World Education / NCSALL
Connecting Research and Practice,
Volume 3, Issue A, March 1999
If you would like more information on Focus on Basics, you can e-mail us at FOB@WorldEd.org.
Involves perceiving or generating spoken or written language
Allows communication and sense-making through language
Includes sensitivity to subtle meanings in language
Encompasses descriptive, expressive, and poetic language abilities
A great deal of linguistic intelligence is required if you are a novelist, stand-up comedian, journalist, lawyer, poet, news correspondent. Linguistic intelligence is not about being bilingual, but does include facility with learning languages; nor is it being talkative or liking to talk.
Enables individuals to use and appreciate abstract relations
Includes facility in the use of numbers and logical thinking
A great deal of logical-mathematical intelligence is required if you are a mathematician, scientist, engineer, or architect. This intelligence is not only about numerical reasoning but, as the name implies, includes logical reasoning abilities that might not involve numbers at all.
Involves perceiving and using visual or spatial information
Transforming this information into visual images
Recreating visual images from memory
You need a lot of spatial intelligence if you are a sculptor, architect, surgeon, cab driver, dancer. Spatial intelligence is not necessarily visual. Blind individuals develop excellent spatial ability.
Allows an individual to use all or part of one's body to "create"
Refers to the ability to control all or isolated parts of one's body
Includes athletic, creative, fine, and gross motor movement
You require a great deal of bodily kinesthetic intelligence if you are a dancer, surgeon, athlete, sculptor. Bodily kinesthetic intelligence is not merely moving, or "working off energy." A student who cannot sit still in the classroom does not necessarily possess a strength in this intelligence.