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93-662: [REDACTED] Look up whiz kid in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Whiz Kids , or variants, may refer to: Whiz kid , a child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert performer Film, television and games [ edit ] Wiz Kid , Taki Matsuya, a fictional mutant character in Marvel Comics Whiz Kids (TV series) , American science fiction adventure television series 1983 Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II ,
186-418: A cohort effect rather than a true aging effect. A variety of studies of IQ and aging have been conducted since the norming of the first Wechsler Intelligence Scale drew attention to IQ differences in different age groups of adults. Both cohort effects (the birth year of the test-takers) and practice effects (test-takers taking the same form of IQ test more than once) must be controlled to gain accurate data. It
279-446: A normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. While one standard deviation is 15 points, and two SDs are 30 points, and so on, this does not imply that mental ability is linearly related to IQ, such that IQ 50 would mean half the cognitive ability of IQ 100. In particular, IQ points are not percentage points. Psychometricians generally regard IQ tests as having high statistical reliability . Reliability represents
372-520: A "rage to master") the cerebellum accelerates the streamlining of the efficiencies of working memory in its manipulation and decomposition/re-composition of visual-spatial content into language acquisition and into linguistic, mathematical, and artistic precocity. Essentially, Vandervert has argued that when a child is confronted with a challenging new situation, visual-spatial working memory and speech-related and other notational system-related working memory are decomposed and re-composed (fractionated) by
465-555: A 1992 video game developed by Sensible Software Music [ edit ] Wizkid , Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun (born 1990), a Nigerian singer and songwriter The Whizz Kids , a New Zealand pop/rock band Whiz Kids (album) , by Gary Burton, 1986 Sports [ edit ] Whiz Kids (baseball) , the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies baseball team Whiz Kids, the 1942–43 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team Other [ edit ] WizKids , collectible miniatures games developer and publisher Whiz Kids (Ford) ,
558-509: A child in mathematics, but he taught himself algorithms and tricks for calculatory speed, becoming capable of extremely complex mental math. His brain, compared to six other controls, was studied using the PET scan, revealing separate areas of his brain that he manipulated to solve complex problems. Some of the areas that he and presumably prodigies use are brain sectors dealing in visual and spatial memory, as well as visual mental imagery . Other areas of
651-457: A common strength in abstract reasoning across the test's item content. During World War I, the Army needed a way to evaluate and assign recruits to appropriate tasks. This led to the development of several mental tests by Robert Yerkes , who worked with major hereditarians of American psychometrics—including Terman, Goddard—to write the test. The testing generated controversy and much public debate in
744-620: A concept of intelligence on IQ test scores alone neglects other important aspects of mental ability. Robert Sternberg , another significant critic of IQ as the main measure of human cognitive abilities, argued that reducing the concept of intelligence to the measure of g does not fully account for the different skills and knowledge types that produce success in human society. Despite these objections, clinical psychologists generally regard IQ scores as having sufficient statistical validity for many clinical purposes. Differential item functioning (DIF), sometimes referred to as measurement bias,
837-420: A concrete measure of intelligence cannot be achieved given the abstract nature of the concept of "intelligence". IQ scores have been shown to be associated with such factors as nutrition , parental socioeconomic status , morbidity and mortality , parental social status , and perinatal environment . While the heritability of IQ has been investigated for nearly a century, there is still debate about
930-472: A field of expertise, is capable of holding relevant information for extended periods, usually hours. For example, experienced waiters have been found to hold the orders of up to twenty customers in their heads while they serve them, but perform only as well as an average person in number-sequence recognition. The PET scans also answer questions about which specific areas of the brain associate themselves with manipulating numbers. One subject never excelled as
1023-526: A greater demand for visuospatial information processing and visual-motor imagination in abacus mental calculation. Additionally, the right middle frontal gyrus activation is suggested to be the neuroanatomical link between prodigies’ abacus mental calculation and the visuospatial working memory. This activation serves a mediation effect on the correlation between abacus-based mental calculation and visuospatial working memory . A training-induced neuroplasticity regarding working memory performance for children
