Multiple Intelligences and Processing Styles

One of the most important things for parents to know about their child is their child’s processing style. Many experts believe that a child’s learning style is “hard wired in” by about second grade, and that we need to recognize and nurture these varied ways of learning to give children the best chance to become creative problem solvers. The failure to do this can lead to a host of so-called “learning problems”. These problems may get expressed informally as: lazy, spoiled, overly-sensitive, hyper and so on. Sometimes they are given more formal labels: learning disabled, attention deficit disorder, or emotionally handicapped. By understanding and accepting that children learn differently, we may choose to move away from judgments and towards a celebration of the many ways a child learns and grows. In 1984, Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychologist, wrote a book called Frames of Mind in which he proposed a new view of intelligence and learning. Gardner challenged the idea that we could give a paper and pencil test and determine how ‘smart’ or ‘dumb’ someone was. Instead, Gardner theorized that there are at least 8 different intelligences, which he called Multiple Intelligences. These 8 intelligences can be explained to children by using the following simple terms: word strong, math strong, picture strong, body strong, music strong, people strong, self strong, and nature strong. All children and adults have all of these intelligences, but we all have them in a different combination of relative strengths and weaknesses. It is vital that we discover these strengths and nurture them. Gardner suggests that direct observation of our children in multiple environments is the best way to get a sense of their processing style, and he cautions that paper and pencil instruments are never more important than watching our kids and catching them being smart. However, I have found that an informal MI inventory can start us focusing on our own and our children's strengths. It can help us start to see them through the lens of multiple intelligences. Here is the link to one site that takes only about 5 minutes, and then sends you a pie chart of your relative strengths. Have fun with this and see what insights arise.... http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/questions/questions.cfm