maddening, "she said by telephone. "Maddening, this frantic race to IQ tests! This is a moment that many psychologists are alarmed and call for a start. But it is difficult to fight against the zeitgeist. Yet what scam! What a horrible underlying ideology and, most importantly, what harm for some children! "
Doctor of Psychology, author of numerous books and renowned psychologist, Claire Meljac was too used to review and consider the words of others to does not measure its own. So when she speaks of "catastrophe", she denounces "the business of intelligence", she is concerned about the "deification of the gifted" and sign it without reservation text-petition entitled "Psychologists wonder about the IQ and some of its uses," we urge the existence of a unease among psychologists specializing in childhood. And an anxiety disorder that raises much discussion about the school, performance and overinvestment in the family, and society in the child.
past few years, says psychologist in his Paris office of the unit of child psychopathology and adolescent hospital Sainte-Anne, specialized clinics for children are bombarded with requests for a new type that could be summarized as follows: "Quick, an IQ!"
Parents rushed to the psychologist in order to test the intelligence of their child, usually school failure, confident - and that's the novelty - it's actually a gifted child, that his "surdon" says he feels deep trouble at school or perhaps his insubordination , and a certificate with a high figure as a QI - "proof that he belongs to a superior race," quipped Claire Meljac - will better understand, appreciate it for its value and guide. Besides, says the psychologist, the restoration of narcissistic parents, spawning a dunce would become, by the grace of a figure, the parents of a little genius. Superb deal! The reason for this phenomenon? Programs TV on gifted children rescued in time to a school where they languished; emissions valuing the famous IQ; dozens of Internet sites, a few euros, to evaluate its own quota. , Or even the press people now including IQ in the measurements of the stars: Madonna 140, 153 Sharon Stone ...
"Alas," said Claire Meljac. If I come to find children very well endowed, it is far from the majority of cases! " Three quarters of the children tested belong to the category not expected, overstock wrongly hospital services already overwhelmed - the proportion of children consultant "surdon" rises in some clinics up to 50% - or hiding real problems that should be identified and treated. This can range from mild learning disabilities to profound autism.
further necessary that the parents intend to end the psychologist's diagnosis. And abandon the obsession of the famous IQ, intellectual and psychological evaluation that quantitative subject of a thousand misunderstandings and so simplistic. But mostly, it seems, do not want. Came to be confirmed donations intensely desired, they prefer to break the thermometer and seek a more sympathetic psychologist.
The task is not difficult, the market is huge. Psychologists - often linked to associations of parents of gifted children - agreed to conduct tests fast and inexpensive, even delete some tests (subtests) which could decrease the average IQ is that a note which, by Convention extends roughly between 55 and 145, less than 0.2% of individuals with a score above 145. So-called gifted students, provided with a score above 130, constituting only 2.2% of the population.
Psychologists National Education, teacher at the School of practicing psychologists and the University of Paris V, Robert Voyazopoulos noted, too, the influx of requests for tests, expressed by parents who, he says, have never invested so much in the child. But if the practitioner is looking forward to a renewed confidence in the psychological examination of the child, he is concerned about the misunderstanding on IQ, too often considered a measure as objective as height and weight, so that it is, he insists, a "professional convenience.
In 1905, the Ministry of Education commissioned Alfred Binet, who was interested in child development, to find a way detect impaired children, unable to follow the traditional school curriculum, mandated by the laws of Jules Ferry, for which he would arrange an appropriate education. Binet, assisted by the physician Theodore Simon, then built the beginnings of what would later become the mental tests, including introducing a distinction between the mental age of a child (determined by its ability to understand or accomplish tasks successfully completed by most subjects of age group) and his biological age.
The idea was an immediate huge success, particularly in North America, where it underwent However, eugenics and race (blacks and demeaning selecting immigrants) and deeply unequal.
Hence a long mistrust in many countries, increased in France by the anti-selective dynamics of May 68 and the legacy of psychoanalysis. But the evaluation tests of intelligence have evolved, grew rich, sophisticated, taking greater account of the different types of intelligence while strengthening their scientific basis.
"This is a valuable tool, says Robert Voyazopoulos. Language, behavior, thought processes, memory ... A discipline can not be based solely on listening and observation of the subject. It must seek the maximum of objectification through measurement tools and reference designs. Even on the IQ data is the least subjective and random or ... provided they are interpreted and understood in a psychological context overall. Delivering as is a naked figure to parents or institutions, is both absurd, dangerous and meaningless. "
He is careful, preferring to explain to parents the length analysis with maximum information on the capabilities of the child and his psychological state. It was on his advice the boy Karine Studnia, that amazed both his parents and his nanny by his insatiable desire for stories, his mastery of numbers and the alphabet at 2 ½ years, his memory and his amazing curiosity - but went to school "as to the Slaughterhouse "- has finally jumped two classes and preparing to 8 ½ years to enter college. "I just get tested at the request of an association before its entry into the 6th, says the mom. The psychiatrist told us an IQ of 149 but what to do? What he would have served there four years? This has been essential in the fulfillment of Jeremiah and the fact that he finds pleasure in school is monitoring and support of the psychologist, and his continuing role as an interface with the school. "A cue then, but not a gross value. An index, but with a margin of error. A point starting hypotheses and investigations. This is to remind these elements, and assert that IQ is "neither inevitable nor a destiny," Robert Voyazopoulos and other practitioners have written a text that more than 600 professionals have already signed.
Christine Arbisio part number. Psychologist and psychoanalyst, considers it appalling that psychologists entering the game of instant tests. "I found, she says, Misdiagnosis of drama! Based on a test she had missed and a very low IQ, a girl of ten years has almost been sent to an institution for handicapped children when he was a premature child who suffered just a visual impairment!
It also is wary of this movement that "enhances the intelligence as being hereditary and minimizes the influence of cultural background, which is nevertheless fundamental." But what the strikes, are the increasing demands of performance that affect children. Selecting from kindergarten on, pressure to succeed ... "We talk about the golden child? I see mostly children overstimulation, asked to gratify their narcissistic parents. The quest for the IQ is just one symptom of this crazy company performance."
Abolish it! suggested by Professor Emeritus Jacques Lautrey, Cognition and Development Laboratory at the Universite Rene Descartes. "It is too often a source of abuses, misunderstandings, rivalries and even damage to a school or a brotherhood." And most importantly, he says, "it has a view of the intelligence completely outdated scientifically. Fini, the use of a single figure to translate intelligence we know now multidimensional! Finished testing overemphasize the skills necessary for success of a school curriculum. Many other qualities, creativity, social intelligence, deserve recognition. Daring the real debate! "
Annick Cojean
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