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#17328528540711116-561: A group of post-World War II Ford Motor Company executives Whiz Kids (Department of Defense) , a group of experts for RAND Corporation WhizzKids United a South African youth HIV / AIDS prevention, care, treatment and support programme Whizzkid's Guide , books by magician Peter Eldin Suzuki Cervo SC100 was known in England by the nickname "Whizzkid" See also [ edit ] WHIZ (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
1209-742: A merging of the Gf-Gc theory of Cattell and Horn with Carroll's Three-Stratum theory has led to the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory (CHC Theory), with g as the top of the hierarchy, ten broad abilities below, and further subdivided into seventy narrow abilities on the third stratum. CHC Theory has greatly influenced many of the current broad IQ tests. Modern tests do not necessarily measure all of these broad abilities. For example, quantitative knowledge and reading and writing ability may be seen as measures of school achievement and not IQ. Decision speed may be difficult to measure without special equipment. g
1302-464: A model of intelligence that included seven unrelated factors (verbal comprehension, word fluency, number facility, spatial visualization, associative memory, perceptual speed, reasoning, and induction). While not widely used, Thurstone's model influenced later theories. David Wechsler produced the first version of his test in 1939. It gradually became more popular and overtook the Stanford–Binet in
1395-444: A particular stimulus, ignoring distractions, and maintaining vigilance. Simultaneous processing involves the integration of stimuli into a group and requires the observation of relationships. Successive processing involves the integration of stimuli into serial order. The planning and attention/arousal components comes from structures located in the frontal lobe, and the simultaneous and successive processes come from structures located in
1488-399: A resurgence as a voluntary means of selective reproduction, with some calling them " new eugenics ". As it becomes possible to test for and correlate genes with IQ (and its proxies), ethicists and embryonic genetic testing companies are attempting to understand the ways in which the technology can be ethically deployed. Raymond Cattell (1941) proposed two types of cognitive abilities in
1581-422: A revision of Spearman's concept of general intelligence. Fluid intelligence (Gf) was hypothesized as the ability to solve novel problems by using reasoning, and crystallized intelligence (Gc) was hypothesized as a knowledge-based ability that was very dependent on education and experience. In addition, fluid intelligence was hypothesized to decline with age, while crystallized intelligence was largely resistant to
1674-566: A significant point, perhaps at the agricultural-religious settlements of Göbekli Tepe or Cyprus . Some researchers believe that prodigious talent tends to arise as a result of the innate talent of the child, and the energetic and emotional investment that the child ventures. Others believe that the environment plays the dominant role, many times in obvious ways. For example, László Polgár set out to raise his children to be chess players, and all three of his daughters went on to become world-class players (two of whom are grandmasters ), emphasising
1767-463: A single general ability factor and a large number of narrow task-specific ability factors. Spearman named it g for "general factor" and labeled the specific factors or abilities for specific tasks s . In any collection of test items that make up an IQ test, the score that best measures g is the composite score that has the highest correlations with all the item scores. Typically, the " g -loaded" composite score of an IQ test battery appears to involve
1860-435: A six-year-old child who passed all the tasks usually passed by six-year-olds—but nothing beyond—would have a mental age that matched his chronological age, 6.0. (Fancher, 1985). Binet and Simon thought that intelligence was multifaceted, but came under the control of practical judgment. In Binet and Simon's view, there were limitations with the scale and they stressed what they saw as the remarkable diversity of intelligence and
1953-499: A strong consensus of mainstream science, though fringe figures continue to promote them in pseudo-scholarship and popular culture. Historically, even before IQ tests were devised, there were attempts to classify people into intelligence categories by observing their behavior in daily life. Those other forms of behavioral observation are still important for validating classifications based primarily on IQ test scores. Both intelligence classification by observation of behavior outside
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#17328528540712046-452: A teaching position at Harvard Noting that the cerebellum acts to streamline the speed and efficiency of all thought processes, Vandervert explained the abilities of prodigies in terms of the collaboration of working memory and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum. Citing extensive imaging evidence, Vandervert first proposed this approach in two publications which appeared in 2003. In addition to imaging evidence, Vandervert's approach
