Intelligence Testing in Children

Intelligence Testing in Children

Introduction

Intelligence, in its usual meaning, refers to the creative abilities of a person who is capable to comprehending and responding social complexities better than the other. Experts believe that intelligence has very little to do with creativity suggesting that a creative person need not necessarily be intelligent and vice versa. In this paper, we shall analyze an article on intelligence testing in children. The central theme of the article revolves around the reliability and validity of the tests that are present to gauge a child's intelligence and how or what measures can be taken to improve these tests (Shiraev & Levy, 2010).

Analysis

John Neisworth and Stephen Bagnato argue presented this article “The case against intelligence testing in early intervention” in 1992, which was by the Hammill Institute on Disabilities. The article in discussion here sheds light on the subject of testing methods that are employed by experts to measure a child's intelligence. Neisworth and Bagnato discuss how methods or techniques of measuring intelligence in children are followed religiously without so much as a consideration for the changes that have been taking place in the social environment or the surroundings the child grow up in. the authors argue that by following the conventional methods of intelligence testing, experts are ignoring the generic definition of what intelligence truly is. Neisworth and Bagnato believe that these methods of testing intelligence are based on assumptions that have little or no evidence to prove their validity.

They also argue that intelligence may have varying interpretations in children of different ages. The viewpoint of Neisworth and Bagnato is that there is no single theory of intelligence that would adequately suffice when considering which theory would best define and/or measure intelligence. This brings us to the point that there is not mutual agreement ...