Intelligence is sometimes hard to find in a young child, but some toddlers are actually very bright. For example, I am a counselor at a summer camp for 2-5 year olds, I am in the 2 year old class and one of the girls in the class is very smart for her age, she can carry on a conversation with you for a little while and can read some parts of the books we read to them. Theorists define intelligence in a multitude of ways, they say that “ it is adaptive, such that it can be used flexibly to respond to a variety of situations and problems,” also that “it involves learning ability. People who are intelligent in particular domains learn new information and behaviors more quickly and easily than people who are less intelligent in those domains.” “It involves the use of prior knowledge to analyze and understand new situations effectively,” and many more explanations.
Also the intelligence depends on where the children live, if they were born and raised in a mainstream Western culture then their verbal skills are very important for survival; on the other hand if they are born and raised in a different king of culture, they might not value the chattiness and could get the child into a lot of trouble, and the adults find that talking a lot is a sign of immature behavior and that the child has low intelligence. There are many different ways to measure the intelligence of a child. It is quite difficult to measure intelligence when some people cannot agree on what is intelligent and what is not. Someone could be street smart, book smart many other things. There are many different things that someone could be intelligent at, so psychologists are not sure what kind of intelligence to tests on children because they could be intelligent in one subject but not another one.
When a child is born in the hospital the doctor or nurse test the child’s color, heart rate, reflexes, muscle tone and breathing at 1 and 5 minutes. Then another test that a child may do until he is 2 months old is the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale. Which is used to identify significant neurological abnormalities, it tests the childs alertness and attention, also how their eyes and ears process different things and a multitude of different things. Then when the child is 2 months to 3 1/2 years they are tested by the Bayley Scales of Development. This test includes 5 different scales, 2 are for social-emotional functioning and adaptive behavior, and the other 3 test cognitive development, language and motor skills. When the child is from the ages of 2 1/2 to 7 years old, they are tested with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, which has 14 different subtests.
When testing a child to see how intelligent they are is depends on the age of the child, on what you test them on. When you are testing a baby, you are pretty much testing their development of motor and language skills. When a child is around 6 months old, they should be able to sit up and can hold small objects in their hands. When a child is 2 years old, they should start to communicate with a few different words, and should be quite curious. Here is a list of things that a child should master at their age:
