Multiple Intelligences.

Essay by music79University, Master'sA-, October 2005

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In 1983, Howard Gardner introduced his Theory of Multiple Intelligence in his book "Frames of Mind." Through his work as a professor and a psychologist, Gardner suggested that intelligence was not a single attribute that could be measured and given a number. In his book he pointed out that IQ tests measure verbal, logical-mathematical, and some special intelligence. But Gardner believed that there were many other kinds of intelligences that are also important factors in human capability.

In his book" Frames of Mind", Gardner states that culture plays a role in intelligence, as well as biological makeup. A person is born with a certain potential which guides development down a certain path. Neither of these, biological makeup or culture, can develop intelligence without the other.

Gardner gives his definition of intelligence, "A human intellectual competence must entail a set of skills of problem solving- enabling the individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that he or she encounters and when appropriate, to create an effective product- and must also entail the potential for finding or creating problems- thereby laying the ground work for the acquisition of new knowledge."

Gardner sets his criteria for measuring intelligence. The first one being that a person can have brain damage in a certain section in the brain and that section is the obky thing that is not functional, all the rest of the parts are. The existence of idiot savants, prodigies and other exceptional individuals is the second criteria. An identifiable core operation or set of operations, a distinctive developmental history and evolutionary plausibility, support from experimental psychological tasks, support from psychometric findings and susceptibility to encode in a symbol system are the rest of Gardners' criteria of intelligence.

According to Howard Gardner, there are eight distinct intelligences that can be linked to their...