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Every child has at least eight kinds of “smarts,” according to Leslie Shelton, but schools only develop two of them.
In a talk at the Mountain View library last Thursday, Shelton, director of the Learning Center at Skyline College, said all children have natural levels of different intelligences — social, spatial, language, nature, self, body, logic/math and musical. However, she said, schools emphasize and test only the language and logic/math categories.
With schools putting fewer resources into music, art and physical fitness, Shelton said parents should nurture development of their whole child and tap into his or her unique smarts. In fact, she believes the lack of attention to all the areas of a child’s intelligence is one of the primary causes of childhood depression.
“Research shows that babies’ brains are wired to learn,” she said. Furthermore, many children blend two or three intelligences together to learn more effectively.
“The most effective learners use all of their intelligences,” she said. “When they are pretty well developed in six out of eight — those are the [children] that succeed the best. What’s unfortunate are the kids who could just use a little bit of help to overcome issues around spelling or writing. They get so discouraged that they lose interest in school.”
Each area of intelligence operates in distinct areas of the brain, Shelton said. The best way to determine strengths is to observe children on their own, when they display the intelligences they favor the most. These are the strengths they will use for the rest of their lives, she said.
Shelton went on to describe the categories of intelligence:
*A child with strong social intelligence will often want to talk a lot, enjoy group activities, have lots of friends, and is good at sensing how others feel. The child learns best in social environments.
*Self-intelligent children like to work alone, are aware of their feelings and can talk about their experiences with insights, Shelton said. Things must have personal meaning before a self-intelligent child fully engages.
*A body-intelligent child has excellent motor skills. The child has to move around a lot to learn, and may become bored in school because children there are often told to be quiet and sit still. The best way to teach a body-intelligent child language is through games such as Scrabble, where the child can move letters around on a board to form words, as well as crafts, sports and mechanics.
*Musically intelligent children learn through songs, Shelton said. For example, if a child is having difficulty remembering an idea, turn the memorization into a song or a tune. Such children are sensitive to pitch, rhythms and tones.
*Language-smart children enjoy puns and rhymes. A language-smart child can tell a detailed story that makes sense, enjoys reading, and likes to play word games.
*A nature-smart child loves to be outside and is often fascinated with bugs, birds, animals and dirt. This child easily remembers the names of fish, birds and dinosaurs.
*A math-intelligent child enjoys counting and likes to organize toys and blocks. These children notice numbers and patterns and often make up their own experiments.
*Spatially smart children are good at visualization. They also like blocks, Legos, paints and clay and enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together again.
“Everybody is unique,” Shelton said. “The picture of your intelligence is as unique as your face.”
