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Intelligence - Teaching and Parenting Regardless of the label you give it, personal involvement, caring, or love, there is probably no other factor that has a greater influence on the intelligence or effective functioning on an individual. Unfortunately in our society there seems to be a syndrome of not getting too involved. Sometimes this syndrome is supported by Aprofessionalism@, not becoming emotionally involved with clients or students. Unfortunately for many it is this emotional involvement, this caring, that makes the difference. For anyone involvement has a risk because sometimes we think we have failed and get hurt by caring. Following are four illustrations that indicate the importance in both a positive and negative sense of involvement, love and caring. The Retarded Dozen Skeels (1966) describes the effects of early intervention on young infant girls ages 7 to 30 months with IQ=s ranging from 89 to 35, low normal intelligence to severely retarded. This experimental group was transferred from an orphanage to an institution for the mentally handicapped where they were provided intense simulation by a mother surrogate. The group was compared with a control group of twelve subjects (ages 12.9 to 21.8 months, IQ 50 to 103) who remained at the orphanage. After two years the average gain of IQ for the experimental group was 28.5 IQ points, while the loss of the control group was 26.2 IQ points. Two-and-a-half years later, eleven experimental group children who had been placed in adoptive homes had increased their gains while two who were not placed declined in their rate of mental growth. The control group made slight gains in IQ but were still considered mentally retarded. After 21 years, all individuals in both groups were located and the groups maintained their differences. All thirteen of the experimental group were self-supporting or functioning adequately as housewives. Based on 1960 U.S. Census data these individuals were considered within the normal range of income and achievement. Examination of the group who did not have mother surrogates showed one had died in a state institution, one was in a mental hospital, three were in institutions for the mentally retarded and the rest were employed. The experimental group had completed a median of grade 12 while the contrast group had a median below a third grade. The cost to the state of Iowa for the control group was approximately five times that of the experimental group who had been provided with mother surrogates and the cost was continuing to increase because of the four institutionalized subjects. One might suspect that the mother surrogates where highly trained; however, the contrary is true - - the mother surrogates were mentally retarded teenage girls in the institution for the mentally handicapped. The Case of the Changing IQ A number of years ago The Council for Exceptional Children held an invisible college on early childhood education. One of the invited guests was Sam Kirk, who related an interesting case study to illustrate the role of environment on measured intelligence and academic functioning. A 4-and-a-half year old boy with an IQ of about 75 came to a pre-school program conducted by Dr. Kirk and Dr. Karnes where there was a ratio of about one adult to five children. During the period of about a year-and-a-half when he attended the pre-school his IQ increased about 10 to 12 points, to between 85 and 87. Dr. Kirk indicated they felt the boy was relatively normal but his learning was inhibited due to his mother, who seemed to be very disturbed, so much so that they requested social agencies to remove the boy from the home. This was not done. About the time the boy was to begin the first grade at age six, his mother was committed to a mental hospital and the boy was placed in a foster home outside Champaign, Illinois and put in a rural school. When followed up at the age of seven-and-a-half his IQ was 104 and he was reading at a grade level of 2.3 and doing arithmetic at a level of 2.4. He was just an average kid. Dr. Kirk noted that the foster home and the regular school had done more in a year-and-a-half than the pre-school with a ratio of one teacher to five children could do in an equivalent period so long as the boy remained with his emotionally disturbed mother. When he was about 8, his mother was released from the mental hospital, asked to have her boy back, and was awarded custody of her son. Two to three years later, when he was ten-and-a-half, his measured IQ was 75 and he was reading at the high second grade level. He had made almost no progress in the three years since his mother took him back. The change in IQ which apparently resulted from changing environment was almost 30 points or two standard deviations, enough of a difference to change his measured intelligence from a level that would be considered borderline retarded to normal and back to the borderline retarded level again. The Father Who Left A number of years ago, I was asked to give an individualized intelligence test to a boy who was doing poorly in school. As my normal custom, I examined the cumulative folder and tried to find any additional data that might assist in interpreting the results of the intelligence test and poor performance in school. The achievement test scores in the cumulative folder indicated that he had made over one year's progress during each of his first three years in school, but during the next several years had made almost no progress. Further investigation indicated that about the time the boy had completed the third grade, his father, to whom he was closely attached, deserted the family. From that point on, his academic achievement was severely retarded. I recently had opportunity to obtain information concerning the present status of this boy. He is attempting to take college work and is having considerable difficulty, some of which still seems to be related to emotional problems caused by the desertion of his father. Bowlby (1966) cites numerous studies which seem