Abstract

LOPEZ GALINDO, Dora Elsy; HENAO GARCIA, Luz Stella  and  SUAREZ CASTRO, Ofelia. MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH IN BOYS AND GIRLS WITH A LOW INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT. Investig. andina [online]. 2008, vol.10, n.17, pp.27-44. ISSN 0124-8146.

Introduction: the assessment of intelligence is one of the most controversial aspects in the education and psychological fields. It is measured through psychometric testing which only takes into consideration some of the dimensions and cognitive processes, such as verbal understanding, level of knowledge, verbal training of concepts, skills of abstract and concrete reasoning, logical thinking, memory, language development, ability to classify and generalize numerical reasoning, mental calculation, speed in the mental processes, use of the practical knowledge, the use of judgement in social situations, common sense, moral and ethical judgement, attention and concentration and do not take others into consideration, such as location of space, tone, rhythm and musical intonation, capabilities to precisely perceive the visual world, realize transformations and modifications to the initial perceptions, even in the absence of proper physical stimuli, control of proper body movements and the capability to handle objects with skill, access to their own private life, ability to notice and establish differences between other individuals and, in particular, between mood swings, temperament, motivations and intentions. In addition, they underestimate the influence of the environment on the subject’s performance; this situation becomes more complex when assessing people with cognitive disabilities. Thus, it is necessary to assess the intellectual capabilities through qualitative, less diminishing processes, as Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests. Method: related study with emphasis in establishing the degree of relation between the variables (contextual test PCI and WISC-R). Results: the study showed that there is no direct relation between the subtests of the intelligence test WISCR and PCI, which indicates that both of them consider different aspects of similar processes. With the contextual test it was possible to observe abilities and competences that would hardly be demonstrated through a formal test. However, it is necessary to admit that there was a low population performance. Conclusion: although the performance of the population that was subject to this study was relatively low in both tests, the evaluation through a contextual test contributes significant elements to the processes of incorporating the disabled population into schools, facilitating the development of other competitions and their adjustment to the school environment.

Keywords : Intelligence; multiple intelligences; psychometric assessment; contextual evaluation; tests of intelligence; cognitive disability.