Chapter 8 Intelligence and Academic Achievement (2400)

Practical intelligence

-skills useful in everyday life but not measured by traditional intelligence tests, such as accurately reading other people's intentions and motivating others to work effectively as a team —predicts occupational success beyond the influence of IQ score mental abilities not measured on IQ tests predicts occupational success even after IQ is taken into account but important for success in many situations, such as accurately reading other people's emotions and intentions and motivating others to work effectively as a team

Shared and non-shared family environments

"family intellectual environment" is often taken to mean characteristics that are the same for all children within the family: the parents' emphasis on education, the number of books in the house, the frequency of intellectual discussions around the dinner table, and so on. each child within a given family also encounters unique, non-shared environments. In any family, only one child can be the firstborn and receive the intense, undivided parental attention early in life that this status tends to bring. Similarly, a child whose interests or personality characteristics mirror those of one or both parents may receive more positive attention than other children in the family. If homes that are extremely lacking in intellectual stimulation are excluded from consideration, such within-family variations in children's environment may have a greater impact on the development of intelligence than do between-family variations In addition, the influence of the non-shared environment increases with age, and the influence of the shared environment decreases with age, as children become increasingly able to choose their own friends and activities

Reading

(some children learn to read effortlessly and other struggle) reading is species specific - not universal like language - lack of education

IQ & Education Affect Income

-Characteristics of the environment are similarly influential: parents' encouragement and modeling of productive careers predict their children's occupational success only top 20% scoring in IQ test in highschool are earning $450 a week top 40% in 2 year college bottom 20% of IQ scores not making that much education fuels wages earnings -Consistent with the importance of IQ , the figure shows that, among people with the same level of education, those with higher IQ scores earn more money. Consistent with the importance of other factors, the figure shows that, among people with comparable IQ scores, those who complete more years of education earn more money. Thus, while IQ is a key contributor to educational, occupational, and economic success, numerous social and motivational factors are also crucial.

IQ Scores as Predictors of Important Outcomes

-IQ is a strong predictor of academic, economic, and occupational success -They correlate positively and quite strongly with school grades and achievement test performance, both at the time of the test and years later IQ and achievement test performance typically correlate between 0.50 and 0.60 -A child's IQ is more closely related to their later occupational success than in socioeconomic status, school attended, or any other variable that has been studied -Motivation, creativity, health, social skills, and other factors are also important influences on success also gatekeeper effects - IQ scores are ways to qualify moving onto next level of training -In part, the positive relation between IQ score and occupational and economic success stems from the fact that standardized test scores serve as gatekeepers, determining which students gain access to the training and credentials required for entry into lucrative professions. Even among people who initially have the same job, however, those with higher IQ scores tend to perform better, earn more money, and receive better promotions

Self-discipline (self regulation)

-ability to inhibit actions, follow rules, and avoid impulsive reactions (p. 335) ability to inhibit actions, follow rules and avoid impulsive reactions predicts 8th graders grades even after IQ is taken into account -is more predictive of changes in report card grades between 5th and 9th grades than is IQ score, though IQ score is more predictive of changes in achievement test scores over the same period

Sternberg's Theory of Successful Intelligence

-intelligence is "ability to achieve success in life" relative to personal and cultural standards success depends on: analytic abilities: traditional IQ skills practical abilities: reasoning creative abilities: application flexibility (hard to measure creative ability)

Jeanne Chall, stages of reading development

0 - birth until the beginning of first grade - acquire the key prerequisites for reading. Including knowing letters of the alphabet and gaining phonemic awareness - the ability to identify component sounds within spoken words 1 - first and second grades - acquiring phonological recoding skills - the ability to translate letters into sounds and to blend the sounds into words (sounding out) Stage 0 (birth until the beginning of 1st grade): During this time, many children acquire key prerequisites for reading. These include knowing the letters of the alphabet and gaining phonemic awareness, that is, knowledge of the individual sounds within words. Stage 1 (1st and 2nd grades): Children acquire phonological recoding skills, the ability to translate letters into sounds and to blend the sounds into words (informally referred to as "sounding out"). Stage 2 (2nd and 3rd grades): Children gain fluency in reading simple material. Stage 3 (4th through 8th grades): Children become able to acquire reasonably complex, new information from written text. To quote Chall, "In the primary grades, children learn to read; in the higher grades, they read to learn" (1983, p. 24). Stage 4 (8th through 12th grades): Adolescents acquire skill not only in understanding information presented from a single perspective but also in coordinating multiple perspectives. This ability enables them to appreciate the subtleties in sophisticated novels and plays, which almost always include multiple viewpoints.

French Education problem

1904, the minister of education of France faced a problem. France, like other western European and North American countries, had recently introduced universal public education, and it was becoming apparent that some children were not learning well. Therefore, the minister wanted a means of identifying children who would have difficulty succeeding in standard classrooms, so that they could be given special education. One obvious solution was to ask teachers to indicate which of their students were encountering difficulty. However, the minister worried that teachers might be biased in their assessments. In particular, he was concerned that some teachers would be prejudiced against poor children and would claim that those children were unable to learn, even if they actually could. He therefore asked Alfred Binet, a French psychologist who had studied intelligence for many years, to develop an easy-to-administer, objective test of intelligence.

French education problem

1904, the minister of education of France faced a problem. France, like other western European and North American countries, had recently introduced universal public education, and it was becoming apparent that some children were not learning well. Therefore, the minister wanted a means of identifying children who would have difficulty succeeding in standard classrooms, so that they could be given special education. One obvious solution was to ask teachers to indicate which of their students were encountering difficulty. However, the minister worried that teachers might be biased in their assessments. In particular, he was concerned that some teachers would be prejudiced against poor children and would claim that those children were unable to learn, even if they actually could. He therefore asked Alfred Binet, a French psychologist who had studied intelligence for many years, to develop an easy-to-administer, objective test of intelligence. The prevailing view at the time was that intelligence is based on simple skills, such as associating objects with the sounds they make (e.g., ducks with quacking, bells with ringing), responding quickly to stimuli, and recognizing whether two objects are identical. According to this view, children who are more adept than their peers at such simple skills learn more quickly and thus become more intelligent. The theory was plausible—but wrong. It is now clear that differences among children in simple skills are only modestly related to differences among the children in broader, everyday indicators of intelligence, such as school performance. Binet's theory differed - He believed that the key components of intelligence were high-level abilities, such as problem solving, reasoning, and judgment, and he maintained that intelligence tests should assess such abilities directly. Therefore, on the test that he and his colleague Théophile Simon devised—the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test—children were asked (among other things) to interpret proverbs, solve puzzles, define words, and sequence cartoon panels so that the jokes made sense. Binet's approach was successful in identifying children who would have difficulty learning from classroom instruction; they were the children who could not interpret the proverbs, solve the puzzles, define the words, and so on. More generally, children's performance on the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test correlated highly not only with their school grades at the time of testing but also with their grades years later. The test was also reasonably successful in meeting a goal of intelligence testing that has been pursued ever since—to provide an objective measure of scholastic aptitude that would allow fairer decisions about children's schooling, including which children should be in honors classes, which are in need of special education, which should be admitted to highly selective colleges, and so on. Binet's theoretical approach to intelligence has continued to influence research on the topic to this day. In most areas of cognitive development—perception, language, conceptual understanding, and so forth—the emphasis is on age-related changes: the ways in which younger children differ from older ones. Following Binet's lead, however, research on intelligence has focused on individual differences—on how and why children of the same age differ from one another and on the continuity of such individual differences over time. Research in this area raises many of the most basic issues about human nature: the roles of heredity and environment, the influence of ethnic and racial differences, the effects of wealth and poverty, and the possibility of improvement. Almost everyone has opinions, often heartfelt ones, about why some people are more intelligent than others.

intelligence as a few basic abilities

2 types of intelligence -distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence is supported by the fact that tests of each type of intelligence correlate more highly with tests of the same type than they do with tests of the other type -Thus, children who do well on one test of fluid intelligence tend to do well on other tests of fluid intelligence but not necessarily on tests of crystallized intelligence, and vice versa. In addition, the two types of intelligence have different developmental courses. Crystallized intelligence increases steadily from early in life to old age, whereas fluid intelligence peaks around age 20 and slowly declines thereafter The brain areas most active in the two types of intelligence also differ: the prefrontal cortex usually is highly active on measures of fluid intelligence but tends to be much less active in measures of crystallized intelligence

