Intelligence

I have all three kids signed up with Harvard University's Lab for Developmental Studies. From time to time, they call when they are doing studies that fit my kids' ages and I bring them in for a "game" and then they get a prize. No big deal, but I just thought it would be interesting. So we all went yesterday and they were doing a study with Aidan and Gavin's age about counting objects. It is difficult to explain so I won't, lol. But they told me that the whole thing would last about 20 minutes or "until the child got bored". So, Aidan was up first and he lasted about 8 minutes. He was not answering their questions, he was crawling under the table looking for more animals (they were using small animal finger puppets in the study), he was looking at the Winnie the Pooh figures on the wall. It was actually kind of funny and I was chuckling to myself the whole time but also a little embarrassed. Now Gavin on the other hand, was a whole different story. He sat, listened to what the woman was asking him and pretty much stayed on task for about 20 minutes. At one point he was touching each animal and counting which is a skill that even some of my previous kindergarten students could not do. (I believe one-to-one correspondence comes around age 4 or 5). At another point during the task, he was humming Mozart while placing the finger puppets in a box. (Thank you Little Einsteins!) When we were walking out of the room, the woman running the study told me she thought he was advanced. I agreed that I thought what I saw in there was advanced too, but that I was his mother so of course I would think that.

I was thinking more about it on the way home. More specifically I was thinking about Aidan and how he had the attention span of a flea for that particular task. I was also thinking about how other people may view him based solely on a performance one specific time (such as the woman and this task). With Aidan, if it does not interest him then he will not even try to perform any sort of task. But, if the task does interest him then he will sit and be engaged for up to 30 or 40 minutes. And so now I am worried that when he gets to school, his teachers are not going to view him as "smart" in the traditional sense. I am not saying that Aidan is not smart. Not at all. He is very smart in certain areas. He has a great vocabulary and is into art and music (he also hums classical music like his brother). But ask him his letters and numbers and sometimes he won't even answer me. It is almost like he couldn't be bothered, he has other things to do.

There is a great book called 7 Kinds of Smart by Thomas Armstrong which talks about multiple intelligences. The book is divided into chapters such as "Music Smart", "Word Smart" and "Picture Smart" and as the names imply, discuss the many facets of intelligence within these categories. I had to read it in college while student teaching and I hope it is still on the course booklists.

And I hope Aidan and Gavin's future teachers have read it.