Valuable Uses for IQ Tests

Remember that intelligence is a "theory". Does it really exist? Researchers of intelligence believe that it does and so they create the 's' factors, or subtests necessary to measure a person's intelligence. Think of all of the subtests tapping into different parts of the brain, measuring how that area functions. Some of the 's' factors have a high correlation. Usually this is because they are a similar skill from the same part of the brain. The other 's' factors may have a low correlation, because they are from a different part of the brain.

The left hemisphere of the brain is the "language center", enabling us to process language and understand verbal information. The language 's' factors measured as subtests might be vocabulary, word memory, and social comprehension. When that side of left hemisphere of the brain is permanently damaged, most adults would never speak or understand language again. Their 's' factors for language would probably all be very low. Infants are another story. The neurons have not become lateralized yet, or specified neurons for certain skills. Infants, who have sustained brain damage, are more likely to re specialize and use alternate parts of the brain for language development. When brain damage to the left hemisphere is extensive, verbal requests/lectures will be useless to a person.

After learning a lot about which parts of the brain control most of our functioning due to studying people with brain damage. When a person sustains brain damage as an adult, we try to help them use their other stronger areas of the brain to compensate. Such strategies might be to use a day planner or an iphone's calendar to stay on track at work. Some adults with language problems could stick to working online rather than in a job where they would have to communicate verbally.

There are many valuable uses for IQ tests. Are there any other uses for these tests?