Other Predictors of Success

A child's other characteristics, such as motivation to succeed, conscientiousness, intellectual curiosity, creativity, physical and mental health, and social skills, also exert important influences

interpersonal intelligence

Ability to notice and make distinctions among the moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions of other people and potentially to act on this knowledge

intrapersonal intelligence

Access to one's own feeling life; ability to draw on one's emotions to guide and understand one's behavior

The study of intelligence

Alfred Binet (1904): predict individual differences in school performance; identify children who needed special attention -credited with developing intelligence quotient (IQ) -original view: sime associative skills --> reasoning (heavily reliant on memory)

Understanding numerical magnitudes

Although the learning process takes a prolonged period, the range of numbers whose magnitudes children represent reasonably precisely, as indicated by the accuracy of their magnitude comparisons and number-line estimates, increases greatly with age and experience Accuracy of magnitude representations of the numbers 1-10 increases greatly between ages 3 and 6 numbers 1-100, between ages 6 and 8 that of numbers 1-1000, between ages 8 and 12 These ages reflect when children are first gaining substantial experience with each numerical range: most children learn to count from 1-10 in the preschool period; they learn to count, add, and subtract numbers from 1-100 in early elementary school and so on. Children of any given age differ considerably in their knowledge of numerical magnitudes. These differences are related to the children's overall mathematical knowledge. During elementary school, children who more accurately estimate whole-number magnitudes on number lines have higher math achievement. During middle school, the same is true for children who accurately estimate fraction magnitudes Part of the reason for this relation is that more accurate magnitude representations help children learn arithmetic. The more precisely a child understands numerical magnitudes, as measured by his or her accuracy in estimating the position of numbers on a number line, the greater the child's arithmetic proficiency instruction that improves the accuracy of children's symbolic numerical magnitude representations also improves their subsequent learning of arithmetic Accurate magnitude representations may enhance arithmetic learning by suggesting plausible answers and eliminating implausible ones from consideration. Accurate magnitude representations, in turn, are related to some of the same cognitive processes that contribute to reading, writing, and mathematics more generally, especially basic processes, such as working memory, and strategy use

Influences of Schooling

Attending school makes children smarter. -older children within each grade did somewhat better than younger children within that grade on each part of the test. However, the jumps in the graphs between grades indicate that children who were only slightly older, but who had a year more schooling, did much better than the slightly younger children in the grade below them. -The positive effects of education on IQ scores do not seem to come about through education increasing g, but rather through education increasing a number of specific cognitive skills measured on IQ tests, such as inferential reasoning and logical memory -Another type of evidence indicating that going to school makes children smarter is that average IQ and achievement test scores rise during the school year but not during summer vacation -Children from families of low socioeconomic status and those from families of high socioeconomic status make comparable gains in school achievement during the school year. However, over the summer, the achievement test scores of low-SES children tend to stay constant or drop, whereas the scores of high-SES children tend to rise Cahan and Cahan: children only slightly older but who had a year more schooling did better on parts of an IQ test iq and achievement test scores rise during the academic year and are stable or drop during the summer

Family influences

Bradley and Caldwell (1979) tackled this problem by devising a measure known as the HOME (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment). The HOME samples various aspects of children's home life, including organization and safety of living space; intellectual stimulation offered by parents; whether children have books of their own; amount of parent-child interaction; parents' emotional support of the child; and so on. HOME (home observation for measurements of the environments): measure of family influences on intelligence throughout childhood, children's IQ scores are positively correlated with the quality of their family environment as measured by the HOME - Throughout childhood, children's IQ scores, as well as their math and reading achievement scores, are positively correlated with scores on the HOME When HOME scores are relatively stable over time, IQ scores also tend to be stable; when HOME scores change, IQ scores also tend to change in the same direction (shouting, involvement, reading, eating together, 3+ books) can't tell if better home environment causes higher IQs why The HOME is rarely used with adoptive families correlations between HOME and IQ are lower for adoptive children than for biological children A child's home environment is also affected by parents genetic makeup First, the type of intellectual environment that parents establish in the home is almost certainly influenced by their genetic makeup. Second, almost all studies using the HOME have focused on families in which children live with their biological parents. may mean that parents' genes influence both the intellectual quality of the home environment and children's IQ scores; thus, the home intellectual environment as such may not cause children to have higher or lower IQ. Consistent with this possibility, in the few studies in which the HOME has been used to study adoptive families, the correlations between it and children's IQ scores are lower than in studies of children living with their biological parents

Spatial Intelligence

Capacity to perceive the visual world accurately, to perform transformations upon perceptions, and to re-create aspects of visual experience in the absence of physical stimuli; sensitivity to tension, balance, and composition; ability to detect similar patterns

three-stratum theory of intelligence

Carroll's model that places g at the top of the intelligence hierarchy, eight moderately general abilities in the middle, and many specific processes at the bottom - integrate three ideas of intelligence -Carroll's model that places g at the top of the intelligence hierarchy, eight moderately general abilities in the middle, and many specific processes at the bottom (p. 328) -At the top of the hierarchy is g; in the middle are several moderately general abilities (which include both fluid and crystallized intelligence and other competencies similar to Thurstone's seven primary mental abilities); at the bottom are many specific processes. -General intelligence influences all moderately general abilities, and both general intelligence and the moderately general abilities influence the specific processes. For instance, knowing someone's general intelligence allows for a fairly reliable prediction of the person's general memory skills; knowing both of them allows quite reliable prediction of the person's memory span; and knowing all three allows very accurate prediction of the person's memory span for a particular type of material, such as words, letters, or numbers.

Cultural Influences

Children in China, Japan, South Korea, and other East Asian countries acquire far greater proficiency than those in even high-achieving European and North American countries who in turn tend to know more than peers in other European and North American countries, including the United States, Spain, and Italy The differences start even before the child enters formal schooling (Siegler & Mu, 2008) and appear to be related to cultural emphasis (or lack of emphasis) on math, quality of math teachers and textbooks, and time spent on math in classrooms and homes Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages express whole-number names in more straightforward ways than English (e.g., ten-one, ten-two, etc.), and the differences appear to contribute to the superior mathematics learning of East Asian children. Linguistic differences also make fractions easier to learn for East Asian children. For example, the Korean term for 1/3, sam bun, ui, il, which translates roughly to "of three parts one," helps Korean 1st- and 2nd-graders more accurately match fractions to pictorial representations of the fraction (in the case of 1/3, one of three equal parts of an object is shaded) Teaching U.S. children English translations of the Korean way of expressing fractions led to substantial gains in their ability to match the numerical symbol to the pictorial representation East Asian children, and other factors, in particular the cultural value that learning math is extremely important for all children, probably play an even larger role (Hatano, 1990). There can be no doubt that environmental variables greatly influence children's math learning.

Programs for helping poor children

During the early 1960s, a political consensus developed in the United States—that helping children from poor families was an urgent national priority. Child development research contributed to this consensus by demonstrating that children's environments had significant effects on their cognitive growth -As a consequence, over the next decade, many intervention programs were initiated to enhance the intellectual development of preschoolers from impoverished families. Irving Lazar and his colleagues found a consistent pattern (Lazar et al., 1982). Participation in the programs, most of which lasted a year or two, initially increased children's IQ scores substantially—by 10 to 15 points. However, over the next 2 or 3 years, the gains decreased, and by the 4th year after the end of the programs, no differences were apparent between the IQ scores of participants and those of nonparticipants from the same neighborhoods and backgrounds. Similar effects have been found for math and reading achievement—initial gains that all too quickly fade Fortunately, other effects of these experimental programs aimed at helping preschoolers from low-income backgrounds are more enduring. In one long-term study, only half as many program participants as nonparticipants were later assigned to special-education classes—14% versus 29%—and fewer participants were held back in school, more participants subsequently graduated from high school, and fewer had been arrested by age 18 -If the intervention programs did not result in lasting increases in IQ or achievement test scores, why would they have led to fewer children being assigned to special-education classes or being held back in school? A likely reason is that the interventions had long-term effects on children's motivation and conduct. These effects would help children do well enough in the classroom to be promoted with their classmates, which in turn might make them less likely to drop out of high school and less likely to turn to criminal activity, even if improvements in their cognitive abilities fade over time. Participation also led to benefits after children finished school. As adults, former participants in some intervention programs used the welfare system less, were more likely to enroll in college, and earned larger salaries than did nonparticipants

