Developmental Trends: Intelligence at Different Age Levels

Implications:

• Use IQ tests primarily to identify significant delays in cognitive development; follow up by seeking intervention programs for children with such delays.
• Provide preschool experiences that foster children’s language skills, knowledge of numbers and counting, and visual-spatial thinking.

Middle Childhood (6–10)

What You Might Observe:

• Success on test items that involve defining concrete words, remembering sentences and short sequences of digits, understanding concrete analogies, recognizing similarities among objects, and identifying absurdities in illogical statements
• Some consistency in test scores from one occasion to the next
• Noticeable differences among children in mastery of classroom subject matter

Diversity:

• For this age range, many intelligence tests become increasingly verbal in nature; thus proficiency with the English language can significantly affect test performance.
• Children with learning disabilities may perform poorly on some parts of an intelligence test.
• Children from some ethnic minority groups may perform poorly in situations where the examiner has not established rapport.

Implications:

• Individualize instruction to match children’s varying abilities to learn in particular content domains.
• Do not assume that poor performance in some domains necessarily indicates limited ability to learn in other areas.
• Take children’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds into account when interpreting IQ scores.

Early Adolescence (10–14)

What You Might Observe:

• Success on test items that involve defining commonly used abstract words, drawing logical inferences from verbal descriptions, and identifying similarities between opposite concepts
• Considerable individual differences in the ability to understand abstract material

Diversity:

• Some adolescents (especially those from certain ethnic minority groups) may not perceive high test performance as having personal benefits and so may not be motivated to perform at their best.
• Some adolescents who are gifted may try to hide their talents; cultures that stress traditional male and female roles may actively discourage females from achieving at high levels.

Implications:

• Expect considerable diversity in adolescents’ ability to master abstract classroom material, and individualize instruction accordingly.
• Make sure that school enrichment programs include students from ethnic minority groups; do not rely exclusively on IQ scores to identify students as gifted.

Late Adolescence (14–18)

What You Might Observe:

• Success on test items that involve defining infrequently encountered words, identifying differences between similar abstract words, interpreting proverbs, and breaking down complex geometric figures into their component parts
• Relative stability in most adolescents’ IQ scores
• Increasing independence to seek out opportunities consistent with existing ability levels (niche-picking)

Diversity:

• Concerns about appearing “too smart” may continue into the high school years.
• Some members of minority groups may underperform because their awareness of negative group stereotypes creates debilitating anxiety during a test.

Implications:

• Provide challenging activities for teenagers who are gifted.
• Encourage bright adolescents from lower-income families to pursue a college education, and help them with the logistics of college applications (e.g., applying for financial aid).