5-2 Discussion: Multiple Gardners Intelligence Theories

Intelligence Theories – Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theories
Your name
September 22, 2016
Your Institution of Affiliation
Towards an accurate theory of Intelligence
“Study of intelligence began in Paris in the late 1890s with Alfred Binet, who developed a test designed to identify children with special educational needs” (Instituteforlearning.com, n.d.). This first types of Intelligence test were primarily based on a set predetermined questions that would easily help the person who wants to measure intelligence with much ease. However, there’s a big flaw in this type of testing system, and that flaw is shown in Howards Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence (MindTools.com, n.d.). Among the three theories that we discussed, I believe that Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory is the most accurate one among them. Further details and explanation would be given below.
“The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University” (Instituteforlearning.com, n.d.). The theory posited that not every individual can be summarized and studied under a singular and generic type of test – just as the case of SAT or Scholastic Achievement Test (Lane, n.d.). This is because every individual has his/her own unique type of intelligence which can be subsumed or be a combination of any of the 7 general categories – linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist (Smith, 2002). This categories were then expanded into 9 through the addition of the existentialist and moral intelligence categories. Thus, a person who might do well in a standard IQ test might be good in two or three of these general categories such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, or spatial. In contrast, a person who failed the SAT does not mean that he/she is dumb. It’s just that her intelligence falls in an exactly different category (BusinessBalls.com, 2016). Perhaps, a good example of this would be the geniuses that we all know today. Before, Einstein was considered to be dumb because he wasn’t able to speak until the age of four and write until the age of nine. However, when he grew old he became one of the brightest, if not the brightest, minds in history more specifically in terms of logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligence.
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In response to Binet’s theory of “standard” intelligence testing method
Aside from Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory, a number of other responses came in order to address the flaw in Binet’s theory of intelligence – which ...