The Testing of Multiple Intelligences

With a Little Help from…Howard Gardner?

The Testing of Multiple Intelligences

It is the first day of school at H.G. Elementary School. At recess, Bobby organizes a game of tag, while Suzy stands awkwardly against the wall; but come Sunday morning, Suzy is the star of the dance recital. Sarah can ace her spelling test if she creates a rhythmic pattern to each word but just cannot seem to solve story-problems in math. Jayden never needs a calculator to add, subtract, multiply, or divide but hates music because he just cannot seem to stay with the beat. Maribeth excels in history, and absorbs what she reads like a sponge, while Jessica prefers art and has pieces in the up-coming exhibit. Spencer takes care of the classroom’s terrarium and is a whiz with keeping the environment just right for the frogs, turtle, and lizards. Reed is a bit quiet and keeps to himself, which is no wonder since he is always thinking about the meaning of life and really enjoys reading about the great philosophers.

While these examples seem completely normal for everyday life, they actually illustrate Howard Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences. Howard Gardner developed his theory on multiple intelligences which differentiated intelligence into eight areas rather than a singular, all-or-nothing intelligence. That is to say that to be considered intelligent, one could excel in any of the eight areas and no one area would be superior to another. Gardner’s eight types of intelligence are: musical, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, movement/body-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. As a side note, there was a proposed ninth intelligence that over time has been further explored – existential intelligence. For purposes of this analysis, only the original eight will be discussed.

In the original example, Sarah would be someone with musical intelligence. She can relate and learn things more readily when there is a sound, rhythm, tone, or music associated with the material. To test whether someone has this type of intelligence, a child could be given a nursery rhyme on paper and asked to memorize it. If unsuccessful, the same nursery rhyme could be sung to the child or presented with in a rhythmic pattern. If the child were able to then remember the nursery rhyme, it is likely that he has musical intelligence. In that same situation, if the child were to excel at memorization of the written rhyme, he might be said to have verbal-linguistic intelligence.

Maribeth, who excels at reading and memorizing historical dates, is an example of a person with verbal-linguistic. As mentioned briefly in the paragraph directly preceding this one, a test could be given to identify this type of intelligence by asking the subject to memorize a list of random words given orally. A person with verbal-linguistic intelligence would have