INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Chapter
8
"INTELLECTUAL
DEVELOPMENT"
The
Chapter at a Glance
Intellectual growth during infancy.
Intellectual development during childhood.
Intellectual development during adolescence.
Educational implications.
Attention to the whole child needed.
Intellect
refers to mind in its cognitive aspect, particularly to the higher thought
processes. These higher thought processes are conception, comparison,
abstraction, generalization, reasoning, etc. A study of the intellectual
development, therefore, includes an account of the growth of these and other
allied mental functions at various levels of life. This study is now rapidly
becoming a subject matter of great interest with modern educationists and child
psychologists.
Not Confined
to Scholastic Achievement
Children’s
intellectual development is usually confused with scholastic achievement. Thus
it has become common to talk of children’s intellectual achievements in term of
such scholastic pursuits as reading, writing, language study and the like. Intellectual
achievement includes scholastic learning, no doubt. But it is not limited to
it. We all know that the mental growth of the child is not solely dependent
upon his pursuits in school. Intellectually he learns immensely more from the
home and other out-of-school environments as well.
To
make a survey of all these numerous aspects of intellectual development taking
place in and outside the school would be an impossible task to accomplish in a
brief chapter like this. In the following pages an attempt has, however, been
made to highlight in brief the salient features of some significant aspects of
intellectual growth of children at various levels of their development.
Intellectual
Growth during Infancy
What is
the intellectual level of the new born babe? How does the world appear to him?
Since we cannot obtain neonate’s own account to furnish an answer to our
question all that we can do is to resort to approximate guesses. Our guesses
might vary considerably but from a fairly objective angle one could say with
confidence that the world of the newborn babe consists largely of the stimuli
arising within him or impinging directly on his body. Most of his working hours
are occupied with event connected with his immediate bodily needs, e.g., hunger,
physical care, etc.
Sight
and sounds don’t have any prominent significance for him at this stage. It is
only sometime after birth that the human infant is able to fixate at or follow
a moving object with his eyes. These early sensory responses of the infant
signify the beginnings of some sort of an awareness of the world around him.
Gradually thereafter, vision and hearing come increasingly into play. This development
is very significant as it brings the child into contact with the objects in the
more distant environment.
Beginnings
of Intellectual Life
The
fact that the infant has developed to a point at which he approaches an object
and grasps it, turns his head and follows a person, rings a bell to get
amusement out of the sound, displays signs of recognizing and remembering certain
objects and persons, etc., etc, suggests that his intellectual life has begun. Observations
of the early life of babies reveal that they make a most remarkable progress in
this direction during the period from birth to 12th month.
Infants
show perception and fine discrimination of visual forms by the time they reach
the age of two years. If shown pictures and asked to point to various objects
and parts in them they have been found to display skilful discrimination. At
two and three years they have been found to identity differences in position.
This is clearly indicated by their knowledge of the meaning of ‘on‘, ‘at’,
‘in’, ‘behind’, ‘in front of’, ‘opposite to’, ‘under’, ‘beneath’, ‘side by side
with’, etc. Similarly, considerable sense of discrimination of similarities and
differences has been observed at this level of development.
Other Sensory
Development
Some
research has also been done to establish young children’s ability to
discriminate color, sounds, weight, time and space, intervals, pain, etc.
Color
perception develops rapidly before the child is two years old. It goes on
developing till he is four. Experimental evidence shows that all normal
children can discriminate loudness of sound by the age of four. Auditory
discrimination registers further progress after that age.
Sensitivity
to pain starts functioning probably immediately after birth. It decreases as
children grow older. With physical growth the skin thickens. This factor
probably account for the progressive decrease in sensitivity to painful stimuli
as the child matures in age.
Development
in Attention
Observations
have revealed that infants are capable of paying attention at a very early age.
The beginnings of attention can be seen even during the first week of infant
life when his eyes follow bright or moving objects. Before he is three months,
an infant usually shows proof of an ability to watch people. After that age he
can look around more freely.
A
significant development in the field of attention seems to take place between
the third and the sixth month. Visual attention during this period tends to
narrow from a general looking around to looking at a single object. From this
stage onwards the attention given to objects before reaching for them and while
holding them also increases. During the second year an infant’s likes and
dislikes, his interests and preferences, can be fairly assessed by the
frequency and amount of attention he pays to certain objects and persons.
Further
Progress in Sustained Attention
With
further advance in an infant’s age, power of sustained attention also
increases. Adult complaints about a child‘s inability to attend are not
supported by factual observations. We all know that children pay prolonged
attention to a person, object or a situation only if they find some sort of an
interest in it. The prominent factors that determine the amount of attention a
child will pay to an object are: mental set, attitude, purpose, mood, interest
of child besides the attractive features of the object from the child’s point
of view, etc.
The
increasing ability of the child to give attention to persons, objects and
events in his surroundings indicates the growth of the personality as well.
