Very few children are developmentally delayed, and equally few are especially gifted, so the chances are that your child falls within the normal range of intelligence. Your task as a parent is to accept his abilities and to help him develop his strengths by careful teaching. Remember, too, that there are many areas of ability: we tend to think of intelligence rather narrowly as verbal and arithmetic skills, but your child may creative and artistic abilities that are just as valuable and just as much in need of nurturing. Never push your child: accept him for who he is, give him every opportunity to develop his talents; show him and let him know that you love and respect him just as he is.
INTELLIGENCE TESTING: Modern systems of intelligence testing were developed in 1905 by two Frenchmen. Originally they were intended to predict whether children were likely to do well at school, and concentrated on judgment, comprehension, and reasoning. Modern testing views intelligence as the ability to process information, and so the tests are devised to see how well a child is acquiring thinking skills and applying them to everyday life. They are limited to skills that are important at school, and don’t take into account creativity or artistic talent. It is wrong to use IQ scores to predict how successful a child will be in later life, since thinking skills develop over time.
