Intellect and Intellectual Differences

Neuropsychological Domains: Intellect

Introduction

• Focus on the neuropsychological domain of intellect within SPED 2110.
• Intellect is a distinct type of brain function used to execute behaviors.

Defining Intellect

• Intellect: ability to solve problems, often defined as academic ability or potential.
• Key words: ability and potential.
• Separate from academic performance.

Causes of Differences in Intellect

• Genetics
  • Correlation between parent IQ and child IQ.
  • Specific genetic disorders: Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome.
• Medical Considerations
  • During pregnancy: drug/alcohol/tobacco use, malnutrition, environmental toxins, illnesses.
  • During the birthing process: birth injuries, lack of oxygen.
  • After birth: meningitis, exposure to environmental toxins, head trauma, drowning.
  • Systematic issues: poverty, cultural deprivation, under stimulation.

Types of Intellectual Differences

• Gifted students.
• Students with developmental disorders (intellectual disabilities, multiple disabilities).
• Individuals with traumatic brain injury (potential impact).

Resources for Module Four

• Videos illustrating intellectual differences:
  • Young woman with an intellectual disability.
  • Group of students identified as gifted.
  • Students pursuing college with intellectual differences.

IQ Tests: History and Implications

• IQ tests as a data point in identifying intellectual differences.
• Problematic history: awareness of historical implications is crucial.
• 1905: Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon designed a test for children struggling in school in France.
  • Designed to determine which children required individualized attention, their method formed the basis of the IQ test.
• Researchers hypothesized that cognitive abilities like verbal reasoning, working memory, and visual spatial skills reflected an underlying general intelligence, or g factor.
• Simon and Binet designed a battery of tests to measure each of these abilities, and combine the results into a single score.
• $IQ = (Mental Age / Chronological Age) * 100$
• Today, a score of 100 represents the average of a sample population, with 68% of the population scoring within 15 points of 100.
• Evolution of IQ Testing:
  • Initially for academic help, later used to sort people based on flawed ideologies.
  • World War I: used by the military to sort recruits, influenced by eugenics.
  • Eugenics: belief in controlling human traits through selective breeding.
  • Erroneous claims of racial intellectual superiority.
  • 1924: Virginia policy allowing forced sterilization based on low IQ scores, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Nazi Germany: authorized the murder of children based on low IQ.
  • Post-Holocaust and Civil Rights Movement: discriminatory uses challenged.
  • Environmental impacts on IQ: Flynn effect (rising scores due to better education, healthcare, nutrition).
  • Mid-twentieth century: attempts to use IQ tests to evaluate psychiatric conditions.
  • Today: better techniques to identify bias, used to identify intellectual disability and determine support.
• IQ tests measure reasoning and problem-solving skills but don't fully reflect a person's potential.
• Researchers reject categorizing individuals by a single numerical score.
• Professional obligation: be aware of the historic uses of tools like IQ tests.
• IQ tests were used to perpetuate dangerous racist policies.

Interventions for Intellectual Differences

• Resources for interventions are in the module for intellect resources document.
• Types of chaining (similar to task analysis):
  • Total task chaining.
  • Forward chaining.
  • Backward chaining.
• Prompt types:
  • Prompt fading.
  • Least to most prompting.
  • Most to least prompting.
  • Graduated guidance for fine motor tasks.
• Considering least restrictive environment: continuum from least to most restrictive.
  • General education setting or special education classroom.
  • More restrictive settings only if necessary for safety, development, and curriculum access.
• Repetition and modeling: teaching is not telling.
  • Explaining, modeling, practicing with support.
  • Reinforcement for correct completion or near-correct completion.
  • Corrective feedback if the skill is not performed correctly.

Interventions for Students with High Cognitive Abilities (Gifted)

• Strategies for differentiating instruction:
  • Enrichment: presenting curricular content with more depth, breadth, complexity, or abstractness.
  • Acceleration: presenting curricular content earlier or at a faster pace.
    • Content acceleration.
    • Skipping a grade.
    • Advanced placement programs.
    • College courses in high school.
    • Early graduation or college entrance.
    • Choice based on individual student needs.
• Curriculum compacting: instructional technique to adjust curricular adjustments for students.
  • Defining goals and outcomes.
  • Determining mastered learning outcomes.
  • Replacement strategies.
  • Organized common sense approach.
  • Steps for carrying out curriculum compacting applicable to basic skills and content areas.

Conclusion

• Explore the resources on the resource page.
• Complete the exit ticket.