Memory
Development
Memory
of infants has been studied by making intensive observations of their behavior
from birth. It has been found that by the third month a baby can recognize his
milk bottle. Recognition of daddy and mummy starts even earlier. By the age of six
months the infant is able to distinguish between a familiar and a strange
object.
A
study has been reported by Buhler in which the child seeks an object at short
intervals after it has been hidden. The period of time after which the child’s
memory failed was 5 minutes at the age of one year, 20 minutes at the age of 2
years and 30 minutes at 3 years. As for the number of objects, the child could
remember one object at the age of one year and 6 at the age of 6 years.
At
the age of two, a child can usually name several objects from seeing a picture.
If three and four years old children are shown picture which are then mixed up
with other pictures they have been found to identify most of them correctly.
Some investigations gave a test of immediate verbal memory to a group of pre-school
children with an average age 5 years 6 months. The memory of the group for
various materials as revealed by this test is shown in the following table:-
Preschool
Memory Span
|
Kind of material to be Memorized
|
Average
percentage of correct response
|
|
1
|
Digits Forward
|
--
|
5.4
|
|
2
|
Syllables
|
--
|
16.1
|
|
3
|
Concrete words
|
--
|
4.7
|
|
4
|
Abstract words
|
--
|
3.5
|
|
5
|
Digits Backwards
|
--
|
0.0
|
|
6
|
Recall of Pictures
|
--
|
1.6
|
|
7
|
Recognition of Pictures
|
--
|
6.7
|
|
8
|
Tapping Cubes
|
--
|
5.0
|
|
9
|
Logical Memory
|
--
|
4.5
|
|
10
|
Commands
|
--
|
3.7
|
Early
Creative Work
The
intellectual growth of the child can also be assessed through his early
creative expressions. The drawings which most children start making right from
early childhood are the earliest specimens of their creative work. These early
drawings if properly interpreted are sufficiently indicative of their
intellectual alertness.
The
intellectual comprehension as expressed in various details of these early
drawings varies at various age levels. A child of 5 years who, when drawing a man
includes the main body and prominent features in the drawing besides the head,
the legs and the arms, is certainly intellectually superior to the child of the
same age who can only think of the head and the legs , etc.
Even
the way the child handles the drawing material, the choice of the lines and colors,
the nature of the object drawn, the interest and zest shown in the drawing, the
quality and quantity of the emotional reaction of satisfaction or
dissatisfaction with the object drawn, howsoever crude, primitive and vague it
might be, can also indicate, to a considerable extent, the intellectual level
of the young child.
It
may be pointed out that Goodenough has conducted immensely useful research in
this interesting field.
Judgment
and Reasoning
If
one watches the behavior of infants and young children and listens to their
talk, etc., one develops much insight into their reasoning and judging
abilities. Howsoever crude and rudimentary these early manifestations of
judging and reasoning might appear from our adult standards one cannot deny the
fact that some sort of ability is present even at a very early age.
Brooks
reports many interesting cases of reasoning among young children. A little boy
of two was pulling his daddy’s hair. The father reproved him saying:”Don’t,
Donald, it hurts daddy.’ To this, the
little boy retorted by saying: “It didn’t hurt grandpa.”
Another
father hurt his hands while working. His three and a half years old daughter
told him: “Little girls’ daddies should not hurt themselves, because little
girls love their daddies.”
With
increase in age, judging and reasoning abilities improve very considerably.
Older children have been found to judge the difference between a number of
similar objects in their immediate environment, e.g., a stone and an egg, a fly
and a butterfly, a sparrow and a crow, etc. This ability to differentiate makes
rapid improvement as the child enters school and gains further knowledge of
language.
Language
Development during Infancy
Development
of language is an intellectual process which involves all types of mental
ability, e.g., experiencing, perceiving, associating, reproducing, memorizing,
logical clarification, etc. Much of what is known regarding a child’s
intellectual development is revealed to us through the medium of language. Language,
therefore, is a necessary key to a child’s intellectual life.
Achievement
in language is the most amazing development that takes place during childhood.
The same helpless child who is hardly able to utter a single correct word at
the age of one develops the surprising ability to recognize several thousand
words by the time he is six. The vocabulary growth during the first five years
is most impressive and rapid. The story of this growth is very interesting and
revealing.
The
Babbling Stage
A large repertory of sounds is the child’s
first vocalization that is observable in all normal children shortly after
birth. Such a vocalization takes on a playful character as the child uses his
speech organs. This stage of language development is commonly known as the
babbling stage. Babbling is a loose and random flow of tones. Much of the
babbling is in the form of cries occurring in commotion with general bodily
activity when the baby is hungry or feels uncomfortable or insecure.
In
addition to these cries depicting his basic needs the infant produces a number
of other sounds. Most of these early sounds are expressive of pleasure, pain,
recognition of people and objects, etc. Chin and Irwin studied the speech
development in 95 infants. They discovered that the average child uses about 7
different sounds in the first 2 months. By the time he is about 2.5 years this
number increases to about 27.