2139-871: A total of 120 types of intelligence. It was popular in the 1970s and early 1980s, but faded owing to both practical problems and theoretical criticisms. Alexander Luria 's earlier work on neuropsychological processes led to the PASS theory (1997). It argued that only looking at one general factor was inadequate for researchers and clinicians who worked with learning disabilities, attention disorders, intellectual disability, and interventions for such disabilities. The PASS model covers four kinds of processes (planning process, attention/arousal process, simultaneous processing, and successive processing). The planning processes involve decision making, problem solving, and performing activities and require goal setting and self-monitoring. The attention/arousal process involves selectively attending to
2232-400: Is a hierarchical model with three levels. The bottom stratum consists of narrow abilities that are highly specialized (e.g., induction, spelling ability). The second stratum consists of broad abilities. Carroll identified eight second-stratum abilities. Carroll accepted Spearman's concept of general intelligence, for the most part, as a representation of the uppermost, third stratum. In 1999,
2325-571: Is a phenomenon when participants from different groups (e.g. gender, race, disability) with the same latent abilities give different answers to specific questions on the same IQ test. DIF analysis measures such specific items on a test alongside measuring participants' latent abilities on other similar questions. A consistent different group response to a specific question among similar types of questions can indicate an effect of DIF. It does not count as differential item functioning if both groups have an equally valid chance of giving different responses to
2418-456: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages whiz kid A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some field. The term wunderkind (from German Wunderkind ; literally "wonder child")
2511-530: Is more plastic . Besides the quality of practice, and the parental investment, the experience of flow during the practice is important for efficient and adequate practice for music prodigies. Practice demands high levels of concentration, which is hard for children in general, but flow can provide inherent pleasures of the practice to ensure this focused work. PET scans performed on several mathematics prodigies have suggested that they think in terms of long-term working memory (LTWM). This memory , specific to
2604-553: Is not always maintained into adulthood. Some researchers have found that gifted children fall behind due to lack of effort. Jim Taylor, professor at the University of San Francisco, theorizes that this is because gifted children experience success at an early age with little to no effort and may not develop a sense of ownership of success. Therefore, these children might not develop a connection between effort and outcome. Some children might also believe that they can succeed without effort in
2697-584: Is now similar to the Wechsler in several aspects, but the Wechsler continues to be the most popular test in the United States. Eugenics , a set of beliefs and practices aimed at improving the genetic quality of the human population by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior and promoting those judged to be superior, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States during
2790-419: Is proposed. A study examining German calculating prodigies also proposed a similar reason for exceptional calculation abilities. Excellent working memory capacities and neuroplastic changes brought by extensive practice would be essential to enhance this domain-specific skill. "My mother said that I should finish high school and go to college first." Saul Kripke in response to an invitation to apply for
2883-483: Is set so performance at the population median results in a score of IQ 100. The phenomenon of rising raw score performance means if test-takers are scored by a constant standard scoring rule, IQ test scores have been rising at an average rate of around three IQ points per decade. This phenomenon was named the Flynn effect in the book The Bell Curve after James R. Flynn , the author who did the most to bring this phenomenon to
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2976-482: Is sometimes used as a synonym for child prodigy, particularly in media accounts. Wunderkind also is used to recognise those who achieve success and acclaim early in their adult careers. Generally, prodigies in all domains are suggested to have relatively elevated IQ , extraordinary memory, and exceptional attention to detail. Significantly, while math and physics prodigies may have higher IQs, this may be an impediment to art prodigies. K. Anders Ericsson emphasised
3069-445: Is supported by the substantial award-winning studies of the cerebellum by Masao Ito. Vandervert provided extensive argument that, in the prodigy, the transition from visual-spatial working memory to other forms of thought (language, art, mathematics) is accelerated by the unique emotional disposition of the prodigy and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum. According to Vandervert, in the emotion-driven prodigy (commonly observed as
3162-597: Is unclear whether any lifestyle intervention can preserve fluid intelligence into older ages. Environmental and genetic factors play a role in determining IQ. Their relative importance has been the subject of much research and debate. The general figure for the heritability of IQ, according to an American Psychological Association report, is 0.45 for children, and rises to around 0.75 for late adolescents and adults. Heritability measures for g factor in infancy are as low as 0.2, around 0.4 in middle childhood, and as high as 0.9 in adulthood. One proposed explanation
