Multiple Intelligence Theory and Child Development

The concept of intelligence, a very old one, has been employed in the most varied ways over the centuries. During the past century, there has been considerable movement on the "intelligence front," and this trend shows no sign of abating.

 

Lay Conceptions

Until this century, the word "intelligence" has been used primarily by ordinary individuals in an effort to describe their own mental powers as well as those of other persons. Consistent with ordinary language usage, "intelligence" has been deployed in anything but a precise manner. Forgetting about homonyms which denote the gathering of information, individuals living in the West were called "intelligent" if they were quick or eloquent or scientifically astute or wise. In other cultures, the individual who was obedient, or well behaved, or quiet, or equipped with magical powers, may well have been referred to by terms which have been translated as "intelligent."

For the most part, the word "intelligent" was used in a beneficent way; however, its imprecision can be readily displayed by a recognition that it has been applied to nearly all of the American presidents in this century, even though it is doubtful that any two of the presidents exhibited similar kinds of minds. Perhaps ironically, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, two of Americas least successful presidents, both of whom were engineers, probably came closest to the lay idea of "intelligence." It may be worth noting that they have become distinguished by their behaviors as ex-presidents.

 

The Scientific Turn

In a sequence of events that is by now familiar, Alfred Binet responded to requests from Parisian ministers at the turn of the century by creating the first intelligence test. It then became possible to estimate an individual's "intelligence" by noting his or her performance on a deliberately heterogeneous set of items, ranging from sensory discrimination to vocabulary knowledge. Used first clinically for "at risk" Parisian elementary schoolchildren, the intelligence test became "normed" on Californian middle-class children and was administered quite widely, thanks in large part to the efforts of Lewis Terman at Stanford University. By the 1920's and 1930's, intelligence tests (and their product, an individual's IQ) had become deeply ensconced not only in American society but also in many other parts of the world.

 

Pluralization of Intelligence

While intelligence was initially perceived as a unitary (if overarching) concept, which could be captured by a single number, a debate soon arose about whether the concept could legitimately be broken into components. Such researchers as L.L. Thurstone and J.P. Guilford argued that intelligence was better conceived of as a set of possibly independent factors. In recent years, buoyed by findings from fields as disparate as artificial intelligence, developmental psychology, and neurology, a number of investigators have put forth the view that the mind consists of several independent modules or "intelligences."

The "theory of multiple intelligences,"  argue that human beings have evolved to be able to carry out at least seven separate forms of analysis:

1. Linguistic intelligence (as a poet)
2. Logical-mathematical intelligence (as in a scientist);
3. Musical intelligence (as in a composer);
4. Spatial intelligence (as in a sculptor or airplane pilot);
5. Bodily kinesthetic intelligence (as in an athlete or dancer);
6. Interpersonal intelligence (as in a salesman or teacher);
7. Intrapersonal intelligence (exhibited by individuals with accurate views of themselves).

These ideas have attracted some attention on the part of educators seeking a more comprehensive and individualized educational system. 

Even though our efforts to understand intelligence have been advancing, we still know very little about how to nurture intelligence, be it conceptualized in unitary or pluralistic fashion, in individual-centered, contextualized, or distributed form. Yet surely our efforts to understand intelligence as scientists can best be crowned by a demonstration that intelligence can be nurtured in particular educational settings, using strategic pedagogical or facilitating techniques. Here lies one important challenge for the future.

 

Humanizing Intelligence.

Understanding the nature of the human mind in all of its complexity is no mean feat, and a complete understanding may well exceed human investigative capacities. But understanding intelligence-and even knowing how better to develop it-does not suffice in itself. Any human capacity can be used for ill as well as for good; and it is part of our responsibility as human beings living on a single troubled planet to try to use our competences, our intelligences, in morally responsible ways. This assignment cannot fall exclusively on the shoulders of researchers; nor can we simply afford to pass this responsibility on to others.

The human being is also more than his or her intellectual powers. Perhaps more crucial than intelligence in the human firmament are motivation, personality, emotions, and will. If we are ever to obtain a comprehensive and fully integrated picture of human beings, we need to meld our insights about cognition with comparable insights in respect to these other aspects of the human being. Perhaps, indeed, a different view of human nature will result from this activity of synthesis.

Obviously so grand an undertaking requires the highest degree of "distributed collaboration" among researchers, educators, and the general citizenry. Although the task is formidable, the advances made in understanding over the past decade give one some reason for optimism.