to support the profound effect that various forms of parental separation or family problems can have on the emotional, social, and academic functioning of children. The results of these studies not only seem to support the likelihood that academic progress may be affected but also indicate there is an increased possibility of anti-social behavior such as over-agressiveness, hostility, and various forms of crime. The Boy Who Didn't Talk About 1967 I had the opportunity to assist in starting an inner-city childcare program. Shortly after the program opened, a social service worker brought a mother and two children to the center. Both children appeared sickly. The little boy had rather bowed legs, a sallow brown complexion and eyes which seemed to be sunken into his head. After discussing the children with the mother and social worker, I requested in a private conversation with the social worker, that she make certain that the physical examination include a hemoglobin test. The results of the test showed that the boy had a hemoglobin of 9 and the little girl of 10, clearly in the anemic range. Further testing indicated that the children did not have a sickle-cell anemia. The children were placed in the center, put on a nutritional supplement, and received a balanced diet at the center. Initially, the little boy seemed almost unsteady on his feet. However, there was one thing that he did extremely well and that was eat. Some might consider him an ideal child, for when placed in a location he usually just sat there quietly. After about three months the teachers in his room became very concerned because he had not spoken, and wondered if he had a speech or hearing problem. One of the mothers who had a child in the center worked for the public school systems doing speech and hearing screening. I asked the mother if she would examine the little boy. She took him into an examination room and after about a half-hour, came out. When I asked her what she had learned, she indicated that the boy did not respond enough for her to make any determination and suggested that we try to get an eye-ear-nose-and-throat specialist to examine the boy. After completing the necessary papers to obtain payment through social services we took the boy to the specialist. About a week later, we received a letter indicating that the doctor could see no physical problem but was unable again to get a response sufficient to make any conclusive determination concerning his hearing or speech. The letter suggested that we take the boy to a speech and hearing clinic at Kalamazoo. The clinician who examined him was one of the most gifted individuals in working with children I have seen. As we watched from the other side of a one-way glass, we saw the clinician explain to the boy that when he heard a sound, he should drop a tinkertoy into a tinkertoy can. He illustrated this and it made a bang at the bottom of the metal can. His rapport was such that, for the first time, the boy seemed to smile. As we watched, we saw first one tinkertoy and then another drop into the can. Apparently he could hear, and indeed, it was confirmed, after the auditory screening, that he seemed to have normal hearing. The clinician then attempted to administer the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test but was unable to obtain a baseline. He was uncertain whether or not there was a speech problem but felt probably that none existed. Based upon this diagnosis, we decided to proceed as though the boy had adequate speech and hearing. Upon returning to the center, I asked a volunteer to work with the boy. Her instructions were that she could do anything she wished - - tell stories, play with him, take him on walks, etc. There were only two things that she was not to do. One, make certain that she did not do anything that would endanger or hurt him, and two, related to no other child in his presence. In about three months, when the volunteer entered the room where he was located, he would walk across the room, grab her around the knees, and shyly look up and say, That's my teacher. In about six months, when she entered the room and he saw her, he would shout from the other side of the room, That's my teacher! run across the room, apparently oblivious to anyone in his way, grab her around the legs and hug her. While he had initially been almost passive, he now became actively involved with other children and was communicating verbally to both teachers and children. When one of the other children said, That's my teacher, too, he was ready to fight with the other child. About this time, we decided we should attempt to give him another Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. At this time he scored at the 27th percentile. In six months time he had moved from a point where we were unable to obtain a baseline to a point where he scored in the low average range. Special programs providing breakfast to physically hungry children have been set up because we believe that a child who was hungry was less likely to learn what was being taught. Not only does there seem to be physical hunger, but just as surely, emotional hunger, which if not met may well seem more important to the child than anything we are attempting to teach academically. BIBLIOGRAPHY Blair, Glenn Myers, R. Stewart Jones, Ray H. Simpson. Educational Psychology. 4th ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1975. Bowlby, John. Maternal Care and Mental Health. 2d ed. New York: Schocken Books, 1967 Cooper, Robert K. and Sawaf, Ayman. Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership & Organizations Penguin Putman, Inc. 1997. ISBN 0-339-14294-0 Guilford, J.P. "Intelligence: 1965 Model." The American Psychologist 21 (1966) : 21. Skeels, Harold M. "Adult Status of Children with Contrasting Early Life Experiences." Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. Vol. 31 (3), No. 105, 1966. Wechsler, David. Measurement of Adult Intelligence. 3d ed. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1944.
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