The 5 Key Aspects of IQ Testing: Series Recap

I’m Elizabeth Blaetz, Head of School at Vanguard Gifted Academy. I hope you’ve been enjoying our series as we dive into the five aspects of IQ testing. Today we’ll be reviewing each aspect and discussing how a strength or weakness in one area affects learning.

The five aspects are:

  • Working memory:  How your mind keeps details up front in your mind for immediate use

  • Processing speed:  The rate at which you take in information and turn it into learning

  • Visual-Spatial learning:  When you think more in pictures than in words

  • Verbal comprehension:  When you think more in words than in pictures

  • Fluid reasoning:  How you apply prior knowledge to new things

One of the things that’s really important when I read IQ testing is finding a child’s low score. Doing so allows me to teach the learner the strategies they need most.

Let me give you some examples. If you, a student, have a low score in processing speed, I see you need a little bit more time to show me what you know. It doesn’t matter if you’re a visual-spatial learner and you show me in pictures or have high verbal comprehension and show me in words — it’s just going to take you longer to reach the answer. To help these students, incorporate wait time. Wait time is a practice teachers use before they take anybody’s answer — it’s that long moment of silence during a classroom conversation. That pause is really important for the slower-processing gifted child to complete their thoughts.

Another thing to look for is whether or not working memory scores are low. If a child’s working memory score is low, teachers and parents need to be careful about communicating instructions. When a student has fast processing but low working memory, they’re consistently diving into projects before they even gather the necessary supplies. These kids need to slow themselves down and think about what they need first, but a good teacher can also help them with certain strategies.

One strategy is to prompt students to put all the tools they’ll need for the next class in a bag they keep nearby. Then, each time they move, they only have to remember one bag rather than a handful of smaller things. Encouraging lower working memory students to make a list is also helpful. The list can be in pictures if they have strong visual-spatial skills, or the list can be in words if they’re stronger with verbal comprehension. However they do it, list-making is a great tool for somebody with lower working memory, one they can use their whole life, too.

One element of learning that affects both working memory and processing speed is attention. If your child has low working memory and processing speed scores, perhaps — rather than struggling with either directly — they have an underlying attention concern to address.

Overall, an IQ score is so much more than the number at the end of the test that gets a student into a school — it illustrates how a child’s mind works and how they learn. I hope you’ve learned a lot about IQ scores and are interested in diving deeper to learn more about your child.

If you missed any of the episodes in this series, I hope you’ll take a few minutes and go back and check them out. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have enjoyed this series.

 


Vanguard Gifted Academy