Gifted Children

Ellen Winner - These globally gifted children usually display several signs of giftedness from very early in development Unusual alertness and long attention span in infancy Rapid language development Curiosity—asking deep questions and being dissatisfied with superficial answers High energy levels, often bordering on hyperactivity Intense reactions to frustration Precocious reading and interest in numbers Exceptional logical and abstract reasoning Unusually good memory Enjoyment of solitary play

Risk factors and intellectual development

Environmental risk scale (Sameroff et al.) features of the environment that put children at risk for lower iQ scores on this scale - related to IQ -stable over time Related to changes in the child's IQ over time

multiple intelligence theory

Gardner's theory of intellect, based on the view that people possess at least eight types of intelligence (p. 349) people possess at least eight kinds of intelligence: the linguistic, logical-mathematical, and spatial abilities emphasized in previous theories and measured on IQ tests, and also musical, naturalistic, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal abilities speculated that a ninth ability might be present—existential intelligence, which is concerned with ultimate questions about life and the human condition, such as "why are we here?" evidence to arrive at this set of intelligences. One involved deficits shown by people with brain damage. For example, some brain-damaged patients function well in most respects but have no understanding of other people (Damasio, 1999). This phenomenon suggested to Gardner that interpersonal intelligence was distinct from other types of intelligence. A second type of evidence that Gardner used to identify this set of intelligences was the existence of prodigies, people who from early in life show exceptional ability in one area but not in others. One such example is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who displayed musical genius while still a child but was unexceptional in many other ways. The existence of highly specialized musical talents such as Mozart's provides evidence for viewing musical ability as a separate intelligence. Although Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences is backed by much less supporting evidence than traditional theories of intelligence, its optimistic message—that children have a variety of strengths on which parents and teachers can build—has led to its having a large influence on education.

Arithmetic strategies

How well children learn arithmetic depends on the strategies they use, the precision of their representations of numerical magnitudes, and their understanding of basic mathematical concepts and principles. counting from 1 - The most common initial strategies are counting from 1 (e.g., solving 2 + 2 by putting up two fingers on each hand and counting "1, 2, 3, 4") and retrieval (recalling answers from memory). At first, children can use these strategies to answer only a few simple problems, such as 1 + 2 and 2 + 2, but they gradually expand use of the strategies to a wider range of single-digit problems Retrieval (mem) Counting from larger addend (adding large numbers) - When children begin to do arithmetic on a daily basis, in kindergarten or 1st grade, they add several new strategies. One is counting from the larger addend (e.g., solving 3 + 9 by counting, "9, 10, 11, 12"). decomposition (adding than subtracting) - which involves dividing a problem into two easier ones (e.g., solving 3 + 9 by thinking "3 + 10 = 13; 13 − 1 = 12"). Children continue to use the earlier developing strategies as well; most 1st-graders use three or more strategies to add single-digit numbers Children use similarly varied strategies on all four arithmetic operations. Use of these arithmetic strategies is surprisingly enduring: even college students use strategies other than retrieval on 15% to 30% of single-digit problems As children gain experience with the answers to single-digit arithmetic problems, their strategy choices shift increasingly toward using retrieval of those answers. The learning process seems to be the same as with the corresponding shift toward visually based retrieval in reading. The more often children generate the correct answer to a problem, regardless of the strategy they use to generate it, the more often they will be able to retrieve that answer, thereby avoiding the need to use slower counting strategies.

Project Head Start

In response to the same political consensus of the 1960s that led to small-scale early-intervention programs, the U.S. government initiated a large-scale intervention program: Project Head Start. In the past 50 years, this program has provided a wide range of services to more than 32 million children Head Start serves more than 900,000 preschoolers per year, most of them 4-year-olds. The population served is racially and ethnically diverse: in 2010, 39% were African Americans, 31% European Americans, and 34% Hispanic Americans (the sum is more than 100% because some children were counted in multiple categories) Almost all children in Head Start are from families with incomes below the poverty line, mostly single-parent families. In the program, children are provided with medical and dental care, nutritious meals, and a safe environment. Many parents of participating children work as caregivers at the Head Start centers, serve on policy councils that help plan each center's directions, and receive help with their own vocational and emotional needs. Consistent with the findings of the smaller experimental intervention programs that have been aimed at 3- and 4-year-olds, participation in Head Start produces higher IQ and achievement test scores at the end of the program and briefly thereafter. The children who participated in Head Start showed better pre-reading and pre-writing skills (though no better math skills) at the end of a year in the program By the end of 1st grade, however, children's intellectual outcomes were almost identical to those of nonparticipants and no intellectual differences were found at the end of 3rd grade, either On the other hand, participation in Head Start produces a number of other positive effects that do endure, ones that resemble those produced by the experimental preschool programs: improved social skills and health, lower frequency of being held back in school, greater likelihood of graduating from high school and enrolling in college, and lower rates of drug use and delinquency

Risk Factors and Intellectual Development

In the popular media, reports on how to help all children reach their intellectual potential often focus on a single factor—the need to eliminate poverty, or the need to eliminate racism, or the need to preserve two-parent families, or the need for high-quality day care, or the need for universal preschool education, and so on. However, no single factor, nor even any small group of factors, is the key. Instead, many factors in combination contribute to the problem of poor intellectual development. To capture the impact of these multiple influences, Arnold Sameroff and his colleagues developed an environmental risk scale (Sameroff et al., 1993) based on 10 features of the environment that put children at risk for low IQ scores. Each child's risk score is a simple count of the number of major risks facing the child. Thus, a child growing up with a mother who is unemployed, unmarried, highly anxious, and mentally ill, but who has none of the other risk factors in Sameroff's list, would have an environmental risk score of 4. Sameroff and his colleagues measured the IQ scores and environmental risks of more than 100 children when they were 4-year-olds and again when they were 13-year-olds. They found that the more risks in a child's environment, the lower the child's IQ score tended to be. The average IQ score of children whose environments did not include any of the risk factors was around 115; the average score of children whose environments included six or more risks was around 85. The sheer number of risks in the child's environment was a better predictor of the child's IQ score than was the presence of any particular risk. Subsequent studies demonstrated similarly strong relations between the number of risk factors and school grades It is not just that children's genes remain constant; over time, their environment tends to remain fairly constant as well. The study revealed that there was just as much stability in the number of risk factors in children's environments at ages 4 and 13 years as there was in their IQ scores over that period. The number of risk factors in a 4-year-old's environment not only correlates highly with the child's IQ score at age 4 but also predicts likely changes in the child's score between ages 4 and 13. That is, if two children have the same IQ score at age 4 but one child lives in an environment with more risk factors, the child facing more risks will, at age 13, probably have an IQ score lower than that of the other child. Thus, environmental risks seem to have both immediate and long-term effects on children's intellectual development. Genetic contributions cannot be ruled out—anxiety, poor mental health, and other risk factors may be biologically transmitted from parent to child—but a greater number of risk factors is definitely associated with lower IQ scores. Sameroff and his colleagues described their measure as a "risk index," it is as much a measure of the quality of a child's environment as of its potential for harm. High IQ scores are associated with favorable environments as much as low scores are associated with adverse ones. This is true for children from low-income families as well as for children in general. Low-income parents who, relative to others with similar incomes, are responsive to their children and provide them with safe play areas and varied learning materials have children with higher IQ scores high-quality parenting can help offset the risks imposed by poverty.