The
First Spoken Word
The
human infant uses sound as a means of communication with others long before he
develops the ability to articulate words. Inflections and intonations
resembling those of adult language and expressive of joy, anger, rage, disgust,
appeal for attention, scolding, rebuke, warning, etc., have been observed month
before the utterance of the first word.
According
to most of the observers the average age for the appearance of the first word
is about 11 months. The form of the first word is usually a monosyllable, like,
ma, ba, etc. It many as well be a mere reduplications of the monosyllable e.g.
ma-ma, ba-ba, bye-bye, etc.
Growth
of Vocabulary
After
he has one uttered his first word the child’s vocabulary develops enormously. Smith
studied the vocabulary growth of 273 pre-school children ranging in age from 8
months to 6 years. The summary of her findings is presented in the following
table:--
Vocabulary
Growth among the Pre-Schoolers
|
Age
level
|
Number
of words understood
|
|||||
|
|
1 Year
|
--
|
|
|
3
|
|
|
|
2 Year
|
--
|
|
|
272
|
|
|
|
3 Year
|
--
|
|
|
896
|
|
|
|
4 Year
|
--
|
|
|
1,540
|
|
|
|
5 Year
|
--
|
|
|
2,072
|
|
|
|
6 Year
|
--
|
|
|
2,562
|
|
It
may be remembered that such studies cannot be taken as accurate indicator of
vocabulary growth in all children all over the world. Individual variations are
bound to take place. However, such accounts are a sufficiently convincing proof
of the fact that on entering school a child has a vocabulary of several
thousand words. This fact contradicts the popular estimates of teachers
limiting the pre-schooler’s vocabulary to three or four hundred words.
Imitation
plays a significant role in the acquisition of the ability of oral speech. The
child picks up a great deal of language by hearing the people around him speak.
Marked
individual variations have been noticed in the comprehensibility of children’s speech.
It has been found that some children speak fairly clearly almost from the very
day they start speaking. Others are found to suffer from prolonged infantile
forms of speech even during later years. Besides other causes emotional factors
have been held to be mainly responsible for such slow or defective speech
developments during early years.
Use of
Sentences
A
normal healthy child develops the ability to construct and speak simple
sentences during early infancy. Later on he is able to construct relatively
lengthy and less simple sentences. This development proceeds more rapidly as
the child enters school. The gist of a study revealing the average number of
words used in a sentence spoken by pre-school children at various age levels is
presented in the following table:
Length
of Sentence at Various Ages
|
Age-Years &
|
Months
|
Average no. of Words in one Sentence
|
|
1
|
6
|
1.2
|
|
2
|
0
|
1.8
|
|
2
|
6
|
3.1
|
|
3
|
0
|
3.4
|
|
3
|
6
|
4.3
|
|
4
|
0
|
4.4
|
|
4
|
6
|
4.6
|
|
5
|
6
|
4.6
|
Language
and Mental level
Language development is also greatly influenced
by one’s mental level. The evidence with regard to this factor is very
clear-cut and quit unambiguous. Feeble minded children have invariably been
found to be slow in learning to talk. Conversely a child who develops the
talking ability much earlier and improves rapidly thereafter is most likely to
be above average in intelligence.
Mentally
defective children have been found to utter the first word at an age very much
above the average age for normal children of the same age. In one study four years
old feeble minded children were found to speak the language of the normal
children less than one year of age.
Influence
of Emotional, Social and Economic Factor
Normal
home life with its accompanying sibling association, warmth of parental
affections, etc., also seems to affect the growth of linguistic ability. A
comparative study of language development of six months old infants living in
an orphanage and those living in normal homes was made. It was found that the
orphan infants were markedly retarded in their language achievement as compared
with the children living in the normal home environment.
Social
and economic status of the family has also been found to affect the language
development of children. In one study children from upper socio economic class
families where found to excel in language achievement by about one year the
children from homes with lower socio economic status.
Intellectual
Development during Childhood
Entry
into school widens a child’s intellectual horizon. Scholastics learning and
expanding social contacts bring further improvement in language skills.
Intellectual growth in other fields is also striking during this period. We
shall now survey some of the significant aspects of intellection development
during childhood.
Language
Development
As
the child grows older his knowledge of words and the sphere of their usage undergo
further expansion. He soon learns to conform to the fantastic convention of
grammar and syntax of his native tongue.
Brighter
children usually have a larger vocabulary and greater skill in use than
backward or defective children. Subnormal children are more inclined to talk
with less facility and to develop speech at a later stage than normal children.
However, children who develop speech at a relatively later stage of growth are
not necessarily sub normal.
Sex
differences are not very marked in language development. Girls, however, seem
to excel boys at the age of the appearance of the first word. They also begin
to talk earlier than the boys and suffer relatively less from speech
difficulties. Differences in the environment and training of the two sexes also
contribute considerably to the variations between them in ease and facility in
the use of language.
Bilingualism
and Multilingualism
Children
who are exposed to a bilingual or a multilingual environment provide an
interesting field of study. What for instance happens to a child in Pakistan,
who speaks Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto or Baluchi at home, receives school
instructions in Urdu, Sindhi, or English and who has to learn Arabic as his religious
language, beside being expected to study Persian, English, etc.