3255-823: The Autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) were reported in both first-degree relatives of child prodigies and of autism, which was higher than normal prevalence. Some autistic traits can be found among prodigies. Firstly, the social function of arithmetic prodigies may be weaker because of larger activation in certain brain areas enhancing their arithmetic performance, which is also essential for social and emotional functions (i.e., precuneus, lingual and fusiform gyrus). These neuroplastic changes in neural networks may modulate their social performances in terms of emotional face processing and emotional evaluation of complex social interactions. Nevertheless, this emotional or social modulation must not score at psychopathological levels. Additionally,
3348-531: The Binet–Simon Intelligence test , which focused on verbal abilities . It was intended to identify "mental retardation" in school children, but in specific contradistinction to claims made by psychiatrists that these children were "sick" (not "slow") and should therefore be removed from school and cared for in asylums. The score on the Binet–Simon scale would reveal the child's mental age . For example,
3441-724: The Progressive Era , from the late 19th century until US involvement in World War II . The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of the British Scientist Sir Francis Galton . In 1883, Galton first used the word eugenics to describe the biological improvement of human genes and the concept of being "well-born". He believed that differences in a person's ability were acquired primarily through genetics and that eugenics could be implemented through selective breeding in order for
3534-589: The WAIS-R test may contain cultural influences that reduce the validity of the WAIS-R as a measure of cognitive ability for Mexican American students," indicating a weaker positive correlation relative to sampled white students. Other recent studies have questioned the culture-fairness of IQ tests when used in South Africa. Standard intelligence tests, such as the Stanford–Binet, are often inappropriate for autistic children;
3627-436: The proximal development of children, originated in the writings of psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) during his last two years of his life. According to Vygotsky, the maximum level of complexity and difficulty of problems that a child is capable to solve under some guidance indicates their level of potential development. The difference between this level of potential and the lower level of unassisted performance indicates
3720-504: The 1960s. It has been revised several times, as is common for IQ tests, to incorporate new research. One explanation is that psychologists and educators wanted more information than the single score from the Binet. Wechsler's ten or more subtests provided this. Another is that the Stanford–Binet test reflected mostly verbal abilities, while the Wechsler test also reflected nonverbal abilities. The Stanford–Binet has also been revised several times and
3813-446: The 95% confidence interval may be greater than 40 points, potentially complicating the accuracy of diagnoses of intellectual disability. By the same token, high IQ scores are also significantly less reliable than those near to the population median. Reports of IQ scores much higher than 160 are considered dubious. Reliability and validity are very different concepts. While reliability reflects reproducibility, validity refers to whether
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3906-464: The Flynn effect demolishes the fears that IQ would be decreased. He also asks whether it represents a real increase in intelligence beyond IQ scores. A 2011 psychology textbook, lead authored by Harvard Psychologist Professor Daniel Schacter , noted that humans' inherited intelligence could be going down while acquired intelligence goes up. Research has suggested that the Flynn effect has slowed or reversed course in some Western countries beginning in
3999-444: The US eugenics movement to eliminate "undesirable" traits. Goddard used the term " feeble-minded " to refer to people who did not perform well on the test. He argued that "feeble-mindedness" was caused by heredity, and thus feeble-minded people should be prevented from giving birth, either by institutional isolation or sterilization surgeries. At first, sterilization targeted the disabled, but
4092-456: The United States. Nonverbal or "performance" tests were developed for those who could not speak English or were suspected of malingering. Based on Goddard's translation of the Binet–Simon test, the tests had an impact in screening men for officer training: ...the tests did have a strong impact in some areas, particularly in screening men for officer training. At the start of the war, the army and national guard maintained nine thousand officers. By
4185-429: The ability to understand and reason using concepts framed in words. However, this positive link is absent among adult experts. Remarkably, in the sample of chess prodigies, the more intelligent children played chess worse. This is considered as the result of less practice time of more intelligent chess skills. Practice-plasticity-processes (PPP) model was proposed to explain the existence of chess prodigies by integrating
4278-404: The alternative of using developmental or adaptive skills measures are relatively poor measures of intelligence in autistic children, and may have resulted in incorrect claims that a majority of autistic children are of low intelligence. Since the early 20th century, raw scores on IQ tests have increased in most parts of the world. When a new version of an IQ test is normed, the standard scoring
