Thank you

I just would like to thank everyone in group 2 for their blogs.  I have learned a great deal in this course and some of what I learned I learned from you.  I would like to especially thank Gwen Phelps and Cassie Massaker I definitely visited your sites, sometimes I commented other times I just read.
I wish everyone the best in their future endeavors.


 "When we deal with children we are not merely one person.  We are at least three people.  We are parents of our children...we are children of our parents...we are adults with our own interests and needs.  Often these three people within us do not agree and may have different ideas...about what should or shouldn't be done."  -Magda Gerber

Testing for Intelligence

In early childhood children should be assessed based on the interplay of domains.  They should be assessed cognitively, socially, gross and fine motor skills because these are the areas that we concentrate on when we teach them.  Each of these areas should be tested.  Each overlap as children develop.

Average scores on intelligence tests are rising substantially and consistently, all over the world.  These gains have been going on for the better part of a century.  These increases are called the Flynn Effect.  The rate of gain on standard broad-spectrum IQ tests amount to three IQ points per decade and it is even higher on certain specialized measures. (Neisser,  1997).   Many factors have influenced these gains in IQ tests such as child-rearing practices.  Parents everywhere are now interested in their children’s cognitive development and are probably doing more to encourage it than they did in the past.  Children are spending hours watching shows such as Sesame Street and other educational programs.  Better health and nutrition is a factor over the years, there has been a marked improvement in worldwide nutrition.  This means better nourished brains would allow individuals to perform better.   Increase of education, longer formal schooling years and an increase in culture-free IQ tests.  Visual and technical environment has increased.  Video games and computers each successive generation has been exposed to far richer optical displays than the one before.

Reference:

Neisser, Ulric (September-October 1997).  Rising Scores on Intelligence Tests  retrieved from  http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/rising-scores-on-intelligence-test/1

Sandhu, Inderbir  (2002-2011).  Decline and Increase in IQ Scores   retrieved from:  http://www.brainy-child.com/exper/iq-score.shtml