It
has been found that so far as the development of reading ability in a language
other than one’s mother tongue is concerned not much difficulty is usually
experienced by the average child. But the development of the ability to
pronounce the word of the foreign language, to master its grammar and to grasp
the correct usage of its phrases and idioms is a relatively difficult task for a
young child.
Some
Language Studies
Most
of the studies conducted in the field so far indicate that the necessity of
adjusting to two different languages in a bilingual environment may retard a
child’s progress in either of the two languages for a while. However, if other
disturbing factors are absent, exposure of the child to two languages is not
likely to hinder his linguistic and intellectual development in the long run.
In
a study it was found that if the parents were bilingual and talked at home in
both the languages inter-changeably the child became confused. His development
was consequently retarded in both the languages. If, however, one parent
consistently used one language and the other another, or if both of them used a
single language at one time in the presence of the child, he could distinguish
between the two. He rather acquired skill in both these language without much
difficulty.
A
General Guiding Rule As a
general rule whether or not a child should be exposed to two languages depends
on the purpose of his family and also of the nation. If the purpose is to
acquire mere speaking facility of a foreign language then instruction in it
could begin during early childhood without involving any intellectual risks. If,
however, the aim is to develop the reading capacity of the child in that
language for later educational, cultural and other purposes then its study
should be deferred to a relatively later stage in the growth of the child.
From
this point of view, teaching of English to nursery and primary school children
in Pakistan, for instance, does not appear to be sound educational practice for
obvious reasons.
Speech
Defects and Disorders
The
linguistic environment of children plays a decidedly significant role in
developing their grasp of context, vocabulary, sentence structure, articulation
and grammar. The practical significance of this is that children should be
exposed to a healthy language environment both at home and at school. Poor and
wrong patterns of spoken and written language should be kept away from his
environment from very early infancy.
Children
who develop a defect or disorder of speech must be properly attended to. If it
is a case of an organic impairment of the speech mechanisms, e.g. tongue tie,
cleft palate, etc. it requires expert surgical treatment. Frequently, however,
certain emotional factors also become responsible for speech defects like baby
talk, lisping, stuttering, stammering, etc. Such children should be encouraged
to overcome emotional inhibitions impeding the clear and spontaneous use of
language.
Association
with Total Personality
Parents
and teachers should know that speech is closely associated with the total
personality of a child. Any difficulty in proper and healthy development in
this field may, therefore, be symptomatic of a deeper emotional maladjustment
in the child. It is a matter of common experience that with the removal of a
child’s emotional inhibitions, anxieties etc, many a speech mal-development and
disorder is cured almost miraculously. In case, however, a parent or a teacher
finds it difficult to understand and help the speech defective child, he must
be immediately referred to a psychological clinic for proper treatment.
Reasoning
in Children
The
ability to reason goes on developing throughout childhood. Several tests have
been constructed to measure the reasoning ability of children. Burt has devised
some graded reasoning tests for British children. Some of the items of these tests,
slightly adapted to suit Pakistani children, are as follows:--
Seven
Years
Guddu
runs faster than Biloo; Nanna runs slower than Billoo. Who is the slowest
runner : Billoo, Nanna or Guddu?
I bought
the following Eid presents: A shirt, a sitar, a box of cigarettes, a bracelet,
a handbag, a toy engine, a cricket bat, a book, a doll, a walking stick and an
umbrella. My brother is 8 years old. He does not smoke, nor play sitar. I want
to give the walking stick to my father and the handbag to my mother. Which of
the above mentioned Eid presents shall I give to my brother?
Eight
Years
A man
does not like travelling by road. He has liking for mountain or sea-sides. He
is going out on a sightseeing tour. Where shall he go: Karachi, Murree, Lahore?
Nine Years
Three
boys are sitting in a row. Hammed is to the left of Aslam, Rashid is to the
left of Hameed. Which boy is in the middle: Aslam, Rashid or Hammed?
Ten Years
There
are four roads here. I have come from the south and want to go to the Zoo. The
road to the right leads somewhere else; straight ahead it leads only to a farm.
In which direction is Zoo: North, South, East, or West?
Eleven Years
Where
the climate is hot mangoes will grow. Where it is cold orange grows. Grass
cannot be grown where it is snowing all the time. What fruit can be grown at a
place where people use electric fans and drink iced water all the year round?
Twelve
Years
I started
from the mosque and walked 100 yards. I turned to the right and walked 50
yards. I turned to the right again and walked 100 yards. How far am I from the
mosque?
It is
very unfortunate indeed that similarly standardized tests are not available in
Pakistan. Anyhow, till such tests are locally constructed and standardized we
can utilize the foreign tests for the time being after, of course, effecting
the necessary modifications here and there to suit our culture.
Detecting
Absurdities
Detection
of absurdities is an ability which involves reasoning. It is indicative of
children’s level of intellectual maturity. This ability seems to develop more
rapidly after the age of 11 years. Several tests purporting to measure this
ability are available.