4371-416: The attention of psychologists. Researchers have been exploring the issue of whether the Flynn effect is equally strong on performance of all kinds of IQ test items, whether the effect may have ended in some developed nations, whether there are social subgroup differences in the effect, and what possible causes of the effect might be. A 2011 textbook, IQ and Human Intelligence , by N. J. Mackintosh , noted
4464-468: The attentiveness to details, a typical characteristic of AQ, is enhanced among prodigies compared to normal people, even those with Asperger syndrome . Intelligence quotient An intelligence quotient ( IQ ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence . Originally, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person's mental age score, obtained by administering an intelligence test, by
4557-648: The banner of dynamic assessment , which seeks to measure developmental potential (for instance, in the work of Reuven Feuerstein and his associates, who has criticized standard IQ testing for its putative assumption or acceptance of "fixed and immutable" characteristics of intelligence or cognitive functioning). Dynamic assessment has been further elaborated in the work of Ann Brown , and John D. Bransford and in theories of multiple intelligences authored by Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg . J.P. Guilford 's Structure of Intellect (1967) model of intelligence used three dimensions, which, when combined, yielded
4650-497: The brain is, the easier it is for them to acquire chunks, templates, and heuristics for better performance. On the other hand, inherited individual differences in the brain are circumscribed children to learn these skills. Music prodigies usually express their talents in exceptional performance or composition. The Multifactorial Gene-Environment Interaction Model incorporates the roles of adequate practice, certain personality traits, elevated IQ, and exceptional working memory in
4743-660: The brain showed use by the subject, including a sector of the brain generally related to childlike "finger counting", probably used in his mind to relate numbers to the visual cortex . This finding is consistent with the introspective report of this calculating prodigy, which states that he used visual images to encode and retrieve numerical information in LTWM. Compared to short-term memory strategies, used by normal people on complex mathematical problems, encoding and retrieval episodic memory strategies would be more efficient. The prodigy may switch between these two strategies, which reduce
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#17328528540714836-473: The cerebellum and then blended in the cerebral cortex in an attempt to deal with the new situation. In child prodigies, Vandervert believes this blending process is accelerated due to their unique emotional sensitivities which result in high levels of repetitious focus on, in most cases, particular rule-governed knowledge domains. He has also argued that child prodigies first began to appear about 10,000 years ago when rule-governed knowledge had accumulated to
4929-448: The child's zone of proximal development. Combination of the two indexes—the level of actual and the zone of the proximal development—according to Vygotsky, provides a significantly more informative indicator of psychological development than the assessment of the level of actual development alone. His ideas on the zone of development were later developed in a number of psychological and educational theories and practices, most notably under
5022-588: The contribution of deliberate practice over their innate talent to prodigies' exceptional performance in chess. The deliberate practice is energy-consuming and requires attention to correct mistakes. As prodigies start formal chess training early with intense dedication to deliberate practice, they may accumulate enough deliberate practice for their exceptional performance. Therefore, this framework provide an arguably reasonable justification for chess prodigies. However, similar amounts of practice also make children differ in their achievements because of other factors such as
5115-686: The current versions of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales , Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities , the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children , the Cognitive Assessment System , and the Differential Ability Scales . There are various other IQ tests, including: IQ scales are ordinally scaled . The raw score of the norming sample is usually (rank order) transformed to
5208-470: The early 20th century, a phenomenon called the Flynn effect . Investigation of different patterns of increases in subtest scores can also inform current research on human intelligence. Historically, many proponents of IQ testing have been eugenicists who used pseudoscience to push now-debunked views of racial hierarchy in order to justify segregation and oppose immigration . Such views are now rejected by
5301-407: The early adulthood) while longitudinal data mostly show that intelligence is stable until mid-adulthood or later. Subsequently, intelligence seems to decline slowly. For decades, practitioners' handbooks and textbooks on IQ testing have reported IQ declines with age after the beginning of adulthood. However, later researchers pointed out this phenomenon is related to the Flynn effect and is in part
