Anticipated Levels of Intelligence
January 23, 2010 by colleen
Filed under Ezine Archive, Logic and Reasoning
Did you know that our society has a preset of anticipated levels of intelligence? For example, average intelligence is considered to be around 100. Children with Learning Disabilities usually measure in at around 90-93 (Gajar, 1979; Webster & Schenck, 1978). However, if you will agree with me that a lot of children with learning disabilities have speech impediments, language issues and thus would negatively impact the preset IQ. Therefore, today, these IQ measures may not be very accurate (Bender, 2004).
There are some students with learning disablities who intelligence measure in the gifted range. They are known as gifted learning disabled. Students with IQs about 130 and a big difference between that measure of 130 and then one or more academic areas. So, the child-study or the psychologist will basically state your child is above average in intelligence and holding their own in their grades. They may let you know that your child scored very low within a certain academic area – lets say reading. However, since their grades are fine and their IQ is high, no services are being given to your child. Now, you probably went to get testing done because you noticed something within literacy (reading, writing, spelling, comprehension) was a bit off but the teachers were not concerned. For schools that will provide services, your child will be classified as gifted with learning disabilities or gifted learning disabled.
Remember, for those that have worked with or are presently working with me, IQ is an average of your child's complete cognitive abilities. Without being given exact specific measures within each cognitive skills set, you will not know what skills within the weak academic area need to be strengthened. Thus, you get a lot of accomodations and compensation to work around the weak cognitive and academic skills.
The good news is that ELSK offers comprehensive Gibson Cognitive Assessment that will provide you age equivalency in several cognitive skill areas. The age equivalency means the test will compare your child against their peers and show you where they resonate. For example, if your child is 8 years old, the assessment may show that your child is measuring at a 5 year old level within certain cognitive skill levels. Once this is revealed, you can now target the weak skills, strengthen them and see huge differences while helping your child increase in confidence and independence.
