Over the years I have often faced the difficult task of explaining to parents the meaning and implications of low scores on an intelligence test.  This article aims at guiding parents to better comprehend what these tests are measuring and how they can be helpful in finding the best intervention for their child.  I will first explain what intelligence is, give an explanation of what an I.Q. attempts to measure, and the implications of different levels of intelligence.

We agree that there are different types of intelligences and many books are written on the subject of multiple intelligences: “music smart,” “people smart,” “body-balance smart,” “word smart,” “picture smart,” etc.   Although it is important to consider them all, when the parents request help to better grasp the reasons why the child is not succeeding with the academics, a professional needs to concentrate on the cognitive skills that relate the most to reading, writing, and arithmetic.  The cognitive abilities refer to the intellectual potential of the child to reason and to analyse data abstractly and logically. 

The most used test to measure the intelligence quotient of children from six to sixteen years old is the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children which is in its fourth edition (WISC-IV).  The test has five main scores:  The Verbal Comprehension score indicates how well a child did on tasks that required the student to listen to questions and give spoken answers to them.  These tasks evaluate the child’s skills in understanding verbal information, thinking with words, and expressing thoughts in words.  The Perceptual Organization score indicates how well this student did on tasks that required her or him to examine and think about things such as designs and pictures, and to solve problems without using words.  These tasks evaluate the child’s skills in solving nonverbal problems, sometimes using eye-hand coordination, and working efficiently with visual information.  The Working Memory score indicates how well the student concentrates on tasks requiring attention and mental control. The Processing Speed score indicates how well the child does on tasks using eye-hand coordination, and working quickly and efficiently with visual information.  The Full Scale score combines all the scores.  It represents one way to view the student's overall thinking and reasoning skills.

Although the scores represent a picture of the student's functioning at the present time, it is not to be construed as forever cast in concrete.  Nevertheless, it provides a reliable measure to analyse why the child has difficulty in academics.  The academic achievement reflects how much the child is performing with her potential.  It is more related to motivation to do the schoolwork or to dyslexic patterns, or emotional tension, or lack of proper educational teaching.  The intelligence quotient is more stable.  The level can change if the right intervention is used.  However, the level of cognitive skills does not change easily over time except if exceptional intensive interventions are used to deal with the functions of the central nervous system.  The cause is usually genetic, organic, or caused by a trauma, such as a lack of oxygen at birth. 

The best way to look at the results is percentile ranks which indicate that the performance of this student is as good as the performance of children of his or her age or grade level. For example: 10th percentile rank means that she succeeds as well as 10% of the children of her age or of the same grade level in the norm sample and that 90% succeed better than she.  Scores between the 25th and 75th percentiles are considered average.

The question is, “How does the intelligence quotient relate to the academics?”  Let me summarize it this way.  For a child with an IQ in the 50th percentile rank we would expect that his or her scores in the academic tests would be at his or her grade level.  However, we would expect one year delay in the academics for a child with an IQ in the 25th percentile rank.  With the same logic, we expect at least two years above grade level for a child in the 85th percentile rank of IQ.

This is crucial that homeschoolers who provide one-on-one teaching with some of the best curriculum on the market and whose child does not seem to “get it” comprehend that the level of the cognitive skills may be one of the main reasons for the child to not perform at the expected grade level.  In fact, this is the main situation that I have had to defend in court as an expert witness over the years:  the child was not succeeding at his grade level because, after testing, it was discovered that the cognitive skills were lower than expected for his age.  Each time the parents have been granted the permission to continue to homeschool.   

I am surely not advocating that we should lower our expectations but that we adjust them and “walk” with the child and grasp the reality of the amount of effort required of him to achieve at a higher level than expected by his intellectual potential.  I have witnessed so many students who, in spite of lower scores of intelligence level at a young age, have reached college level.  But, each time it has been at the price of intense parents’ investment and persistent effort and motivation on the part of the child.

These concepts are important to understand in order to adapt the schooling expectations and re-adjust the curriculum, to lower mom’s anxiety and/or guilt, and to justify the level of achievement to the grandparents and the school board; but most importantly, to provide the child with the experience of being loved (“feeling loved”), understood, and appreciated for who he is and the abilities he has.

Copyright 2008 Suzanne Day, Neuropsychologist member of l’Ordre des
psychologues du Québec et College of Alberta Psychologists