5394-400: The effects of aging. The theory was almost forgotten, but was revived by his student John L. Horn (1966) who later argued Gf and Gc were only two among several factors, and who eventually identified nine or ten broad abilities. The theory continued to be called Gf-Gc theory. John B. Carroll (1993), after a comprehensive reanalysis of earlier data, proposed the three stratum theory , which
5487-565: The end, two hundred thousand officers presided, and two- thirds of them had started their careers in training camps where the tests were applied. In some camps, no man scoring below C could be considered for officer training. In total 1.75 million men were tested, making the results the first mass-produced written tests of intelligence, though considered dubious and non-usable, for reasons including high variability of test implementation throughout different camps and questions testing for familiarity with American culture rather than intelligence. After
5580-416: The estimate. For modern tests, the confidence interval can be approximately 10 points and reported standard error of measurement can be as low as about three points. Reported standard error may be an underestimate, as it does not account for all sources of error. Outside influences such as low motivation or high anxiety can occasionally lower a person's IQ test score. For individuals with very low scores,
5673-400: The explanation of music prodigies. A study comparing current and former prodigies with normal people and musicians who showed their talents or were trained later in life to test this model. It found prodigies neither have exceptional performance in terms of IQ, working memory, nor specific personality. This study also emphasises the significance of frequent practice early in life, when the brain
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#17328528540715766-411: The fallacy of reification , "our tendency to convert abstract concepts into entities". Gould's argument sparked a great deal of debate, and the book is listed as one of Discover Magazine ' s "25 Greatest Science Books of All Time". Along these same lines, critics such as Keith Stanovich do not dispute the capacity of IQ test scores to predict some kinds of achievement, but argue that basing
5859-422: The first formal factor analysis of correlations between the tests. He observed that children's school grades across seemingly unrelated school subjects were positively correlated, and reasoned that these correlations reflected the influence of an underlying general mental ability that entered into performance on all kinds of mental tests. He suggested that all mental performance could be conceptualized in terms of
5952-427: The first mental testing center in the world in 1882 and he published "Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development" in 1883, in which he set out his theories. After gathering data on a variety of physical variables, he was unable to show any such correlation, and he eventually abandoned this research. French psychologist Alfred Binet and psychiatrist Théodore Simon , had more success in 1905, when they published
6045-418: The future as well. Dr. Anders Ericcson, professor at Florida State University, researches expert performance in sports, music, mathematics, and other activities. His findings demonstrate that prodigiousness in childhood is not a strong indicator of later success. Rather, the number of hours devoted to the activity was a better indicator. Rosemary Callard-Szulgit and other educators have written extensively about
6138-520: The human race to improve in its overall quality, therefore allowing for humans to direct their own evolution. Henry H. Goddard was a eugenicist. In 1908, he published his own version, The Binet and Simon Test of Intellectual Capacity , and cordially promoted the test. He quickly extended the use of the scale to the public schools (1913), to immigration ( Ellis Island , 1914) and to a court of law (1914). Unlike Galton, who promoted eugenics through selective breeding for positive traits, Goddard went with
6231-403: The idea that IQ heritability rises with age. Researchers building on this phenomenon dubbed it "The Wilson Effect," named after the behavioral geneticist. A paper by Thomas J. Bouchard Jr. , examining twin and adoption studies, including twins "reared apart," finds that IQ "reaches an asymptote at about 0.80 at 18–20 years of age and continuing at that level well into adulthood. In the aggregate,
6324-498: The kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work. But if the purpose is to assess intelligence in a broader sense, the validity of IQ tests is questionable." Some scientists have disputed the value of IQ as a measure of intelligence altogether. In The Mismeasure of Man (1981, expanded edition 1996), evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould compared IQ testing with the now-discredited practice of determining intelligence via craniometry , arguing that both are based on
6417-402: The late 20th century. The phenomenon has been termed the negative Flynn effect . A study of Norwegian military conscripts' test records found that IQ scores have been falling for generations born after the year 1975, and that the underlying cause of both initial increasing and subsequent falling trends appears to be environmental rather than genetic. Ronald S. Wilson is largely credited with