Individual Differences

Individual differences in reading ability tend to be stable over time. Children who have relatively advanced reading skills when they enter kindergarten tend to be better readers through elementary, middle, and high school reflect both shared genes and shared environments - parents who are good and frequent readers are likely to provide both genes and environments that make it likely that their children will be relatively good readers when they are young, which makes it more likely that the children will seek out reading opportunities as they get older, which will further improve their reading, and so on

The Contents of Intelligence Tests

Intelligence is reflected in different abilities at different ages For example, language ability is not a part of intelligence at 4 months of age because infants this young neither produce nor understand words, but it is obviously a vital part of intelligence at 4 years of age. The items on tests developed to measure intelligence at different ages reflect these changing aspects. For instance, on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test (a descendant of the original Binet-Simon test), 2-year-olds are asked to identify the objects depicted in line drawings (a test of object recognition), to find an object that they earlier saw someone hide (a test of learning and memory), and to place each of three objects in a hole of the proper shape (a test of perceptual skill and motor coordination). The version of the Stanford-Binet presented to 10-year-olds asks them to define words (a test of verbal ability), to explain why certain social institutions exist (a test of general information and verbal reasoning), and to count the blocks in a picture in which the existence of some blocks must be inferred (a test of problem solving and spatial reasoning). Intelligence tests have had their greatest success and widest application with children who are at least 5 or 6 years old.

intelligence quotient (IQ)

Intelligence tests such as the WISC and the Stanford-Binet provide an overall quantitative measure of a child's intelligence relative to that of other children of the same age. This summary measure is referred to as the child's IQ (intelligence quotient). quantitative measure, typically with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, used to indicate a child's intelligence relative to that of other children of the same age (p. 332) quantitative measure of child's intelligence relative to that of other children of the same age -WISC and Stanford-Binet tests produce IQ scores -IQ scores are standardized for children of different ages -advantages --> iqs at different ages are easy to compare mean 100 SD 15 68% fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean 95% of scores fall within 2 standard deviations (between 70-130)

Generating Written Text

Learning to write, in the sense of composing an essay or story, is a good deal more difficult than learning to read. This is not surprising, because writing requires focusing simultaneously on numerous goals, both low level and high level. The low-level goals include forming letters, spelling words, and using correct capitalization and punctuation. The high-level goals include making arguments comprehensible without the intonations and gestures that help us communicate when we speak, organizing individual points in a coherent framework, and providing the background information that readers need to understand the writing growth of writing proficiency reflects improvements in basic processes, strategies, metacognition, and content knowledge. Automatizing low-level skills, such as spelling and punctuation, aids writing not only because correct spelling and punctuation make writing easier to understand but also because automatizing the low-level skills frees cognitive resources for pursuing the higher-level communicative goals of writing. Consistent with this conclusion, children's proficiency at low-level skills such as spelling correlates positively with the quality of the children's essays Acquisition of strategies also contributes to improvements in writing. One common strategy is to sequence high-level goals in a standard organization, or script, a set of actions or events that occur repeatedly. For older children, formulating outlines serves a similar purpose of dividing the task of writing into manageable parts: first figure out what you want to say, then figure out the best order for making your main points, then figure out how to make each point. Metacognitive understanding plays several crucial roles in writing. Perhaps the most basic type of metacognitive understanding is recognizing that readers may not have the same knowledge as the writer and that the writing therefore needs to include all the information that readers will need to allow them to grasp what is being said. Good writers consistently exhibit such understanding by high school; poor writers often do not A second crucial type of metacognitive knowledge involves understanding the need to plan one's writing rather than just jumping in and starting to write. Good writers spend much more time than do poor writers planning what they will say before they begin writing—making notes, constructing outlines, and so on Understanding the need for revision is a third key type of metacognitive knowledge. Good writers spend more time revising their already relatively good first drafts than poor writers spend revising their poorer ones the writing of both typical and learning-disabled children improves when they are taught to revise other children's work and to ask themselves several basic questions: Who is the main character in this story? What does the main character do? How do the other characters respond? How does the main character respond to the other characters' responses? What happens in the end? Asking children to reflect on the relative quality of essays written by other children and on why some essays are better than others also can improve writing content knowledge plays a crucial role in writing. Children generally write better when they are familiar with the topic than when they are not Children can gain content knowledge through reading, which is one reason why children who are skillful readers and read more than most peers also tend to be good writers

Writing

Much less is known about the development of children's writing than about the development of their reading, but what is known shows interesting parallels between the two.

race, ethnicity, and intelligence

One fact is that the average IQ scores of children from different racial and ethnic groups do differ. For example, the average IQ score of European American children is about 10 points higher than that of African American children (Dickens & Flynn, 2006). The average scores of Hispanic American and Native American children are a few points higher than those of African American children, and those of Asian American children are a few points higher than those of European Americans -These differences are explained in part by differences in social-class backgrounds. Within each social class, however, differences in mean IQ scores of African American and European American children also are present, though they are smaller than those that are present when social class is not held constant -A second fact is that scientific statements about group differences in IQ scores refer to statistical averages rather than to any individual's score. Understanding this second fact is essential for interpreting the first. Millions of African American children have IQ scores higher than the average European American child, and millions of European American children have IQ scores lower than the average African American child. Far more variability exists within each racial group than between them. Thus, data on the average IQ score of members of an ethnic or racial group tell us nothing about any individual. -A third crucial fact is that differences in IQ and achievement test scores of children from different racial and ethnic groups describe children's performance only in the environments in which the children live. The findings do not indicate their intellectual potential, nor do they indicate what their scores would be if the children lived in different environments. Indeed, with decreases in discrimination and inequality in the past 50 years, achievement test differences between European American and African American children have decreased considerably. A rigorous analysis of changes over time in intelligence test scores showed that African American schoolchildren reduced the gap with European American schoolchildren by 4 to 7 points between 1972 and 2002

Acaemic Achievements

One important goal to which children apply their intelligence is learning the skills and concepts taught at school. Because these skills and concepts are necessary to academic achievement, because they are central to success in adulthood, and because they can be difficult to master, children spend more than 2000 days in school from 1st through 12th grade. Much of this time is devoted to acquiring proficiency in reading, writing, and mathematics.

Influence of Society

One reflection of societal influences is that in many countries throughout the world, average IQ scores have consistently risen over the past 80 years, a phenomenon that has been labeled the Flynn effect in honor of James Flynn, the researcher from New Zealand who discovered this widespread trend -Given that the gene pool has not changed appreciably over this period, the increase in IQ scores must be due to changes in society. The specific source of the Flynn effect remains controversial. Some researchers argue that the key factors are improvements in the lives of low-income families, such as improved nutrition, health, and formal education - researchers point to evidence that the increase in IQ scores has been greatest among those in the lower part of the IQ score and income distributions. -An alternative plausible explanation for the increases in IQ scores is increased societal emphasis on abstract problem solving and reasoning - Supporting this interpretation is the fact that scores on tests of fluid intelligence, which reflects abstract problem solving and reasoning, have increased much more (roughly twice as much) than scores on tests of crystallized intelligence, which measure knowledge of facts and procedures, such as vocabulary and arithmetic -One source of these recent increases in fluid intelligence might be experience with new technologies, such as video games. Several studies have found that playing video games increases performance on a number of measures of fluid intelligence, such as selective attention -Moreover, Haier and colleagues (2009) found that 3 months of playing a video game led to increased brain thickness in areas of adolescent girls' brains that are specifically activated by playing the game and that are active in the types of spatial tasks that are often used to measure fluid intelligence. Other studies, however, have found weak or no relation between playing video games and fluid intelligence so the contribution of video games to fluid intelligence remains controversial. One conclusion that sparks no controversy is that poverty hinders intellectual development. reasons: better nutrition, health care, and access to education - effect seen mostly in lower IQ groups

Pre-reading skills

Preschoolers acquire certain basic information about reading just from looking at books and having their parents read to them. They learn that (in English and other European languages) text is read from left to right; that after they reach the right end of a line, the text continues at the extreme left of the line below; and that words are separated by small spaces. well-educated parents also tend to learn the names of most or all the letters of the alphabet before they enter school. This tends not to be true of children whose parents are poorly educated 86% of children whose mothers graduated from college were proficient in letter recognition, but only 38% of children whose mothers did not complete high school were Kindergartners' mastery of letter names is positively correlated with their later reading achievement through at least 7th grade However, no causal relation exists between the two: teaching the names of the letters to randomly chosen preschoolers does not increase their subsequent reading achievement other variables, such as children's interest in books and parents' interest in their children's reading, stimulate both early knowledge of the alphabet and later high reading achievement. Phonemic awareness, on the other hand, is correlated with later reading achievement and is also a cause of it. To measure awareness of the component sounds within words, researchers ask children to decide whether two words start with the same sound, to identify component sounds within a word, and to indicate what would remain if a given sound were removed from a word. Kindergartners' performance on these measures of phonemic awareness is the strongest known predictor of their ability to sound out and spell words in the early grades—stronger even than IQ score or social-class background Phonemic awareness continues to be related to reading achievement as many as 11 years later, above and beyond the influence of the child's social-class background a review of 52 well-controlled experimental studies indicated that teaching phonemic-awareness skills to 4- and 5-year-olds causes them to become better readers and spellers, with the effects enduring for years after the training Although explicit training can help foster phonemic awareness, most children do not receive such training. Where, then, does phonemic awareness come from in the natural environment? One relevant experience is hearing nursery rhymes. Many nursery rhymes highlight the contribution of individual sounds to differences among words (e.g., "I do not like green eggs and ham; I do not like them, Sam I am.") Other factors that contribute to the development of phonemic awareness include growth of working memory, increasingly efficient processing of language, and, especially, reading itself Children with greater phonemic awareness read more and read better, which, in turn, leads to further increases in their phonemic awareness and in the quantity and quality of their reading.