Terman
and Merrill consider that a child of 10 must be able to detect the absurdities
involved in the following test:
Absurdities
Test for 10 Year Olds
(1)
In the Year 1915 many more women than men got
married in the United States.
(2)
A man wished to dig a hole in which to bury
some rubbish, but could not decide what to do with the dirt from the hole. A
friend suggested that he dig a hole large enough to hold the dirt, too.
(3)
They begin the meeting late, but they set the
hands of the clock back so that the meeting might surely close before sunset.
(4)
There was a railroad accident yesterday, but it
was not very serious. Only forty eight people were killed.
(5)
A bicycle rider, being thrown from his bicycle
in an accident, struck his head against a stone and was instantly killed. They
picked him up and carried him to the hospital, and they do not think he will
get well again.
Burt has
devised an exceptionally interesting absurdities test for English children
ranging from 8 to 14 years in age. A slightly amended version of the same
adapted by the author for Pakistani children is as follows:-
The Story
of a Traveler
Ten
years ago on a pleasant summer afternoon in the middle of December, 1936, the
twelve-o-clock express train form Karachi was rushing past Chittagong on its
way to Multan at twelve miles an hour.
As
it stopped at Lahore a clean-shaven young Pakistani of about 50 years of age
stepped lightly from one of the first class compartments and hurriedly started walking
down the platform with both hands in his pockets, carrying a heavy bag, and
gaily curling the tops of his moustache. His strange voice suggested that he
was a native of Ceylon, born and bred no doubt, in Iran. By his dusty shoe I
gathered he had walked over from London that very morning.
There
was not a cloud in the sky, and, as the rain was still falling heavily he took
off his rain coat and strolled out into the crowded streets of the hilly city.
The ripening fields of corn through which he passed were turning golden as the
sun set in the south. The square semi-circle of the new moon shone brightly in
the heaven overhead. The evening shadows grew shorter and shorter in the twilight,
and a few minutes later, with a burst of splendor, the day dawned.
He
was standing on a minaret of the Badshahi mosque watching the grey waters of
the river Chenab rush towards the hills and listening to the bleating of the
sheep on the Mall Road. A few yards above his head an aero-plane was standing
still in the sky: and beyond in the clouds a bright red fish, with its four
broad wings outspread, could be seen flying invisibly above the Taj Mahal. The
clock on the Merry Weather Tower struck the hour. One, two, there, he counted
and ten more strokes. “It must be just half past eleven,” he said; “no wonder I
am thirsty. I must rush to a green grocer’s shop for a glass of hot soup.”
The
number of absurdities detected by a child in the above and similar other tests
gives an approximate estimation of his intellectual level.
Differences
between Child and Adult Reasoning
The reasoning process of children and adults
is essentially the same; the differences being those of degree and not of kind.
Even at the pre-school level children have been found to be using many of the
same processes of comparison, generalization, inference and deduction which are
involved in higher reasoning among the adults. When faced with an entirely
unfamiliar problem a child would make some mistake, no doubt. But an adult
would also do the same in a similar situation.
Some
differences, however, are observable between the reasoning process of the child
and the adult. The main differences are as follows:-
(1)
As compared with the adult, a young child does
not possess the adequate language to phrase his thought and conclusions
adequately.
(2)
He lacks the wealth of relevant information and
experience that an adult usually possesses.
(3)
A child has usually lesser capacity for
sustained attention and lesser powers of concentration than an adult.
(4)
A young child is more pre-occupied with his own
immediate environment. Consequently, he is less capable of reasoning about
problems that do not directly concern him or are too complex for him.
(5)
Young children usually make more reactions and
arrive at fewer solutions than older children and adults. This is established
by Heidbreder’s study, the gist of which is presented in the following
table:
Child and Adult Reasoning
|
Age Group
|
No. of Persons
|
No. of Reactions
|
No of Problems Solved
|
|
3 years
|
10
|
665
|
3
|
|
4 years
|
10
|
549
|
17
|
|
6-10 years
|
10
|
278
|
30
|
|
Adults
|
10
|
90
|
30
|
(6)
Younger children normally pay more attention to
the concrete features of situation while the adults react more to the problem as
a problem.
(7)
Younger children are not as objective on the
whole as older children and adults in their general attitude towards the
problem.
However,
with advance in age and intellectual progress the child begins to approximate
more and more to the adult rules and standards of reasoning.
Thinking
among Children
Thinking
has been defined as “a determined course of ideas, symbolic in character, initiated
by a problem or a task and leading to conclusion” The symbols, in terms of
which thinking is conducted, are words. On the subjective side these symbols
are concepts which range from concrete ideals like dog, doll, house, bottle,
ball, biscuit, etc., to such high abstractions as education, democracy,
justice, relativity, etc.
A
child’s vocabulary is comparatively very limited. His sphere of working concepts,
therefore, is narrow. Consequently, young children do not think in the proper
sense of the term thinking. Nevertheless, one cannot deny the presence of the
rudiments of thinking among them which gradually develops into full-fledged
thinking with age, experience and expansion in the acquirement and use of words
and concepts.
