Testing for Intelligence

Early experiences are built into our bodies for better or worse. Chronic stressors or "toxic" stressors where children are consistently exposed to harmful environments such as abuse, violence, malnutrition, and neglect have a negative impact on the body and brain. It can lead to health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiac issues. Unfortunately, these stressors can also contribute to learning disabilities as well. Therefore, it is imperative for parents and caregivers to provide children with an environment free from toxic stressors so they can grow and develop the way their brains and bodies were meant to.

With regards to assessments, I believe, just as children learn differently, they test differently as well. It is important as educators to look at the "whole" child including their culture, family and social lives. Assessments should be diverse and vary in content as well as structure. Not all children test well in standardized pencil and paper tests. Does that mean that they are not intelligent and don't know the information or should be ranked lower than their peers? Educators should strive to integrate tests that give a true picture of the child's knowledge. This can be, for example, in the form of an oral test, because isn't what they know and comprehend what's important? Also, I believe assessments should be worded in ways that children from various cultures are able to understand. For example, if a child who lives in the inner city were asked to name another term for "street," they have probably never heard the word "route" before but a child who lives in Kansas may. For this reason I feel the current assessments used to measure intelligence, promote and graduate students from one grade to the next are unfair. Our society has become so diverse and is acclimating to the many different cultures yet we are still using the same testing techniques that, in my opinion, weren't fair to begin with.

Australia has many of the same assessment criteria as the US but in their curriculum, they include "capabilities" that students need to master as well. An example is cultural where student are taught and encouraged to explore and learn about other cultures in order to gain insight and tolerance for those who are different from them.

When it comes to assessing our children, I feel that multiple assessments are necessary in order to obtain a true picture of what a child truly knows and those assessments should be administered in a variety of settings that are advantageous to the child. This idea holds true when also assessing a child for special needs services. One assessment can't possible give a therapist a true picture of that child's needs. For example, if a child had a bad night and came in for an assessment and was frustrated, angry, and uncooperative, the therapist may not only diagnose that child with lower academic and ability scores but may also diagnose them with behavior problems even though that is not the case. They then waste valuable time placing a child in services that is not addressing their true needs. How are we to help them reach their fullest potential if we don't have a clear picture of what their needs truly are? This leads to many misplacements and misdiagnosis which does not benefit our children and results in larger numbers of students being retained, don’t graduate high school and become less productive adults.

References:

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/generalcapabilities/personal-and-social-capability/introduction/introduction

Center on the Developing Child–Harvard University. (n.d.). InBrief: The science of neglect. [Video file].    http://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/multimedia/videos/inbrief_series/inbrief_neglect/