Comprehension

Quickly and accurately identifying individual words is necessary but not sufficient for comprehending the text in which the words appear (Olson et al., 2014). Consistent with this view, word-identification skill and text comprehension are closely related in the early grades, but after 4th grade, the correlation weakens, and reading comprehension is more closely related to listening comprehension than to word identification ( Johnston, Barnes, & Desrochers, 2008). In other words, language processing, regardless of whether the language is in printed or oral form, becomes the key determinant of reading comprehension. The path to strong or weak reading comprehension begins even before children start school. Hearing stories told or read by their parents helps preschoolers learn how stories tend to go, facilitating their understanding of new stories once they read themselves. It also enhances their general level of language development The amount that parents read to their children during the preschool years also partially accounts for the differences between the reading comprehension skills of children from middle- and low-income families. 96% of parents of preschoolers read to them daily. The same was true of only 15% of parents of preschoolers in a poor district with low scores The straightforward implication of these findings is that if preschoolers from poor families were read to daily, they too would become better readers. The evidence is consistent with this inference. Encouraging low-income parents to also actively engage their children in the reading process, such as by asking them to relate what is being read to their own experiences or to explain the characters' goals and motivations, helps even more

Word identification

Rapid, effortless identification of words is crucial to reading comprehension and enjoyment of reading. identified in two main ways

Word Identification

Rapid, effortless word identification is crucial not only to reading comprehension but also to reading enjoyment. One remarkable finding makes the point: 40% of 4th-graders with poor word identification skills said they would rather clean their rooms than read. Suggests link between rapid word identification and reading enjoyment Not only does poor word identification make reading slow and laborious, it also leads children to read no more than is absolutely necessary, which, in turn, limits improvement in reading skills. Words can be identified in two main ways: phonological recoding and visually based retrieval.

musical intelligence

Sensitivity to individual tones and phrases of music; an understanding of ways to combine tones and phrases into larger musical rhythms and structures; awareness of emotional aspects of music

linguistic intelligence

Sensitivity to the meanings and sounds of words; mastery of syntax; appreciation of the ways language can be used

Naturalistic Intelligence

Sensitivity to, and understanding of, plants, animals, and other aspects of nature

Influences on Reading Development

Ses and parental occupation can have impact on reading development ses/occupation --> parents interaction with child. \ amount parent talks to child --> # of words child knows childs vocab --> reading proficiency

Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Seven defined types of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal evidence: -deficits in people with brain injury -child prodigies and savants Educational application: children learn best if instruction builds on their intellectual strengths Caveat: children learn best from info in multiple modalities - most people do not want to learn in one way Emotional regulation - if a teacher is spending their time sorting disputes they lost time to teach - crucially important for educational outcomes and life success

theory of successful intelligence

Sternberg's theory of intellect, based on the view that intelligence is the ability to achieve success in life (p. 350) Robert Sternberg (1999; 2007) also argued that the emphasis of IQ tests on the type of intelligence needed to succeed in school is too narrow. However, the alternative view of intelligence that he proposed differs from that proposed by Gardner. In his view, success in life reflects people's ability to build on their strengths, to compensate for their weaknesses, and to select environments in which they can succeed. When people choose a job, for instance, their understanding of the conditions that will motivate them may be crucial to their success. Sternberg proposed that success in life depends on three types of abilities: analytic, practical, and creative. Analytic abilities involve the linguistic, mathematical, and spatial skills that are measured by traditional intelligence tests. Practical abilities involve reasoning about everyday problems, such as how to resolve conflicts with other people. Creative abilities involve intellectual flexibility and innovation that allow adaptation to novel circumstances.

Video 1

The University Community Links program (UC Links) from the University of California provides after-school enhancement of study for at-risk students up through high school grades throughout the state of California. Trained university student mentors consider cultural contexts and aspects of formal operational thinking in order to help younger students become stronger academically. In the following excerpt from a video clip made by UC Links, you will hear from professionals, student mentors, and students enrolled in the University Community Links program of California. In terms of IQ and academic performance, how might the students in this program benefit in the long run? What advantage would the UC Links program have over early-intervention programs, such as Head Start, in the overall achievement of at-risk students? The students in this program would most likely show an increase in IQ and this may last throughout their lives. They will probably be less likely than students not enrolled in the program to be put into special education programs and may be more likely to go on to higher education. Because this program works with the children's schooling and continues through their high school years, these children will be more likely than Head Start students to reap lasting benefits from the program. The addition of one-on-one mentoring and cultural considerations may also boost students' self-esteem.

Pre-writing skills

The development of writing, like the development of reading, begins before children receive formal schooling By age 4, children's "writing" is sufficiently advanced that adults have no trouble distinguishing it from the figures 4-year-olds produce when asked to draw a flower or a house Preschoolers' "writing" indicates that they expect meaning to be reflected in print. They use more marks to represent words that signify many objects, such as "forest," than to represent words that signify a single object, such as "tree" when asked to guess which of several words is the name for a particular object, they generally choose longer words for larger objects

effects of Poverty

The negative effects of poverty on children's IQ scores are indisputable. Even after taking into account the mother's education, whether both parents live with the child, and the child's race, the adequacy of family income for meeting family needs is related to children's IQ scores -Further, the more years children spend in poverty, the lower their scores tend to be -Poverty exerts negative effects on intellectual development in numerous ways. Chronic inadequate diet early in life can disrupt brain development; missing meals on a given day (e.g., achievement test day) can impair intellectual functioning on that day; reduced access to health services can result in more absences from school; conflicts between adults in the household can produce emotional turmoil that interferes with learning; insufficient intellectual stimulation can lead to a lack of background knowledge needed to understand new material; and so on. -One source of evidence for the relation between poverty and IQ is the fact that in all countries that have been studied, children from wealthier homes score higher on IQ and achievement tests, on average, than do children from poorer homes Large differences between children from less and more affluent backgrounds are already present in measures of reading and math knowledge when children enter kindergarten -More telling, in those developed countries where the income gap between rich and poor is widest, such as the United States, the difference between the intellectual achievement of children from rich and poor homes is much larger than in countries in which the gap is smaller, such as the Scandinavian countries and, to a lesser degree, Germany, Canada, and Great Britain. -children from affluent U.S. families score, on average, about the same on mathematics achievement tests as children from affluent families in some comparison countries with greater income equality. In contrast, children from poor U.S. families have average achievement test scores far below children from poor families in those same comparison countries. The key difference is that poor U.S. families are much poorer, relative to others in their society, than their counterparts in many other developed countries. Thus, in 2014, 21% of U.S. children lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold ( Jiang, Ekono, & Skinner, 2016). By contrast, in a set of 35 other developed countries, only 11% of children were from families with this low a percentage of the median income in their country the more years children spend in poverty, the lower their iq tend to be how poverty impacts iq - nutrition health care intellectual stimulation emotional support some children are resilient despite apparent risk factors (due to high quality parenting)

phonological recoding skills

The process of mentally going through the sound of the word to get from the printed word to the word's meaning. ability to translate letters into sounds and to blend sounds into words; informally called sounding out (p. 351) (stage 1)

Genetic influences are mediated by family income (SES)

The relative influence of shared environments and genetics varies with family income. Among children and adolescents from low-income families in the United States, the shared environment accounts for more of the variance in IQ scores and academic achievement than genetics does. In contrast, among children and adolescents from middle- and high-income families in the United States, the relative influence of shared environment and genetics is reversed differing patterns are found as early as age 2 years among middle and upper class families genetic influences are higher among lower class families influences in shared environments are higher true in the US but not in GB, germany, Sweden and the netherlands or Australia --> socialized medicine and child support (access to quality education depends less on family income).