However,
children do not develop clear thinking very easily. They have to overcome
several hurdles in order to develop the ability to think clearly and
skillfully. Some of the main obstacles that interfere with the smooth
development of this ability have been pointed out by Winns as follows:-
(1)
Infantile solipsism.
(2)
Rationalization.
(3)
Vague and loose concepts in every-day use.
(1) Infantile Solipsism: Solipsism is “the
theory of knowledge which holds that the individual mind cannot know anything
beyond its own series of sensations and ideas, the inference form these to an
external world being illegitimate.”
Observations
of infant behavior reveal that they are mostly solipsistic at birth in the sense
that they do not seem to acknowledge the existence of other children besides
themselves. An infant is only mostly unaware and un-regardful of the interests,
desires and wishes, etc. of other infants. If such an attitude is prolonged to
a latter period the child feels it difficult to develop the ability of seeing
things from another’s, and from an objective view point.
Parents
and teachers should, therefore, help the child to overcome his solipsism. Parental
over protection and pampering of the child introduces further complications in
this task. Proper social education, training to get on with others, liberal
participation in sports and socialized group activities are the right methods
of counteracting a child’s solipsistic trends successfully. Such a democratic
training accustoms the child to realize that he is not the sole pivot of
existence.
(2)
Rationalization: Rationalization
consists in distorting of facts and evidence in such a manner as to make them
conform to one’s own emotions, desires and interests. It is closely connected
with solipsistic attitude and is a serious obstacle in developing clear and
objective thinking habits. It also proves an impediment in learning.
(3)
Vague and Loose Concepts in Everyday
Use: Because of the narrow intellectual horizon of the child, concepts are
bound to remain loose and vague for him during early years. As he grows older,
however, conceptual vagueness must crystallize into clarity and precision to
facilitate his march towards clear and objective thinking.
But when the child finds people at home and at
school using concepts carelessly without indicating their significance he often
feels confused. The ability to develop clear, unprejudiced and skilful thinking
is thus seriously impeded. Adults should, therefore, take care in using the
various concepts correctly especially when the children are around. They should
also endeavor to eliminate the vagueness centering round some concepts in the
mind of a child by helping him to understand their true significance.
Children’
early defective attitudes towards thinking should be paid very serious
attention. Defects in thinking acquired at a later stage, prejudices, idiosyncrasies,
whimsicalities, etc, can be remedied considerably more easily. But early
defects in thinking, which have their roots in the attitudes, experiences and
habits of childhood, if left untreated, are relatively difficult to cure in
adulthood.
Imaginative
Abilities of Children
Development
of the imaginative abilities of the child provides further impetus to his
intellectual growth. Children have been found to engage in make-believe and day-dreaming
during early infancy. Both of these imaginative enterprises serve useful
functions in child development. Through these child is able to transcend the
limitations of space and time. He gets an opportunity to express his thought
and ideas spontaneously that would remain dormant and unknown otherwise. Such
imaginative exercises enable him to explore the world around him and to enter
vicariously into wider range of experiences. Herein lie the foundations of
imaginative creation like poetry, fiction, drama, etc.
At
a later stage make-believe and day-dreaming might assume the shape of an escape
mechanism employed to make a retreat from reality. During early childhood,
however, and to al lesser extent in later years as well, such imaginative activities
serve exceedingly useful purposes in the intellectual growth of the
individual.
Intellectual
Diet for the Child
Books,
magazines, radio & TV programs, music, good motion pictures, internet, drams,
theater, etc also play very significant roles in the intellectual development
of the child. Parents and teachers,
therefore, should see that the child gets his due and appropriate share of this
useful imaginative diet to accelerate the pace of his intellectual growth.
Obscene
reading stuff, obscene viewing stuff on TV and Internet, dangerous comics, sex
and terror films or videos, etc., must be kept strictly out of a child’s reach
at all costs. A young child is extremely suggestible. Such unhealthy stuff is
most liable to give an undesirable turn to his intellectual ambitions and
aspirations.
Intellectual
Development during Adolescence
Some of the striking intellectual development
characteristic of adolescence is now presented for consideration. Throughout
these accounts the reader must remember that, though the general pattern of
intellectual development as outlined here is more or less the same in every one,
individual variations from adolescent to adolescent, from country to country
and from culture to culture are always bound to take place.
Studies
of Intelligence
Formerly
it used to be believed that the Intelligence Quotient of an individual reaches
its peak round about the 15th or 16th year of his life.
Referring to the revised Standford Binet Test of intelligence Terman says “the
yearly gain becomes relatively small by the age of 15, and mental age of score
shows but little tendency to improve thereafter.”
