Saturday, 4 August 2012

TESTING INTELLIGENCE


The whole child is about Biosocial, Cognitive and Psychosocial of the child considered simultaneously. Children intelligence are usually measured in different formats, such as
--IQ tests – focuses on how people perform on standardized tests which are designed to measure skills and knowledge you have already learned.
--Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III)- A test for children that provides separate measures of verbal and performance (nonverbal) skills as well as a total score.
In Nigeria, it is usually, Standardized tests: Designed to measure individual characteristics, Determine development and learning, Plan instruction and Study differences between individuals and groups, for guidance and counselling.

My advice is that children assessment be tailored to a specific purpose and should be reliable, valid, and fair for the purpose, policies should be designed to recognize that reliability and validity of assessments increase with children’s age, both content and the method of data collection should be age appropriate and be linguistically appropriate, recognizing that to some extent all assessments are measures of language. Additionally it is important to know that the younger the child, the more difficult it is to obtain reliable and valid assessment data and some conventional assessment should be postponed until children are older than 8.
Finally, conduct the assessment in a setting familiar to the child, Develop rapport with the child before beginning the session to relax them, liaise with parents on this and consider separate method for challenged children. Also note that intelligence comes in different ways and one test cannot measure it all.

6 comments:

  1. Good post, I definitely agree with you about the fact that intellegence can't be measured in one test. Another thing we should consider is how a child learns something. For example if you show a child a sheet with shapes and ask him/her to point to a diamond, the child may not be able to do so if he/she has been taught that the shape is actually a rhombus. Very simple example but point should be well taken.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with you both. Intellegence should not be measured with one test. I believe that you must not only "test" the child but observe him/her as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello, Yes I agree as well. I like how you pointed out different ways in testing intelligence. Although IQ test are great, they sometimes can have difficulty in testing young childrens aptitude. Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I totally agree with your post finding the children there are and providing them with a relaxed and comfortable setting often makes the assessment more informational and less stressful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good post yes all test should be ge approoriate and it is very inmportant for testing to reliable and valid assessment so that the kids can be assessed right.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Vivian I has been a pleasure sharing all our ideas. I would like to thank you for all that you shared that has help inlightened me more concerning early childhood. I wish the best! again thanks!

    ReplyDelete