Both theories

The theories proposed by Gardner and Sternberg have inspired rethinking of long-held assumptions about intelligence. Intelligence and success in life clearly involve a broader range of capabilities than traditional IQ tests measure, and assessing a broader range of capabilities may allow more encompassing theories of intelligence. There is not now, nor will there ever be, a single correct theory of intelligence, nor a single best measure of it. What is possible is a variety of theories, and tests based on them, that together reveal the varied ways in which people can be intelligent.

logical-mathematical intelligence

Understanding of objects and symbols, of the actions that can be performed on them, and of the relations between these actions; ability for abstraction; ability to identify problems and seek explanations

Conceptual understanding of arithmetic

Understanding why some arithmetic procedures are appropriate and others inappropriate poses a major challenge for many children, even those who have memorized the correct procedure. Such conceptual understanding of arithmetic begins developing during the preschool period;

bodily-kinesthetic intelligence

Use of one's body in highly skilled ways for expressive or goal-directed purposes; capacity to handle objects skillfully

Video 2

When solving single-digit math problems such as 4 + 3, for example, young children use a variety of strategies, from counting on their fingers to retrieving the answer from memory. According to Siegler, young children choose among these various strategies adaptively and, over time, increasingly select the strategies that provide the most efficient path to a correct answer and abandon strategies that are inefficient. In the following trials, a kindergartener can be observed using several strategies in solving such problems. She will increasingly use the strategy of retrieval, as she does in the final trial. In evolution, organisms vary in many ways, and the ones best adapted to the environment tend to survive and increase in number over time. In cognitive development, children's ideas and strategies vary in many ways, and the most useful ideas and strategies tend to be increasingly employed as children increase in age and

Mathematics Anxiety

a negative emotional state that leads to fear and avoidance of math Such anxiety can be evident as early as 1st grade and for many people presents a lifelong problem. Mathematics evokes more anxiety than other school subjects, probably because of the unambiguous right/wrong status of answers to many mathematics problems, the widespread belief that mathematics is closely linked to intelligence, and the frustrating periods with no apparent progress that mathematics learning often entails. mathematics anxiety is considerably more prevalent in girls than in boys Not surprising, it is more common among people who do poorly in math, though some people experience it despite having high mathematics achievement and not suffering from high anxiety in general when presented with mathematics tasks, people with math anxiety show both unusually great activity on the right side of the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in processing negative emotions, and depressed activity in brain areas crucial to working memory The mechanisms are not well understood, but one contributor appears to be the views of adults who are important in the children's lives. Parents and teachers who are themselves anxious about mathematics tend to convey their beliefs and feelings to their children. The problem seems to be especially great for girls whose parents and teachers are pessimistic about girls' mathematical abilities The negative impact of anxiety on mathematics learning has prompted efforts to find ways of reducing the anxiety. One promising intervention is surprisingly simple: have students write a brief description of their emotions just before taking a test. Such expressive writing reduces anxiety and boosts performance in a variety of areas in which negative emotions interfere with learning and performance, including mathematics Putting the negative thoughts on paper might help students think about the situation more objectively and thus allow them to concentrate on the math problems.

Alternative Perspectives on Intelligence

a number of contemporary theorists have noted that many important aspects of intelligence are not measured by IQ tests. These tests assess verbal, mathematical, and spatial capabilities, but they do not directly examine other abilities that seem to be important parts of intelligence: creativity, social understanding, knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses, and so on. This perspective has led Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg to formulate theories of intelligence that encompass a wider range of human abilities than do traditional theories.

fluid intelligence:

ability to think on the spot to solve novel problems -does not require formal schooling -ability to think on the spot to solve novel problems (p. 327) -example, by drawing inferences and understanding relations between concepts that have not been encountered previously. It is closely related to adaptation to novel tasks, speed of information processing, working-memory functioning, and ability to control attention

Genes, environment, and the development of intelligence

children contribute to their own intellectual development through their genetic endowment, the reactions they elicit from other people, and their choice of environments -A useful starting point for thinking about genetic and environmental influences on intelligence is Bronfenbrenner's (1993) bioecological model of development - This model envisions children's lives as embedded within a series of increasingly encompassing environments. The child, with a unique set of qualities including his or her genetic endowment and personal experiences, is at the center. Surrounding the child is the immediate environment, especially the people and institutions with which the child interacts directly: family, school, classmates, teachers, neighbors, and so on. Surrounding the immediate environment are more distant, and less tangible, forces that also influence development: cultural attitudes, the social and economic system, mass media, the government, and so on.

Continuity of IQ scores

children's IQ scores at different ages show continuity from age 5 onward -evidence from longitudinal studies -If IQ is a consistent property of a person, then the IQ scores that people obtain at different ages should be highly correlated. Longitudinal studies that have measured the same children's IQ scores at different ages have, in fact, shown impressive continuity from age 5 onward. -For example, one study indicated that the same children's IQ scores at ages 5 and 15 correlated 0.67 (Humphreys, 1989). This is a remarkable degree of continuity over a 10-year period. measurements conducted closer in time are more closely correlated -scores are more stable at older ages the closer in time that IQ tests are given, the more stability is found. Thus, the same study that found that IQ scores at ages 5 and 15 correlated 0.67 also found that scores at ages 5 and 9 correlated 0.79 and at ages 5 and 6 correlated 0.87. In addition, for any given length of time between tests, scores are more stable at older ages. For instance, in one study, IQ scores of 4- and 5-year-olds correlated 0.80, those of 6- and 7-year-olds correlated 0.87, and those of 8- and 9-year-olds correlated 0.90 changes in IQ scores over time function of: -characteristics of children and their parents -alterations in children environment -random variations (alertness, mood) Although a person's IQ scores at different ages tend to be similar, the scores are rarely identical. Children who take an IQ test at age 4 and again at age 17 show an average change, up or down, of 13 points; those who take the test at ages 8 and 17 show an average change of 9 points; and those who take it at ages 12 and 17 show an average change of 7 points Changes in the child's environment, such as those associated with parental divorce or remarriage or moving to a better or worse neighborhood, also can produce changes in IQ score; the greater similarity of children's environments over shorter periods of time probably contributes to the greater similarity of scores over shorter periods

genotype-environment interactions

children's environments partially influenced by their genotype

Gestures index learning

childrens gestures revealed more of their thinking about the problem then did their speech along gesture -speech mismatchers benefited more from instruction than children whose gestures matched their speech suggests they are at an optimal point to learn new strategies

Mental model

cognitive processes used to represent a situation or sequence of events (p. 354) represent the situation or idea being depicted in the text and continuously updating it as new information appears All the types of mental operations that influence cognitive development in general—basic processes, strategies, metacognition (knowledge about people's thinking), and content knowledge—also influence the development of reading comprehension. Basic processes such as encoding (identification of key features of an object or event) and automatization (executing a process with minimal demands on cognitive resources) are crucial to reading comprehension. The reason is simple: children who identify the key features of stories will understand the story better, and children who automatically identify the key features of words will have more cognitive resources left to devote to comprehension. Fast, accurate word identification correlates positively with reading comprehension at all points from 1st grade through adulthood Development of reading comprehension is also aided by acquisition of reading strategies. Increasing metacognitive knowledge also enhances reading comprehension. With age and experience, readers increasingly monitor their ongoing understanding and reread passages they do not understand

Carolina Abecedarian Project

comprehensive and successful enrichment program for children from low-income families (p. 346) Features: 6months - 5 years old 7:45 m - 5:30pm days/wk 50 weeks a year extensive focus on: communication, responsiveness, exploration, academic skills parent education: nutrition, health care, child development Control group (also got nutritional/health benefits, but no educational intervention) Results: 21 years treatment IQ > control IQ also lower rates of special education being held back arrest high graduation rates positive effects on moms (esp teen moms, moms with less education) positive effects of carolina abecedarian project did not include: Increased longevity for participants

mathematical equality

concept that the values on each side of the equal sign must be equivalent (p. 362) the values on each side of the equal sign must be balanced children in us mostly encounter problems like 3 + $ + interpret the = to mean start adding all the numbers so problems like 3 + 4+ 5 = __ + 5 are often answered incorrectly Eventually, however, children encounter arithmetic problems with numbers on both sides of the equal sign, such as 3 + 4 + 5 = __ + 5. As late as 4th grade, most children in the United States answer such problems incorrectly The most common incorrect approach is to add all the numbers to the left of the equal sign, which in the above problem sum to 12, and to assume that this sum is the answer to the problem. Such errors reflect interference from the vast amount of practice children have had solving typical addition problems, which have no number following the equal sign as well as a lack of understanding that the equal sign means that the values on both sides of it must be equivalent.

