There has long been an argument about whether children are born with a certain amount of intellectual ability or ‘intelligence’, or whether it is a result of the way they are brought up. It’s called the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate, and there probably will never be an end to it. In other words, it’s beyond the realms of psychologists to know for certain the truth of the matter.

What is Intelligence?

Basically, whatever else it is, intelligence seems to be the ability to work things out, to solve problems, to learn – in other words, to think. Psychologists and educators prefer to speak in terms of ‘learning ability’, ‘learning skills’ and ‘thinking skills’.

The key learning skills that contribute to ‘intelligence’ are the ability to process visual patterns, to recall previously heard information and to make comparisons. Intelligence tests, where they exist, are based on these skills and the resultant scores are compared with the typical scores of children of the same age.

Theories of Intelligence
There are four basic theories of how children come to have intelligence. These are:

• that it is inherited – children are born with a fixed amount of intelligence, passed from their parents;
• that it is acquired – children depend on experience and stimulation during their formative years to develop intelligence;
• that it is interactive – children develop their intelligence as a result of the interaction between what they are born with and the experience and stimulation they receive in the early years;
• that it is learned – children can be taught how to think and, thus, how to become intelligent.

No Right Answer
Who is ever going to decide which of these theories is 憆ight? Perhaps none of them is, but all of them are. Perhaps there’s a little bit of truth in all of them and not the whole truth in any of them. Meanwhile, your child is growing and developing and you don’t want her/him to be wasting any time in developing thinking and learning skills. What can you determine from the implications of any of the theories outlined above?