Gardners_Frames_of_Mind

In 1983 Howard Gardner wrote a book about his theory of “Multiple Intelligences.” He designed this theory in thinking that there were flaws in some of the testing that is done to obtain an individual’s intelligence quotient, or I.Q. Gardner believes that this number can be inefficient in measuring peoples intelligence and believes that one can have competence in one area, and not so much in another. There are five different areas of intelligence that Gardner emphasizes. Linguistic: language, Musical, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial and Bodily intelligence, these develop his “Frames of Mind.” Since the book has been written there have been three more intelligences added to make up the “Eight Frames of Mind.” The three that have been added are Naturalist, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal. While coming up with this theory Gardner tested multiple people from different ages and backgrounds, from gifted individuals to ones who are brain damaged, and experts in their areas of expertise. Gardner believes that each person contains these intelligences, but may be more competent in one area than the other. Also it is Gardners belief that some of these intelligences go hand in hand, and sometimes can’t do one without the other. Linguistic intelligence is defined as the capacity to use language, your native language, and perhaps other languages, to express what's on your mind and to understand other people. Linguistic intelligence is essentially the ability use a language correctly and the knowledge of the language, as well as being able to communicate with other people. Humans start showing the use of language as early as a few months old and continue to enhance their ability throughout their lifetime. Although some children do begin to start speaking later than others, there tends not to be much difference between them and the ones who started speaking at a common age. An example of linguistic intelligence would be two high school students in the same grade are assigned to write paper on the same topic. One student, who has more language intelligence and a better understanding of how to use verbs, nouns and so on, is more likely going to get a better grade then the one who isn’t. Good public speakers are also considered to have language intelligence, speakers such as the past president Abraham Lincoln or the great speaker from the civil rights movement in Martin Luther King Jr. Also linguistic intelligence can be paired with other intelligences, such as musical, because music is almost its own language, having the ability to read and interpret music can be tied in with linguistic intelligence. Gardner defines music intelligence as is the capacity to think in music, to be able to hear patterns, recognize them, and perhaps manipulate them. Different tests have been done with people to see if they could find out if people who aren’t composers could describe musical patterns done with three different tests, “bottom-up” approach which is designed to see the different ways people examine the parts of music such as tones and rhythms. Second one is the opposite of the first, called “top-down” approach, where people were given different pieces of music to listen to and are asked questions like does the music get louder or softer, faster or slower' A third approach to testing a person’s ability is called the “middle ground” approach, the people who are tested using this approach are asked to link together pieces of music that are in the same key or determine what ending is more suitable for that piece of music. Throughout each of these tests, they all conclude that even people who are disabled can be successful with all of these tests. Like putting two pieces together or the right ending to a certain piece of music and the patterns of keys and tones. These tests show that essentially everyone is born with some kind of music intelligence, and some practicing to be great at it and others born being great at it, like the composers of the classical era such as Beethoven, Mozart and Handl. But the development of music intelligence depends on the person and obviously practice, with any other talent that a person has, it still needs to be practiced. Music intelligence can also be linked with other intelligences from the “frames of mind.” Being able to read and sing the music is an example of how it pairs with linguistic intelligence. Kinesthetic intelligence would be another linked to musical intelligence, those people who are in ballet or have any kind of dancing skill would be pairing the two intelligences together to work in harmony with each other. Music can also be linked to mathematical intelligence, but just on a standard level, with both of them having to do with ratios, proportions and reoccurring patterns. Logical-Mathematical intelligence is defined as people with highly developed logical/mathematical intelligences. These people can process mathematical information in such ways as a scientist or mathematician does. It has been researched by Piaget that children can’t understand counting and the basic logic of math, such as counting objects like 1,2,3 and so on, until the age of about four or five years. And by the age of six or seven they can make sense that some piles of objects may look bigger, but are actually smaller by number. Piaget also determines that after the research he has done, the basic intelligence of math and logic comes first for counting objects. It is also stated that people reach the final stage of mathematic reasoning and ability during their adolescent years. This is not saying that it is perfected, but can do equations with numbers and letters representing objects or other numbers. Such as an equation like 2x+15-3y= x-10+12y and also word problems. The development of this intelligence can be linked to sensori-motor, touching and counting the objects hand on, concrete and operational development and seem to fit perfectly in that order as children grow older into their adolescence and sometimes even further into adulthood, such as mathematicians and scientists. The one intelligence mostly associated with logical-mathematical intelligence would be spatial. People work every day jobs combining these two intelligences, jobs like engineering, and surveying. Also people play games every day that might have no idea they are combining the two, chess for example, counting the blocks and making mental images of where you want to move the next piece or next two or three pieces. Spatial intelligence, also known as visual intelligence, is defined as the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind. Some simple tests that are conducted to measure childrens spatial intelligence are a variety of multiple choice questions, such as having one image, and four similar images for the child to pick from and match with the original. Another test would be just to ask the person or child to copy the image, which tends to be more difficult than simply just recognizing and pairing shapes or objects like the first test example. Having spatial ability is also considered to be able to recognize an object when it is seen from different angles, imagine seeing a car, people can identify kinds of cars whether it’s from the front, back or side of the car. Being able to establish images mentally when described, or the ability to rotate images mentally when seen on a piece of paper, which is something that is asked to do in the first test that I described is considered to be spatial intelligence. According to Jean Piaget the development of spatial intelligence starts at infancy, with the start of the movement of objects and navigating to different places, and continues throughout the intellectual development. At the beginning of childhood is when children start to be capable of producing mental images and picturing something they’ve seen before when it is currently not in front of them. When children start entering elementary school is when they can start picturing what objects would look like from another point of view, such as a different seat in the room, but is limited to concrete situations, and only when they enter the adolescent years can they deal with abstract spaces, which explains why geometry isn’t taken until high school (Jean Piaget). There are also many different people who use this kind of intelligence every day during their jobs. These jobs could be architects, which would also include logical-mathematical intelligence, video game designers, they would have to vision what they want the game to look like as they are designing it. Artists, painters and sculptors would also use this intelligence whenever they put their craftsmanship to work. Logical intelligence would be the other intellect most associated with spatial intelligence, with areas like geometry and also in science which is logical.