This
has, however, been contradicted by recent research. It has now been established
that mental growth, as measured by intelligence test, continues to improve
considerably longer than previously believed. Thus, for instance, the results
obtained by the more recently standardized Terman McNemar tests show the
intellectual progress going up to 19 years. The summary of these findings has
been presented in the following table:-
Terman-McNemar
Test of Ability
|
Age in
years
|
Standard
Score
|
Increment
over Preceding Year
|
|
10
|
77
|
-
|
|
11
|
84
|
7
|
|
12
|
90
|
6
|
|
13
|
95
|
5
|
|
14
|
100
|
5
|
|
15
|
105
|
5
|
|
16
|
109
|
4
|
|
17
|
113
|
4
|
|
18
|
117
|
4
|
|
19
|
120
|
3
|
From
the foregoing table it is evident that intellectual capacity, as measured by
the test, registers a steady growth during adolescence. Towards the end of the
adolescent period it reaches its peak.
Reading
and Recreational Interests
Many
interesting studies have been made of the changes taking place in the reading
interests of adolescent. It has been found that stories of adventure become
more popular with boys and girls during early adolescence. During this period
romantic and detective novels, mystery stories and other form of adult fiction
engage most of their attention. The shift towards such reading material is more
pronounced among girls than boys. In the case of girls, fascination for such
material appears first and is more intense than that of boys.
Changes
also take place concerning interest in cinema, TV and radio programs. Childish
taste in motion pictures is swiftly replaced by a semi-adult preference for
subtle comedies and glamorous film stars. Similarly, interest in juvenile
radio/TV programs is substituted by an interest in those features catering for
more mature and adult tastes.
Younger
adolescents have been found to be very frequent cinema goers or TV watchers.
However, with the increase in social and cultural pursuits, diversion of
interests towards other fields of activity, rapidly growing concern with
studies and anxieties for adequate jobs after completion of scholastic career,
etc., the frequency of cinema attendance and TV watching begins to register a
decline among the older adolescents.
Vocational
Interests of Adolescents
Maturity
of occupational attitude usually dawns upon the adolescent rather late. The
beginnings of this development are most commonly observed towards the end of
the high school career. At this stage, the adolescent is faced with a practical
vocational problem. He is to choose between taking up a job or joining a
college for further studies.
Throughout
his stay at the school, therefore, the teachers should keep on stimulating the
adolescent towards those activities and pursuits, attitudes and habits which
are helpful in preparing for his future vocational life. With such vocational
guidance at school, the adolescent is less liable to feel perplexed when the
time to make the vocational choice finally arrives.
Memberships
of vocational societies in and outside the school have been found to serve an
extremely useful purpose in this direction.
Change
in Worries and Problems
Growing intellectual maturity results in a
considerable amount of change in the trend of worries and problems that beset
an adolescent. Simple worries and anxieties typical of childhood are now
increasingly replaced by those which are relatively more complex and complicated.
In
a study of adolescent problems, Mooney Problem Check List was administered to
7,000 American adolescent boys and girls studying in 57 high schools. The
results, a tabulated summary of which follows, highlight the various problems
that commonly grip the mind of the adolescents.
Adolescent
problems and Worries
Description
of the Problem Percentage worried by it
Boys Girls
|
1
|
Military service
|
46
|
4
|
|
2
|
Worrying
|
30
|
29
|
|
3
|
How to save money
|
29
|
22
|
|
4
|
How to dance
|
29
|
11
|
|
5
|
Dull classes
|
28
|
29
|
|
6
|
What I’II be ten years hence
|
28
|
25
|
|
7
|
Too little study time
|
27
|
25
|
|
8
|
Restless in class
|
26
|
29
|
|
9
|
Weak spelling and grammar
|
26
|
8
|
|
10
|
Don’t know what I want
|
25
|
29
|
|
11
|
Lunch hour too short
|
25
|
23
|
|
12
|
Need occupational decision
|
25
|
22
|
|
13
|
Take things too seriously
|
24
|
40
|
|
14
|
Forgetting things
|
23
|
26
|
|
15
|
Afraid of making mistakes
|
22
|
31
|
|
16
|
Day-dreaming
|
22
|
26
|
|
17
|
Losing my temper
|
21
|
34
|
|
18
|
Worry about grades
|
21
|
27
|
|
19
|
Want better personality
|
20
|
35
|
|
20
|
Worry, Exams
|
20
|
26
|
|
21
|
Nervousness
|
17
|
27
|
|
22
|
Stubbornness
|
16
|
26
|
|
23
|
Afraid to speak in class
|
13
|
25
|
|
24
|
Have less money than friends do
|
11
|
29
|
|
25
|
Too easily hurt
|
10
|
31
|
|
26
|
Overweight
|
7
|
26
|
Guidance
of the Adolescent
The
foregoing table is a clear indication of the fact that problems concerning the
adolescent are mostly different from those concerning younger children. Parents
and teachers should endeavor to understand the nature and significance of such
problems. They should help adolescents in overcoming them, instead of letting
them feel frustrated about them all the time. A careful intellectual guidance
is utterly indispensable at this stage to pave the way for a smooth transition
from adolescence to mature adulthood.