Flynn effect

consistent rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the past 80 years in many countries (p. 341)

Intelligence as a single trait

each individual possesses a certain amount of g (general intelligence) -measures of g correlate with: -indictors of school achievement -information-processing speed -speed of neural transmissions in the brain -knowledge of subjects not studied in school single trait that influences all aspects of cognitive functioning. Supporting this idea is the fact that performance on all intellectual tasks is positively correlated: children who do well on one task tend to do well on others, too These positive correlations occur even among dissimilar intellectual tasks—for example, remembering lists of numbers and folding pieces of paper to reproduce printed designs. Such omnipresent positive correlations have led to the hypothesis that each of us possesses a certain amount of g that g influences our ability to think and learn on all intellectual tasks Numerous sources of evidence attest to the usefulness of viewing intelligence as a single trait. Measures of g, such as overall scores on intelligence tests, correlate positively with school grades and achievement test performance At the level of cognitive and brain mechanisms, g correlates with information-processing speed, speed of neural transmission Measures of g also correlate strongly with people's general information about the world

Mathematics

early numerical skills form the foundation for children to learn arithmetic and more advanced mathematical skills variety of strategies that children due to solve arithmetic problems in different contexts

crystallized intelligence:

factual knowledge about the world -knowledge of word meanings, state capitals, answers to arithmetic problems, and so on. It reflects long-term memory for prior experiences and is closely related to verbal ability

Problems

highly controversial and culturally biased reducing someones intelligence to a number is ethnically questionable intelligence does not equal worth or value -but useful for helping children, in the classroom and in science -Teachers- help them do their job evaluations

Intelligence Tests

not direct measurement of intelligence itself -they are measurements of observable behavior on a variety of types of tasks that require intelligence -measure different aspects of intelligence in children of different ages -they have their greatest success and widest application with preschoolers and older children

Intelligence as numerous processes

intelligence comprised from numerous distinct processes remembering, perceiving, planning, comprehending, solving problems, encoding, reasoning, forming concepts problem - what doesn't count - lot of aspects -intelligence as comprising numerous, distinct processes. Information-processing analyses of how people solve intelligence test items and how they perform everyday intellectual tasks such as reading, writing, and arithmetic reveal that a great many processes are involved -processes include remembering, perceiving, attending, comprehending, encoding, associating, generalizing, planning, reasoning, forming concepts, solving problems, generating and applying strategies, and so on. Viewing intelligence as "many processes" allows more precise specification of the mechanisms involved in intelligent behavior than do approaches that view it as "a single trait" or as "several abilities."

Measuring Intelligence

intelligence is usually viewed as an invisible capacity to think and learn, any measure of it must be based on observable behavior. Thus, when we say that a person is intelligent, we mean that the person acts in intelligent ways. One of Binet's profound insights was that the best way to measure intelligence is by observing people's actions on tasks that require a variety of types of intelligence: problem solving, memory, language comprehension, spatial reasoning, and so on. Modern intelligence tests continue to sample these and other aspects of intelligence. Controversial - Ceci (1996) and Sternberg (2008) argue that measuring a quality as complex and multifaceted as intelligence requires assessing a much broader range of abilities than are assessed by current intelligence tests; that current intelligence tests are culturally biased; and that reducing a person's intelligence to a number (the IQ score) is simplistic and ethically questionable. Advocates - argue that intelligence tests are better than any alternative method for predicting important outcomes such as school grades, achievement test scores, and occupational success; that they are valuable for making decisions such as which children should be given special education; and that alternative methods for making educational decisions, such as evaluations by teachers or psychologists, are subject to greater bias.

Phonological recoding

involves converting the visual form of a word into a verbal, speechlike form and using the speechlike form to determine the word's meaning.

Standard Deviation (SD)

measure of the variability of scores in a distribution; in a normal distribution, 68% of scores fall within 1 SD of the mean, and 95% of scores fall within 2 SDs of the mean (p. 332) measure of the variability of scores in a distribution; in a normal distribution, 68% of scores fall within 1 SD of the mean, and 95% of scores fall within 2 SDs of the mean (p. 332) a child scoring 1 standard deviation above the mean for his or her age (a score higher than 84% of children) receives a score of 115 (the mean of 100 plus the 15-point SD). Similarly, a child scoring 1 standard deviation below the mean (a score higher than only 16% of children) receives a score of 85 (the mean of 100 minus the SD of 15). also reflects the fact that about 95% of children obtain IQ scores that fall within 2 standard deviations of the mean (between 70 and 130). advantage of this scoring system is that IQ scores at different ages are easy to compare, despite the great increases in knowledge that accompany development in all children. A score of 130 at age 5 means that a child's performance exceeded that of 98% of age peers; a score of 130 at age 10 or 20 means exactly the same thing. This property has facilitated analysis of the stability of individuals' IQ scores over time, a topic we turn to next.

evidence for multi-trait

measures of crystalized intelligence correlated more highly with other measures of crystalized intelligence (same for fluid) and not necessarily with other -different developmental trajectories - one increases with development (crystalized) and one decreases with development (fluid)

Numerical magnitude representations

mental models of the sizes of numbers, ordered along a less-to-more dimension (p. 361) The idea that symbolically expressed numbers represent magnitudes might seem obvious, but accurately linking such numbers and the magnitudes they represent actually constitutes a major challenge for children over a prolonged period of development. Here are some examples: many preschoolers who can count flawlessly from 1 to 10 do not know whether 4 or 8 indicates the greater number of objects

Evidence of one trait (g)

most measures correlate strongly despite lack of surface similarity cognitive processes that influence the ability to think and learn on all intellectual tasks (p. 327)

Reading development

most middle income children learn the names of letters of the alphabet before they enter school no causal relationship between early mastery of letter names and reading achievement (but the two are positively correlated) Phonemic awareness is both correlated with later reading achievement and a cause of it

Sandra Scarr: effects of the genotype arise because of

passive effects: overlap between parents and children genes - when children are raised by their biological parents. These effects occur not because of anything the children do but because of the overlap between their parents' genes and their own. Thus, children whose genotypes predispose them to enjoy reading are likely to be raised in homes with plentiful access to reading matter because their parents also like to read. evocative effects: children elicit or influence other people's behaviors - emerge through children's eliciting or influencing other people's behavior. For example, even if a child's parents are not avid readers, they will read more bedtime stories to a child who is interested in the stories than to one who is uninterested. active effects: children choose environments they enjoy -children's choosing environments that they enjoy. A high school student who loves reading will read a great deal, regardless of whether he or she was read to when young. The evocative and active effects of the genotype help explain how children's IQ scores become more closely related over time to those of their biological parents, even if the children are adopted and never see their biological parents.

