Testing a child’s IQ

Advantages and disadvantages of testing a child’s IQ

“Is my child intelligent?”

“Why is my child not as successful as other children?”

“This kid is very intelligent, get his IQ measured.”

With these kinds of thoughts, the expectations of the families from their children increase. Families can react unexpectedly to a decrease in their child’s success even in a lesson. In addition, they may start to not tolerate their children’s mistakes. Thus, both families and children can experience great disappointment. Families who ignore such disadvantages need to have an intelligence test in order to prove the intelligence level of their children.

Because families do not have enough information about the application of intelligence tests, they can turn to psychologists who do not have sufficient test knowledge and application training in the clinical field. As a result of the wrong evaluations made by non-experts, they can put more expectations and responsibilities on their children than they can bear. In this case, children may develop psychologically based negative reactive behaviors such as self-confidence being damaged or suddenly withering in the process of psycho-social development.

Due to the different types of intelligence that have been scientifically confirmed, evaluating whether the child is intelligent or not based solely on academic success or well-behave can be encountered in every period of the child as a prejudice that directly damages both the child and his/her future life.

Proving that a child is persistently intelligent in a field may cause the child to be labeled. According to the measurement results, labeling the child in a good or bad sense by psychologists or families can harm the family relations as well as cause the child to question whether he feels belonging to his environment or not. These are some disadvantages of testing a child’s IQ.

On the other hand, when intelligence tests are applied by a specialist because of the suspicion of a behavioral or cognitive disorder in the child, it is possible to plan the education program of the child in line with the information obtained from the intelligence test, and to support the diagnosis and treatment process in the best way. Intelligence testing can reveal individual abilities. These may be the advantages of testing a child’s IQ.

The point is that intelligence tests should not be done just because of curiosity and should be done by experts with expert advice.