6510-414: The mean scores of tests at ages 11, 12, and 13. The current consensus is that fluid intelligence generally declines with age after early adulthood, while crystallized intelligence remains intact. However, the exact peak age of fluid intelligence or crystallized intelligence remains elusive. Cross-sectional studies usually show that especially fluid intelligence peaks at a relatively young age (often in
6603-445: The measurement consistency of a test. A reliable test produces similar scores upon repetition. On aggregate, IQ tests exhibit high reliability, although test-takers may have varying scores when taking the same test on differing occasions, and may have varying scores when taking different IQ tests at the same age. Like all statistical quantities, any particular estimate of IQ has an associated standard error that measures uncertainty about
6696-582: The person's chronological age, both expressed in terms of years and months. The resulting fraction ( quotient ) was multiplied by 100 to obtain the IQ score. For modern IQ tests , the raw score is transformed to a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. This results in approximately two-thirds of the population scoring between IQ 85 and IQ 115 and about 2 percent each above 130 and below 70 . Scores from intelligence tests are estimates of intelligence. Unlike, for example, distance and mass,
6789-437: The physical abacus act as visual proxies of each digit for prodigies to solve complex computations. This one-to-one corresponding structure allows them to rapidly encode and retrieve digits in the long-term working memory during the calculation. The fMRI scans showed stronger activation of brain areas related to visual processing for Chinese children being trained with abacus mental compared to control groups. This may indicate
6882-775: The posterior region of the cortex. It has influenced some recent IQ tests, and been seen as a complement to the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory described above. There are a variety of individually administered IQ tests in use in the English-speaking world. The most commonly used individual IQ test series is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) for adults and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) for school-age test-takers. Other commonly used individual IQ tests (some of which do not label their standard scores as "IQ" scores) include
6975-483: The potency a child's environment can have in determining the pursuits toward which a child's energy will be directed, and showing that an incredible amount of skill can be developed through suitable training. Co-incidence theory explains the development of prodigies with a continuum of the discussion of nature and nurture. This theory states that the integrative of various factors in the development and expression of human potential, including: Prodigiousness in childhood
7068-438: The practice extreme and innate talent extreme theories. Besides deliberate practice, neuroplasticity is identified as another critical component for developing chess heuristics (e.g., simple search techniques and abstract rules like “occupy the centre”), chunks (e.g., group of pieces locating in specific squares), and templates (e.g., familiarised complex patterns of chunks), which are essential for chess skills. The more plastic
7161-420: The problem of perfectionism in bright children, calling it their "number one social-emotional trait". Gifted children often associate even slight imperfection with failure, so that they become fearful of effort, even in their personal lives, and in extreme cases end up virtually immobilized. Prodigies have been found with the over-representation of relatives with autism on their family pedigrees. Autism traits on
7254-427: The quality of deliberate practice, and their interests in chess. Chess prodigies may have higher IQs than normal children. This positive link between chess skills of prodigies and intelligence is particularly significant on the “performance intelligence”, regarding fluid reasoning, spatial processing, attentiveness to details, and visual-motor integration, while least significant on the “verbal intelligence”, regarding
7347-593: The same questions. Such bias can be a result of culture, educational level and other factors that are independent of group traits. DIF is only considered if test-takers from different groups with the same underlying latent ability level have a different chance of giving specific responses. Such questions are usually removed in order to make the test equally fair for both groups. Common techniques for analyzing DIF are item response theory (IRT) based methods, Mantel-Haenszel, and logistic regression . A 2005 study found that "differential validity in prediction suggests that
7440-415: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Whiz Kids . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whiz_Kids&oldid=1256797342 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
7533-562: The significance of heritability estimates and the mechanisms of inheritance. IQ scores are used for educational placement, assessment of intellectual ability , and evaluating job applicants. In research contexts, they have been studied as predictors of job performance and income . They are also used to study distributions of psychometric intelligence in populations and the correlations between it and other variables. Raw scores on IQ tests for many populations have been rising at an average rate that scales to three IQ points per decade since
