gains over the year.

It was realised later that the label, “spurter”, assumed a life of its own when applied to the group, who did spurt intellectually, with increases in IQ points.

The teachers, it was noted, did not spend more time with the achievers, but sent subtle communication cues indicating an expectation of achievement. Facial expressions, gestures, posture and the amount of praise probably contributed to the results.

The experimenters found that a fake label was ultimately treated as fact. The self-fulfilling prophecy became a reality. The flip side was that those taught by the same teachers, but not included in the “preferred” group did not manifest equivalent intellectual gains.

Economics professor Eli Ginzberg explained it thus: Enlarge the opportunity and the person will expand to fill it, which is a twist on an old adage. So, let us not rely too much on the test. Let us not make a hypothesis a statement of judgement.

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