Normal distribution

pattern of data in which scores fall symmetrically around a mean value, with most scores falling close to the mean and fewer and fewer scores farther from it (p. 332) with most scores falling relatively near the mean. The farther a score is from the mean, the smaller the percentage of people who obtain it. Similarly, the normal distribution found in intelligence test scores of children of a given age means that most IQ scores are fairly close to the mean, with relatively few children obtaining very high or very low scores. Early designers of IQ tests made an arbitrary decision that has been maintained ever since: a score of 100 is given to children who score exactly at the mean for their age at the time the test is developed. (The mean score can rise or fall in the years after a particular test is developed, and indeed, as discussed later in this chapter, IQ scores on specific tests have risen throughout the industrialized world over the past century.)

gesture-speech mismatches

phenomenon in which hand movements and verbal statements convey different ideas (p. 363) The gestures play a causal role in learning as well: children who are encouraged to gesture appropriately while explaining answers to mathematical equality problems learn more than children asked not to gesture The positive relation between gesture-speech mismatches and subsequent learning has emerged on number conservation and physics problems as well as on mathematical equality problems. These findings illustrate a widespread phenomenon: variability of thought and action (e.g., generating gestures that differ from one's speech or advancing multiple explanations of a phenomenon rather than just one) often indicates heightened readiness to learn

Intervention: Neural Evidence

phonological intervention for kids with dyslexia kids scanned pre and post intervention

Reading disability (dyslexia)

problems with phonological processing (understanding and interpreting sounds) the inability to read well despite normal intelligence (5-10% of children in US) most children with dyslexia are poor at reading primarily because of a general weakness in phonological processing studies of brain imaging - Studies of brain functioning support the view that poor phonological processing is at the heart of dyslexia. When dyslexic children read, two areas of their brains are less active than the corresponding areas in typical children reading the same words children with dyslexia should be taught to use strategies that enhance their phonological recoding skills The causes of dyslexia are not well understood, but genetics are clearly part of the story. If one of a pair of monozygotic twins is diagnosed as dyslexic, the probability of the other twin receiving a similar diagnosis is 84%, whereas if the twins are dizygotic, the corresponding probability is 48% At a cognitive level of analysis, dyslexia stems primarily from weak ability to discriminate between phonemes, from poor short-term memory for verbal material, from limited vocabulary, and from slow recall of the names of objects Determining the sounds that go with vowels is especially difficult for children with dyslexia, because of these weaknesses, dyslexic children have great difficulty mastering the letter-sound correspondences used in phonological recoding, especially in languages, such as English, with irregular sound-symbol correspondences One tempting idea is that because these children have difficulty learning phonics, they would learn better through an approach that de-emphasizes letter-sound relations and instead emphasizes either visually based retrieval or reliance on context. These alternative methods work poorly, however (Compton et al., 2014); there is simply no substitute for being able to sound out unfamiliar words. Instead, teaching children with dyslexia to use strategies that enhance their phonological recoding appears to be at least somewhat helpful.

Strategy-choice process

procedure for selecting among alternative ways to solve a problem (p. 353) (use both apporaches) choose the fastest approach that is likely to allow correct word identification. In the context of reading, this means that on easy words, children rely heavily on the fast but not always accurate approach of visually based retrieval; on hard words, they resort to the slower but surer strategy of phonological recoding. The mechanisms underlying this adaptive strategy choice involve a form of associative learning in which children's past behavior shapes their future behavior (Siegler, 1996; 2006). Beginning readers rely heavily on phonological recoding, because the associations between words' visual forms and their sounds are too weak to allow much use of retrieval. Correct use of phonological recoding increases the associations between words' visual forms and their sounds, which in turn allows greater use of visually based retrieval. Consistent with this view, the shift to retrieval occurs earliest for words on which children most often execute phonological recoding correctly—words that are short, that have regular letter-sound relations, and that children encounter frequently. Also consistent with this view, children who are better at phonological recoding stop using that approach earlier because their past success with it enables them to shift more rapidly to visually based retrieval. A third correct implication is that reading instruction that emphasizes phonics, and the strategy of phonological recoding, should help to produce fast and accurate word identification With age and experience, vocabulary knowledge becomes an increasingly important influence on word identification, particularly on words with irregular sound-symbol correspondences (Nation, 2008). This is seen in the positive effect of interventions that teach relevant vocabulary on children's subsequent comprehension of passages that include those terms (Apthorp et al., 2012; Goodson et al., 2010). However, phonological recoding skill also continues to be important, even for adults when they encounter unfamiliar words.

visually based retrieval

proceeding directly from the visual form of a word to its meaning involves processing a word's meaning directly from its visual form.

primary mental abilities

seven abilities proposed by Thurstone as crucial to intelligence (p. 328) word fluency, verbal meaning, reasoning, spatial visualization, numbering, rote memory, and perceptual speed. The key evidence for the usefulness of dividing intelligence into these seven abilities is similar to that for the distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence. Scores on various tests of a single ability tend to correlate more strongly with one another than do scores on tests of different abilities. For example, although both spatial visualization and perceptual speed are measures of fluid intelligence, children tend to perform more similarly on two tests of spatial visualization than they do on a test of spatial visualization and a test of perceptual speed. The trade-off between these two views of intelligence is between the simplicity of the crystallized/fluid distinction and the greater precision of the idea of seven primary mental abilities.

Genetic contributions to intelligence

the genetic contribution to intelligence is greater in older children than younger ones -This genetic influence varies greatly with age (Figure 8.5): it is moderate in early childhood and becomes large by adolescence and adulthood why: -some genetic processes do not impact IQ until later childhood and adolescence - neural connectivity -One reason for this increasing genetic influence is that some genetic processes do not exert their effects until late childhood or adolescence. For example, some types of synchronization of activities of distant brain areas are not evident until adolescence or early adulthood, and the extent of such synchronization reflects genetic influences -children increasingly select environments compatible with their own genetically based preferences -Another reason is that children's increasing independence with age allows them greater freedom to choose environments that are compatible with their own genetically based preferences but not necessarily with those of the parents who are raising them -Advances in genetics have inspired research aimed at identifying genes that explain individual differences in intelligence. These efforts have led to identification of a large number of genes that are associated with mental retardation and a large number of other genes that are consistently related to normal variation in intelligence -the correlations between individual alleles of genes and IQ are almost all very small. These findings suggest that genetic influences on intelligence reflect small contributions from each of a very large number of genes, as well as complex interactions among them, rather than one or a small number of master genes

Script

typical sequence of actions used to organize and interpret repeated events, such as eating at restaurants, going to doctors' appointments, and writing reports (p. 358)

Phonemic Awareness

understanding that words have parts (syllables) knowledge of individ sounds in words - recog of same beginning same endings (rhymes) lays the foundation for understanding the relationship between letters and speech sounds Teaching PA skills to 4 and 5 year olds causes them to become better readers and spellers for at least four years after training ability to identify component sounds within words (p. 351) (stage 0)

Wechsler intelligence test for children (WISC)

widely used test designed to measure the intelligence of children 6 years and older (p. 330) most widely used instrument for children 6 years and older; gives overall score comprised of 4 tests: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, processing/perceptual speed The current edition, the WISC-V, was revised in 2014 to reflect modern theoretical conceptions of intelligence and the current population of children in the United States, which is more diverse, both linguistically and culturally, than it was when earlier versions of the WISC were published The conception of intelligence underlying the WISC-V is consistent with Carroll's three-stratum framework, proposing that intelligence includes general ability (g), several moderately general abilities, and a large number of specific processes. The test yields not only an overall score but also separate scores on five moderately general abilities—verbal comprehension, visual-spatial processing, working memory, fluid reasoning, and processing speed. The WISC-V measures these abilities because they reflect skills that are important within information-processing theories, correlate positively with other aspects of intelligence, and are related to important outcomes, notably school grades and later occupational success.

Comprehension monitoring

with regard to language, understanding what others say (or sign or write) (p. 241) differentiates good readers from poor ones at all ages from 1st grade through adulthood. Instructional approaches that focus on comprehension monitoring and other metacognitive skills, such as anticipating questions that a teacher might ask about the material, have been shown to improve reading comprehension Perhaps the most powerful influence on the development of reading comprehension is increasing content knowledge. This content knowledge includes both understanding vocabulary terms and possessing general information about the subject Relevant content knowledge frees cognitive resources to focus on what is new or complex in the text and allows readers to draw reasonable inferences about information left unstated. Thus, when reading the headline "Blue Jays Maul Giants," readers knowledgeable about baseball realize that the headline concerns a baseball game; it is unclear how readers who lack baseball knowledge would interpret such a headline.