Developmental Trends: Intelligence at Different Age Levels

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Infancy (Birth–2)

What You Might Observe:

• Success on test items that involve early developmental accomplishments (e.g., recognition memory, visual preferences, eye-hand coordination)
• Distractibility and short attention span
• Variability in performance from one assessment to the next
• Performance dependent on examiner’s ability to establish a positive relationship with the infant

Diversity:

• Temperamental differences (e.g., a tendency to be shy or cautious) affect infants’ willingness to interact with the examiner and test materials.
• Compared to full-term infants, infants born prematurely are less physically developed and more easily fatigued and so tend to obtain somewhat lower test scores. However, with good medical care and families’ responsive involvement, many premature infants gradually develop into healthy, intelligent individuals.
• Exposure to drugs or alcohol before birth may adversely affect test performance.

Implications:

• Create a secure and comfortable examiner-child relationship before beginning an assessment.
• Use results only to identify significant developmental delays requiring immediate intervention; refrain from making long-term predictions about intellectual growth.
• Communicate honestly with parents about their child’s test performance, while also describing the test’s strengths and weaknesses as an assessment tool.

Early Childhood (2–6)

What You Might Observe:

• Success on test items that involve naming objects, stacking blocks, drawing circles and squares, remembering short lists, and following simple directions
• Short attention span, influencing test performance
• Variability in test scores from one occasion to the next

Diversity:

• Significant developmental delays in the early years may indicate mental retardation or other disabilities.
• On average, children from lower-income families perform at lower levels on measures of cognitive development than children from middle-income families; however, enriching preschool experiences can narrow and occasionally eliminate the gap.

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).