Doctor, dancer

It’s not how smart you are, but rather how you are smart that counts - Howard Gardner. When children enter the school system, it’s no longer a matter of reading, writing and arithmetic. Broadly based school curricula recognise that all children learn differently with strength in one or two preferred styles of learning. 

In the early 1980s Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner was one of the first to challenge the traditional notion of ‘intelligence’ as something that could be measured and reduced to an IQ score. He believed that our culture had defined intelligence too narrowly and sought to broaden the definition of intelligence.

So he suggested a theory of multiple intelligences, categorising seven intelligences with an eighth since being added and a ninth currently under consideration.

Gardner suggests that each of us posses all of the nine intelligences, but in varying degrees of strength and skill. Different cultures appreciate and express them in various ways. The multiple intelligence theory indicates that any intelligence can be developed over time, some being more difficult than others.

The nine multiple intelligences 

Verbal/linguistic intelligence

 Think and learn with words and speech
• Love language, reading and writing
• Often have well developed vocabularies

Logical/mathematical intelligence

• Deal well with numbers and can recognise abstract patterns
• Enjoy working in a sequential manner
• Enjoy games, kits and puzzles

Visual/spatial intelligence

• Think most often in images and pictures
• Can create designs and communicate with diagrams
• Enjoy films, slides, maps and models

Rhythmic/musical intelligence

• Learn well with rhyme and rhythm
• Learn well when information can be sung, tapped or clapped
• Seek out opportunities to create music

Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence

• Learn and remember best through moving, touching and doing
• Enjoy hands-on type activities
• Often need short breaks to move around

Interpersonal intelligence

• Enjoy learning when interacting with others
• Like to cooperate with others
• Are interested in how peers feel about class work

Intrapersonal intelligence

• Learn through self-reflection and are often self-directed and independent
• Like opportunities to work, reflect, fantasize, dream and imagine in private
• Need to solve problems

Naturalist intelligence

• Learn through patterns in the natural environment
• Are fascinated by the immense variety of the animal and plant world
• Identify and make connections within the natural world

Existential intelligence (proposed)

• Learn through deep questioning
• Are able to place self within time and space
• Have sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence

Children possess each of these intelligences in various strengths and they function together in unique ways for each child. In other words, a child strong in verbal/linguistic intelligence will still learn differently from any other child possessing similar verbal/linguistic capabilities.

Gardner’s theory is that all children have the capacity to fully develop all nine intelligences given the appropriate encouragement, enrichment and guidance.

Gardner also indicates that there are many ways to be intelligent within each category. Someone who may never have learnt to read or write could still be considered highly linguistic because he may have a large and rich oral vocabulary and be a gifted storyteller.

Traditionally schools have tended to focus on the verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical types of intelligences, sometimes to the detriment of other areas. Contemporary western culture predominantly teaches, tests, reinforces and rewards these two kinds of intelligence. Gardner’s theory proposed that all nine intelligences are of equal importance and should be equally presented and supported by school curricula.  

Since the 1990s Gardner’s theories have been widely accepted and applied in many schools. Students in a modern primary school classroom are likely to encounter a range of activities across the spectrum of the nine intelligences.

There are a myriad of ways to do this in different and creative ways. Organising the curriculum around children’s interests, needs and various strengths can allow children to work in their preferred learning style for at least some of each day.

Year Four teacher, Cindy Kirby says, “I think multiple intelligences give me a much fuller picture of what a student can do, and a broader framework for judging what she’s done in class. Multiple intelligence theory challenges me to notice various talents and inclinations that students exhibit in my classroom, and to present material in ways that take these strengths into account.”

When teachers offer a variety of ways for students to engage in learning, they increase the opportunities for each child to succeed. Rather than just filtering all information through the more traditional ‘scholastic’ type intelligences, teachers can instead investigate how a child learns and works best.

Then they can develop activities and resources around those needs. Many teachers see the multiple intelligence theory as a way of reaching more kids; helping them to succeed and creating an environment in which more talents are recognised and applauded.

Year Four teacher, Allison Ohlsen says “I want to help kids to be aware of and understand their strengths and how to use them to their own advantage in problem solving. Self awareness is part of the key to successful learning.”

While it has many obvious advantages, taking a multiple intelligence approach to learning generally takes more planning and organising and must be carefully balanced with other curriculum needs and methods such as direct instruction and memorisation of facts.

Ask any parent and they can always precisely and lovingly highlight their children’s natural abilities. This one could ride a bike without training wheels at age three (bodily/kinesthetic); that one could talk at 18 months (verbal/linguistic); another could sing the words to familiar nursery rhymes by age two (rhythmic/musical). These children are showing their preferred learning styles – which as parents we tend to reinforce once we notice it.

So if a child is struggling in a learning activity, it might be helpful to think of it as a signpost that it may not be taught in their preferred learning style and a different approach may need to be adopted to help them achieve their full potential.

What would a multiple intelligence classroom look like?

To study a unit on planet Earth, teacher Bruce Campbell set up several learning centres for his grade three students.

• In the building centre, students constructed a three-layer replica of the earth, using three colours of clay to represent the core, the mantle and the crust (bodily/kinesthetic).
• In the maths centre activities centered on concentric circles, radius and diameter measurements (logical/mathematical),.
• In the reading centre students read a story called The Magic School Bus which depicted a group of school children exploring the inside of earth (verbal/linguistic).
• In the music centre students listened to pre-selected music while working through some spelling activities (rhythmic/musical).
• In the art centre students cut and pasted various concentric circles and labelled them to identify the different zones (visual/spatial).
• In the working together centre students engaged in a cooperative activity to read a fact sheet and jointly answer questions (interpersonal).
• In the personal work centre students were involved in a fantasy writing activity about “things you would take with you on a journey to the centre of the Earth” (intrapersonal).

Multiple intelligences – Tips for parents

• Talk to and observe your children and pay close attention to the ways they seem to learn best and easiest. Use that knowledge to work with them on projects and homework and assignments.
• In order to encourage the development of all intelligences, avoid labelling children as having only one particular intelligence.
• Gardner’s theory is a set of categories that help us to discover differences in how we mentally receive and order the world, they are not characterisations of what people are (or are not) like.
• As long as something is taught in only one way, it will only reach some children in some ways. Everything can be taught in several ways. Aim to discover better ways for your child to approach learning.
• Aim to sometimes present learning or tasks in an area of weakness. Challenge children appropriately so that they grow and develop in all areas.

Want to know more?

There are several websites that have questionnaires and surveys to help you work out what type of learner your child might be. If you are working with your child, make sure it is an age appropriate and developmentally suitable tool.

More information can be found on the Internet about Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences as well as other educational theories that may be of interest.

Check out these websites for more information:

ABC Television: behind the news   

New Horizons for Learning: Multiple Intelligences 

By Adele Amorson 

More Reading

Frames of Mind: the theory of multiple intelligences, Howard Gerdner, New York: Basic Books 1983.

The Multiple Intelligence Handbook, Bruce Campbell, Zephyr Press, 1994.

Teaching and Learning Through Multiple Intelligences, B. Campbell, L. Campbell & D. Dickinson, Allyn and Bacon, 1996.

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, May 2008. Updated July 2009.