Educational
Implications
That
a proper intellectual development of the child is extremely vital for healthy
growth is beyond any question. Let us now attend to certain educational
implications, flowing from the preceding discussion, which might serve useful
for parents and teachers.
(1) The Problem of Grouping and Classification
Individuals,
as we have seen, differ from each others in every aspect, including the intellectual.
How is a school teacher to proceed with the task of grouping or classifying
children into different sections?
I
would certainly be unjust to have no classifying criterion at all and the
divide a class into various sections quite haphazardly. It would be equally
unjust to classify them merely on the bases of the results of intelligence
tests. Such tests do not measure a child’s total intellectual development. A
child, for instance may have a high ability in one field and a low in another.
Classifying children merely on the basis of intelligence test results,
therefore, does not seem to be a reasonable educational policy.
A
reasonable procedure would be to classify children on the basis of maximum
homogeneity in intellectual growth. This amounts to grouping those children in
the same section who have more or less the same level of linguistic
achievements, the same cultural interests, vocational biases, scholastic
standing etc.
Such
a scientifically based classification proves convenient in the long run both
for the teacher as well as the taught. The teacher thus gets a group of more or
less homogeneous children inspired by similar interests, preferences, etc. This
facilitates his teaching and guidance work very considerably. The children also
obviously stand to gain by such a system of classification because they get the
maximum opportunities most congenial to a smooth development of their own
particular interests, aptitudes, preferences, etc.
(2) Pleasant Instructions Promote Intellectual
Growth:
A
teacher who adopts a boring and fossilized teaching technique in the class
room and is inspired by an attitude towards education, which gives an antique
smell to the proceedings, impedes rather than promotes the intellectual growth
of the students
In
order to achieve the very purpose of education, the method of instruction
should be so pleasant that the child feels quite at home in the class. In such
a situation he learns a great deal without ever feeling the least strain or
boredom.
(3) Attitude Towards the Intellectually Handicapped
Child
In any class a certain number of students are
usually found to be intellectually handicapped. Some of the categories of such
students are dull and backward children, children suffering from specific
backwardness in certain school subjects, etc.
Two
extremely undesirable attitudes, which many of our unthinking teachers habitually
adopt towards such students, are:--
(i)
Ignoring them altogether, or
(ii)
Pushing them too much.
That
ignoring an intellectually handicapped child is undesirable needs no explanation.
Over pushing him is equally undesirable. The teacher can very well imagine the
plight of a lean pony if it is lashed over much to run as fast as a galloping
horse.
Parents
and teachers should, therefore, be reasonably moderate with such children, and
refrain from putting such an enormous load of bookish instruction on them as is
far beyond their innate capacity.
(4) Maximum Language Development
Language
is absolutely indispensable for the smooth intellectual growth of the child.
The school should, therefore, provide all sorts of opportunities for his
maximum language development. This could be achieved by giving the child frequent
exercises in reading, spelling, writing, composition, etc. Creative expression
in language could be developed by providing opportunities for conversation,
listening and repeating stories, describing experiences, participating in
debates, discussions, declamation contests, symposia, writing for the school
and other juvenile journals, etc.
Vexing
the child’s mind with the difficult task of learning too many languages at an
early age does not appear to be a very wise educational practice. Teaching of a
language other than the mother tongue of the child at the nursery level is
educationally as well as psychologically unsound.
Parents
and teachers should do their best to provide the child with a healthy language
environment at home and school. This means that the child should usually have
those people around him who speak and write correct and creative language.
Should certain speech defects or disorders appear in a child, appropriate
medical or psychological advice and treatment should never be delayed.
(5) Habits of Clear and Creative Thinking
Thought
is the most unfailing measure of one’s intellectual level. Children must be
helped to develop habits of clear and creative thinking right from their early
years.
Training
them in the art of logical thinking, developing the ability to detect absurdities
in thought, making available to them constructive reading material like books,
magazines etc, are some of the familiar methods which prove immensely helpful
in this direction.
(6) Encouraging Creative pursuits
Healthy
and creative interests are great promoters of intellectual growth. Some such
interests are: literature, poetry, drama, fiction, good motion pictures, TV
programs, radio programs, journals, magazines, public listening and speaking,
developing cultural association with intellectuals, sports, hobbies, etc.
Teachers
and parents should encourage children to take interest in these and other
creative pursuits to a degree which is appropriate to their developmental
level.
Attention
to the Whole Child Needed
The
suggestion offered in the foregoing pages can help teachers and parents who
desire to promote the intellectual health of their children. It may, however,
be remembered that intellectual growth is not an isolated field of development.
Such a growth does not take place independently and in isolation from other
aspects of development, e.g. social, emotional and even physical. One aspect of
development, therefore, is not to be over emphasized at the cost of the others.
All are equally significant.
In fact the most reasonable attitude
would be to approach the child as a whole and to place due emphasis on an all-round
development of his personality_ physical, social, emotional and intellectual.
If such a comprehensive attitude is successfully adopted at home and at school,
children are bound to grow into adults who are physically fit, socially
adequate, emotionally balanced and intellectually sound.
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