What the IQ Test Doesn’t Tell About Your Child?
We do not encounter sentences such as “My child is gifted”. He got a high score on the IQ test “My child has hyperactivity, and this happens because he is brilliant,” or “The doctor said, ‘Your child has a high IQ’, my child will be a genius.” Especially the millennium age, it has increased tremendously that parents compare their children with intelligence scores or distinguish them from their peers. Although the concept of intelligence has been researched from the past to the present, there is no clear definition. In psychology, subjects such as intelligence, mind, and brain are great for this field. Intelligence is intangible, but its effects and reflection on people are tangible.
IQ is an indicator used to score intelligence. If an individual’s mental age is the same as their calendar age, their IQ is 100. We can call this average intelligence. If the mental age is more than the calendar age, the expression as bright, superior, or very superior intelligence can be used based on the person’s score. On the contrary, if the mental age is below the calendar age, it can be defined as dull intelligence, ordinary mental retardation, mild mental retardation, moderate mental retardation, severe mental retardation, and profound mental retardation.
The WISC-R test is one of the most standard intelligence tests used to measure the IQ of individuals. This test, which consists of verbal and performance areas, provides us with information on sites such as reasoning skills, vocabulary, judgment skills, and visual organization without essential motor activity.
Moreover, it indicates whether the person can work under time pressure, attention span, and long and short-term auditory memory. By looking at the test scores, we can learn the ability of the individual to follow the instructions. Can a test that measures the skill I have counted and not counted so much be a roadmap for their children, especially for parents? Of course, it can be, but is a high IQ test enough to achieve a purpose in this life? What the IQ test does not say about your child We need to look at them a little. Life is dynamic. From birth, the child is brought up by his family structure, according to his culture and values. Intelligence is not enough for a person to be successful in life. How popular is the comparison of children’s intelligence scores by parents, whereas the number of books children read in a month is as significant as their intelligence score?
Moreover, intelligence tests do not show a person’s sense of responsibility and level. Skills such as responsibility and adaptability can also be acquired later. Your child won a university outside the city and wants to go home alone; the IQ test cannot show us that he will take this responsibility and adapt to this life. Self-care is one of the issues the individual should pay attention to the most. Are the child’s bathing and tooth brushing habits regular, is the general perception of cleanliness sufficient? To answer such questions, observation is necessary. Or, more than an IQ test is essential for us to know the behavior and attitudes of the child (both in terms of moral and social values) towards the older and younger ones.
As a result, an IQ test alone cannot recognize an individual, a child. IQ tests do not measure your child’s ability to appeal to emotions and speak to the other person from the heart. Nor can it determine your child’s ability to value what is precious. We can observe and gain knowledge in many areas, and we can be proud of these aspects. Moreover; Reason and moral-social values are a whole. The direction in which a gifted person will use his intelligence relates to the areas learned through observation. An engineer uses his intelligence to create a lock system; a thief uses his intelligence to block that system. That’s why the information the IQ test doesn’t tell us is as important as what it tells us. Being human is much more critical.
