Intelligence tests

School exams are, generally speaking, the first kind of tests we take. They find out how much knowledge we have gained. But do they really show how intelligent we are? After all, isn’t it a case that some people who are very successful academically don’t have any common sense?

Intelligence is the speed at which we can understand and react to new situations and it is usually tested by logic puzzles. Although scientists are now preparing advanced computer technology that will be able to “read” our brains, for the present tests are still the most popular ways of measuring intelligence.

IQ – or “Intelligence Quotient” tests have been around for nearly 100 years now.

The first tests were designed in the early 1900s by French psychologist Alfred Binet, but their use was limited to children until World War I, when the tests were given to two million American military recruits. The tests measured both general knowledge and the ability to reason logically, and the results were used to decide who should get which job, and to find the most intelligent recruits for training as future army officers. Their use was greatly expanded when the war ended.

The vast majority of people fall somewhere in between. They score around 100. Only 2% of people are at the “genius” level of 130 and more. There are fewer women than men at genius level, but fewer at the bottom as well.

Mental retardation

There are hundreds of known causes of mental retardation. Many of them are biological, genetic, chromosomal, prenatal, perinatal, postnatal in origin. It can be the result of environmental influence such as sensory or maternal deprivation.

A person is considered mentally retarded if: 1) his IQ is below 70;

2) if there is evident deficit in adaptive functioning; 3) if he is under 18.

There are 4 general categories of classifying mental retardation:

Category	Percentage	IQ range	Characteristics
Mild	85 %	50-70	May complete 6th grade academic work; may learn vocational skills and hold a job; may live independently as an adult. Mental age is approximately 8-12 years.
Moderate	10%	35-49	May complete 2nd grade academic work; can learn social skills, a simple occupation. Mental age is 6-8 years.
Severe	3-4%	35-49	May learn to talk or communicate; through repetition may learn basic health habits; often need help for simple tasks; will be like a first-grade child.
Profound	1%	less than 20	Little or no speech; may learn limited self- help skills; will be like 3-year old

Educational disadvantage

In one way or another, psychologists have been connected with educational problems. Very often psychologists help children and adults with educational disadvantage. Some children have specific learning difficulties, so they find some kinds of information very hard to learn. If they are in a special school environment, where teachers pay much attention to training them, they can often learn much more than in ordinary school.

One of the specific learning problems which educational psychologists often diagnose is dyslexia. People with dyslexia often have difficulty in identifying letters, so this problem is known as word-blindness. If dyslexia is a result of an accident and injury to the person’s brain, it is called acquired dyslexia.

There are also two kinds of dyslexia. One of them is known as surface dyslexia. In this case people have problems with recognizing letters and spelling.

Another kind of dyslexia is called deep dyslexia. It is connected with problems of deeper understanding words. People who suffer this type of dyslexia have difficulty in understanding words which are hard to visualize. For example, they understand words like “cheese”, but have more problems with words like “power”.

Sometimes the problems which educational psychologists encounter are wider than learning disorders. For example, the problem known as childhood autism seems to be an emotional and personal disorder. Children con not relate to the people in their lives. Kanner in 1943 identified four characteristics of autism as a general syndrome:

1. Children are unable to form relationships with other people. They do not think of people as human being but rather as bodies.

2. Children are unable to play spontaneously. They do not understand a play where one should pretend.

3. Children have difficulty with speech. Some of them never learn to talk, others don’t speak like other children. For example, they may not understand reflexive pronouns: they call themselves “you” and address another person as “I”.

4. Children insist on routines and repeated activities. They become very upset if their routines are interrupted.

Unfortunately, these two problems are only a small part among a vast number of problems which educational psychologist will meet.