7626-401: The storage retrieval times of long-term memory and circumvent the limited capacities of short-term memory. In turn, they can encode and retrieve specific information (e.g., the intermediate answers during the calculation) in the long-term working memory more accurately and effectively. Similar strategies were found among prodigies mastering mental abacus calculation . The positions of beads on
7719-430: The studies also confirm that shared environmental influence decreases across age, approximating about 0.10 at 18–20 years of age and continuing at that level into adulthood." IQ can change to some degree over the course of childhood. In one longitudinal study , the mean IQ scores of tests at ages 17 and 18 were correlated at r = 0.86 with the mean scores of tests at ages five, six, and seven and at r = 0.96 with
7812-426: The study of human diversity and the study of inheritance of human traits, he believed that intelligence was largely a product of heredity (by which he did not mean genes , although he did develop several pre-Mendelian theories of particulate inheritance). He hypothesized that there should exist a correlation between intelligence and other observable traits such as reflexes , muscle grip, and head size . He set up
7905-580: The subsequent need to study it using qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, measures (White, 2000). American psychologist Henry H. Goddard published a translation of it in 1910. American psychologist Lewis Terman at Stanford University revised the Binet–Simon scale, which resulted in the Stanford revision of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale (1916). It became the most popular test in the United States for decades. The abbreviation "IQ"
7998-474: The test measures what it purports to measure. While IQ tests are generally considered to measure some forms of intelligence, they may fail to serve as an accurate measure of broader definitions of human intelligence inclusive of, for example, creativity and social intelligence . For this reason, psychologist Wayne Weiten argues that their construct validity must be carefully qualified, and not be overstated. According to Weiten, "IQ tests are valid measures of
8091-422: The testing room and classification by IQ testing depend on the definition of "intelligence" used in a particular case and on the reliability and error of estimation in the classification procedure. The English statistician Francis Galton (1822–1911) made the first attempt at creating a standardized test for rating a person's intelligence. A pioneer of psychometrics and the application of statistical methods to
8184-490: The war, positive publicity promoted by army psychologists helped to make psychology a respected field. Subsequently, there was an increase in jobs and funding in psychology in the United States. Group intelligence tests were developed and became widely used in schools and industry. The results of these tests, which at the time reaffirmed contemporary racism and nationalism, are considered controversial and dubious, having rested on certain contested assumptions: that intelligence
8277-575: Was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term Intelligenzquotient , his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he advocated in a 1912 book. The many different kinds of IQ tests include a wide variety of item content. Some test items are visual, while many are verbal. Test items vary from being based on abstract-reasoning problems to concentrating on arithmetic, vocabulary, or general knowledge. The British psychologist Charles Spearman in 1904 made
8370-570: Was earlier often subdivided into only Gf and Gc, which were thought to correspond to the nonverbal or performance subtests and verbal subtests in earlier versions of the popular Wechsler IQ test. More recent research has shown the situation to be more complex. Modern comprehensive IQ tests do not stop at reporting a single IQ score. Although they still give an overall score, they now also give scores for many of these more restricted abilities, identifying particular strengths and weaknesses of an individual. An alternative to standard IQ tests, meant to test
8463-501: Was heritable, innate, and could be relegated to a single number, the tests were enacted systematically, and test questions actually tested for innate intelligence rather than subsuming environmental factors. The tests also allowed for the bolstering of jingoist narratives in the context of increased immigration, which may have influenced the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 . L.L. Thurstone argued for
8556-480: Was later extended to poor people. Goddard's intelligence test was endorsed by the eugenicists to push for laws for forced sterilization. Different states adopted the sterilization laws at different paces. These laws, whose constitutionality was upheld by the Supreme Court in their 1927 ruling Buck v. Bell , forced over 60,000 people to go through sterilization in the United States. California's sterilization program
8649-468: Was so effective that the Nazis turned to the government for advice on how to prevent the birth of the "unfit". While the US eugenics movement lost much of its momentum in the 1940s in view of the horrors of Nazi Germany, advocates of eugenics (including Nazi geneticist Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer ) continued to work and promote their ideas in the United States. In later decades, some eugenic principles have made
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