How Intelligent is Your Child? Really?
Many mothers like to think that their children are intellectually gifted but new research has shown that mothers of children aged 5 to 11 dramatically overestimate their children's intelligence.
In this month's issue of the scientific journal Higher Intelligence, researchers from the South Boston University Psychology Department published results of a study of over 2,000 children in Massachusetts, USA. The study compared parents' perceptions of their children's intelligence with the children's scores on an intelligence test and found that mothers, and to a lesser extent, fathers, have unrealistic views of their children's intellectual ability.
On standardised intelligence tests, the average score is 100 with 68% of the population scoring between 85 and 115 while only 2.5% of the population score over 130 and are considered gifted. The 2,117 elementary school children studied were aged between 5 and 11 years had an average score of 102 on a standardised intelligence test. Parents overestimated their children’s intelligence with average scores of 123 from mothers and 116 from fathers.
One of the study's most interesting findings, shown in the graph, was that more affluent parents overestimated their children’s intelligence more than less affluent parents and that the overestimation by mothers was greater than that by fathers in the more affluent groups. In the highest income group, the average intelligence score of the children was 106 yet over half of the mothers thought that their child was gifted. Dr Weschler, who led the study, offered an explanation, "our study found that they were perfectly normal American kids but wealthy parents, especially mothers, can be quite competitive when it comes to their children and this has been reflected in our study results. Many of these mothers were quite surprised by their children's test results"
The study also found that the parents of younger children overestimated their children's intelligence more than parents of older children. Dr Weschler explained further, "it seems that parents, especially mothers have an unrealistic perception if their children's intellectual capabilities until they get evidence to the contrary from school reports, we also found that parents with only one child overestimated the intelligence of their children more than those with larger families." Dr Weschler and colleagues will now turn their attention to researching ways to help parents understand their children's true capabilities and not place unrealistic expectations on them.
Yes, this all sounds like the familiar american and particularly midwestern pathology.
Thanks!!! for confirming what has been obvious for some time.
r.k.j., April 23, 2006 6:57
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