I read the article, “Gauging the
Intelligence of Infants”. This article describes an experiment that
was conducted in
1989 by Joseph F. Fagan on infants and how this experiment relates
today. Fagan believed that this test could predict
their score on an intelligence test years later, when they started
school. “In
the test, the infant looks at a series of photographs — first a
pair of identical faces, then the same face paired with one the baby
hasn’t seen. The researchers measure how long the baby looks at the
new face.” This test tests novelty preference. The babies of below
average intelligence were found to not exhibit the same attraction to
novelty as the smarter babies did. Dr. Fagan's goal was
to look for babies at the other end of the intelligence curve, those
who would fall behind as they grew up. '“His hope was always was to
identify early on, in the first year of life, kids who were at risk,
cognitively, so we could focus our resources on them and help them
out...”' Twenty-five years later the validity of Dr. Fagan's tests
proved to hold up. “Dr. Holland revisited infants they had tested
in the 1980s, and found that the Fagan scores were predictive of the
I.Q. and academic achievement two decades later when these babies
turned 21.”Although his tests worked, Fagan's dream of a widespread
screening for infants did not come to pass. This is mainly because of
concerns that this test may put labels on children at a young age
that would become self-fulfilling prophecies. However, “the numbers
become more reliable in aggregate, and the test is widely used in the
academic world to quantify the effects of, for example, toxic
chemicals on young children.”
These
tests, if widespread, could have a great effect on humanity. Knowing
and predicting a child's future based on their intellectual ability
of an infant could help prepare each child for school by targeting
their unique needs. This could help ensure that all educated children
will reach the peak of their success. However, I agree that this may
also be a way of labeling children, and could be very harmful to
those who are not predicted to score high in later years. This could
be a way of deterring these children from trying their best.
Regardless of labels, I think it is important that these tests be
used to test chemicals on young children. This could be a highly
successful way of saving children from harmful chemicals and ensuring
the environments children grow up in are as safe as possible.
Overall,
I really enjoyed this article. It was amazing to me that a test so
simple could predict the intellectual success of an individual. This
shows be how complex an infants brain is, even though it is very
young. I am interested to see if these tests will come into play more
in our society.
After reading Caroline Cory’s review of the article “Gauging the Intelligence of Infants,” I now know a lot more about the process of trying to gage how smart a child will be from tests taken as an infant. I think that Caroline did a really effective job of describing how the scientists performed the experiment, which is by showing the infants a series of photographs of pairs of identical faces and then with one new face and seeing how long they look at the new face, while still keeping the explanation succinct and not boring. Also, taking advantage of the usage of direct quotes from the scientists who performed the experiment, such as Dr. Joseph F. Fagan, helped enrich the review and give the reader a more complete understanding of the article. Finally, right after Caroline explained what the experiment was she went on to explain the importance of finding these results, which were to find infants who were at risk of falling behind later in life and focus resources on them. This gave the experiment a purpose and made me realize why it was important for the future.
ReplyDeleteOverall, the review was very informative and interesting; however, if I were to point out a couple of things that would make it even better for next time, I would say that maybe she could balance the amount of summary and the amount of critique to be more equal instead of having so much summary and less critique. Also, next time, it would be great if she started with a more interesting opening instead of “I read the article…” to draw the reader in more.
One really fascinating fact I learned was that a simple test of looking at photographs can measure how intelligent an infant will be on the years to come. It shows you how complex the infant brain can be. In general, this review was very intriguing and I really enjoyed reading it.