Variations of Intelligence

Variations of Intelligence

Intellectual Deficiency

• Children face enormous difficulty in learning even very simple skills 
• These children who show intellectual deficiency are 'intellectually disabled'
• The American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) views intellectual disability as "significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behaviour and manifested during the developmental age." 

Three features of the above definition are:

1. 'significantly sub-average intellectual functioning' is a must to be regarded as intellectually disabled having IQ below 70.
2. 'deficits in adaptive behaviour' where, adaptive behaviour means a person's capacity to be independent and deal effectively with one's environment.
3. deficits must be observed during the 'developmental period' i.e. between 0 and 18yrs of age.

• Taught to work and function with special attention
• Some cannot be trained and require institutional care throughout their lives 
• Different levels of intellectually disability:

Intellectual Giftedness

• Higher performance because of their outstanding potentialities. 
• Giftedness is exceptional general ability shown in superior performance in a wide variety of areas
• Talent refers to remarkable ability in a specific field. The highly talented are sometimes called 'prodigies'.
• Giftedness depends on a combination of high ability, high creativity, and high commitment, from teachers’ point of view.
• Gifted children show early signs of intellectual superiority. Even during infancy and early childhood, they show:
• larger attention span
• good recognition memory
• preference for novelty
• sensitivity to environmental changes 
• early appearance of language skills

Characteristics of gifted children are: