Study of Learning Disorders: Evidence for MI Theory?

A study of the relationship between learning disorders and intellectual profiles, published in February 2017 in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, lends further empirical support to the theory of multiple intelligences.

Written by Enrico Toffalini, David Giofrè, and Cesare Cornoldi, the study sampled over 1,000 children diagnosed with specific learning disorders, revealing partial differences in intellectual profiles between subgroups.

Gardner commented on this finding, saying:

This large study of students with specific learning disabilities provides evidence for distinct multiple intelligences. Each of the four profiles has a revealing mixture of strengths and weaknesses. The study is especially notable because it focuses on difficulties in school—an institution which typically valorizes only linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. One can readily assume that if one looks across the range of profiles of strengths and weaknesses, both in and outside of school, equally distinctive profiles would emerge.

A PDF of the article is available here via the Association for Psychological Science.

MI and Habits of Mind in Arts Education

Howard Gardner and Ellen Winner discuss their respective research on multiple intelligences and arts education, as well as how these two lines of work fit together, in a newly-released short video.

Gardner is most known for the theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that humans have a single measurable intelligence, such as an IQ. Instead, the brain is analagous to a set of computers, each processing different information. His theory currently takes eight discrete intelligences into account. Explore the resources on this site to learn more.

Winner is supportive of arts education and has researched that realm extensively, coming to the conclusion that there is little evidence for claims that education in the arts improves overall test scores. Instead, the conversation around arts education should be changed, which she and her colleague Lois Hetland attempted to do by studying habits of mind in studio art classrooms.

In the video below, these two lines of work are explained and related to one another. Click to watch the full recording.

MI and Law Enforcement

Each day, Howard Gardner receives several general inquiries or pointed questions related to applications of the theory of multiple intelligences.

In the exchange below, Gardner received a note from a police training officer seeking advice on how to incorporate MI into training for law enforcement personnel.

Read the original note and Gardner's response below.

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Good morning Dr. Gardner,

I am part of a training group in my local police force (Police Training Officers, or PTOs) that has been tasked with the creation of a manual of problem based learning exercises to assist new officers in becoming considerate and understanding. I would like to use the theory of multiple intelligences as well as the concept of emotional intelligence in the manual.

Our questions, as basic as they may be, are:

1. What are your thoughts on the applicability of your theory to law enforcement?

2. How can each component of MI be used to assist the development of police officers in America today?

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your insight.

Sincerely,

Police Trainer

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Dear Police Trainer,

Many thanks for your thoughtful note. I am pleased and flattered that you and your colleagues think that the MI ideas we have developed might be useful in the education of police officers and future training officers (PTOs). At the start, I have to admit that I know very little about the training of police—in the past or today—and much of what I know is based either on old television shows or movies or on my scanning of newspaper headlines over the past years.

Therefore, I ask that you consider these notes to be "general advice" for educating professionals in general, rather than advice that is particularly targeted to your specific colleagues and future colleagues. (For that reason, I am posting the response here on MI Oasis.)

To begin with, the most important implication of MI theory for any profession, including law enforcement officers, is an appreciation that both their colleagues, and equally the individuals to whom they respond, may think quite differently from the ways in which they themselves do. For example, reflecting on an event that he/she witnesses, one person may convert the event into a story to be retold, another may see it much like a movie, a third will think about how the participants felt and reacted, and so on. My set of eight intelligences lay out the principal ways in which experiencers "code" and "recode" events at the time, for their memory, and for how they share these recollections with others. The more that one is cognizant of this fact of life, the less likely one will blunder—and of course, in law enforcement, such blunders can be fatal, as we’ve seen all too often in the last few years.

Another important implication of MI theory is how one assembles teams of peers, as well as teams of supervisors and rookies. Of course, there should be some expectations of all members of the team—for example, senses of responsibility, loyalty, and helpfulness. But in general, teams perform in superior fashion if they contain individuals who have complementary skills and approaches. Rather than having a dozen carbon copies of the chief, or the former chief, teams perform more effectively if a few members are more logical/analytic, a few have a very good "person sense," a few are very sensitive to the environment—both physical and interpersonal—and so on. These disparate individuals will likely have different "takes" on what happens/happened, and what should be done, and these diverse stances should result in a fuller understanding of situations and how those situations should be followed up.

Understanding others (interpersonal intelligence) is crucial, but equally important is a good understanding of yourself (intrapersonal intelligence)—how you think, how (and under what circumstances) you react, what are your strong and weak points, and how to use this profile in a constructive way. I am grateful to my colleagues Tom Hoerr and Mindy Kornhaber for these pointers.

Now that police units (and observers) are likely to record events, the skills of recording and interpreting need to be added to the repertoire of police teams.

In the last years, I have provisionally added a new intelligence to my original eight. I call it “pedagogical" or "teaching" intelligence. We all know that there can be two people who are equally skilled at some activity; one can easily teach/explain it to others, while the second is quite stymied, ends up repeating himself, and is very insensitive to what the learner is picking up and how. You should be alert to the power of teaching intelligence and place good teachers in appropriate positions.

I could go on, but I hope that these notes convey how I am thinking about the training of officers and, more generally, how MI theory can be helpful to those who are charged with the formation of the next generation of professionals. If you have any thoughts or criticisms, I’d be pleased to hear them.

With best wishes,

Howard

Guest Blog Series: Multiple Intelligences in Music, Part III

We recently received three guest blog entries regarding the use of Multiple Intelligences Theory in music education. The first, about MI and songwriting, is available by clicking here. The second, about how MI can have positive effects on engagement and success for music students, is available by clicking here.

In the third installment, printed below, Drs. Cecilia Martin Hoyos and Luis Ponce de León, researchers from Spain, outline a structure for music education combining Edgar Willems' pedagogy with MI theory.

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Multiple Intelligences and Edgar Willems’ approach to music education

By Dr. Cecilia Martín Hoyos and Dr. Luis Ponce de León

Do we want a well-rounded education for our children? Most any parent would most probably give an affirmative answer. This idea of a balanced, well-rounded education, where attention is paid to the child’s intellectual, social, sportive, artistic and humanistic development, is fully represented in Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983). Arts, and music in particular, have a fundamental role in artistic and humanistic development; but what if we had empirical evidence showing that music could have more than an aesthetic mission? What if music instruction had a positive effect on all intelligences?

As music teachers, inspired by Gardner’s theories, we have asked ourselves what it is about music and music instruction that helps children develop each and every intelligence. What happens in the music lesson that make students grow in so many different directions?

We have attempted to answer this question taking a specific approach to music education into account: Edgar Willems' (1890-1978) music teaching system. Apart from the fact that Willems had a special significance in our own training as teachers, we decided to turn to his approach because of the detailed breakdown of music instruction that Willems and his followers, especially Jacques Chapuis (1926-2007), have published. Willems showed a profound knowledge of children and their developmental stages, finding links between the elements of music and the nature of the child.

Building bridges between music instruction and MI was our mission for several years. We will briefly share some of these relationships in the following paragraphs, hoping that they will provide food for thought and debate.

Willems’ teaching system

One of Edgar Willems’ main goals as a teacher was to design an approach to music education that would prove most beneficial to the development of the child, an approach that still has a significant impact in music education in several European and Latin American countries.

Willems’ concern was making parents and educators understand “the importance of music education, which, going beyond the apprenticeship of an instrument or music itself, has a direct influence on the principal faculties of the human being.” Willems offers a musical education accessible to all children, ideally from an early age. Through the joy of discovering the language of music one achieves sensory, affective and mental development, all this without needing to add “extra-musical” elements to the lesson, such as colors or stories.

So, how do MI relate to a Willems-based music lesson?

Linguistic Intelligence

Words often play a significant role in music and music education. When singing with words or playing with the rhythm of speech, our linguistic intelligences are obviously put to work. However, music is a language by itself, and even when words are absent in a Willems-based lesson, making and reacting to music can eventually help with the learning of other natural languages.

When children are asked to listen to ascending and descending melodic contours, following melodic movement with their hands, or when asked to recognize and imitate sounds, students are developing phonological skills, skills concerned with how sounds are organized and used in languages. Fostering good aural discrimination will pave the way for an easier acquisition of foreign languages, improving pronunciation and listening skills. In tonal languages this is even more evident. Mastering the different shēng or tones in Mandarin-Chinese is all about melodic contours.

Bells used for aural discrimination

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

Working with patterns and sequences successfully is just one of the many aspects of logical- mathematical intelligence that finds its place in music instruction. Willems’ teaching approach, especially towards its third stage of the scheme, focuses on the many patterns and cycles that one can find in music.

Scales are just one example. Children will learn to sing a host of scale “cycles”, from Do to Do, Re to Re, Mi to Mi, and so forth, in every key, singing all sounds to the same syllable, such as “no”, in order to focus on the cycle of pitches. They will also recite the “cycle of names” on one same pitch, focusing on the order and pattern of the words we use to label sounds. A short musical idea can be sung and repeated, starting from the next note of the scale in ascending order each time, until we reach the original motif. These “ordering” exercises not only help understand the order and hierarchy that tonality comprises, but are likely to develop the “logical mind”.

The scale cycle drawn by a student

Spatial Intelligence

Enrique Granados, one of the greatest Spanish composers of the nineteenth century, described music as architecture in movement. Let us dwell on this beautiful image. Why not turn on some music? Instrumental music preferably, so that words and their meanings don’t take up our attention. With our eyes closed, let us try to visualize all that we hear.

Our doctoral research showed us the strong links between spatial intelligence and music intelligence. One important link is graphical representation of music, a significant step in the second stage of Willems’ scheme. Five-year olds will graphically represent musical features such as melodic movement, sound duration or variation in intensity. The simple line graphs that are drawn are indeed “visual maps” to music, maps that will be increasingly refined until children become proficient sheet music navigators.

Students reading melodic movement in graphics

Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence transpires in music when we pay attention to the accuracy and virtuosity of instrumental touch. Anyone that has seen a good musician perform will have observed the long and complex sequence of movements that take place at great speed.

We also become aware of this when observing how the plasticity and flexibility of movements can help convey musical content, such as the mood of a musical work. Have you ever watched an orchestral conductor on television while muting the volume of your set? Could you actually imagine the music taking place just by observing his gestures? You could most probably feel the character and tempo without listening to a single note.

Great attention is paid to bodily-kinesthetic aspects, especially in the development of rhythmic skills and the introductory work to instrumental performance. Activities involving corporal movement are featured in every lesson.

Corporal movement with music in class

Corporal movement with music in class

Personal intelligences

Given the emotional nature of music, personal intelligences are at its core. Unfortunately, this is sometimes ignored in music education; we can still find music lessons around the globe where the main emphasis is put on technique and where students are made to sing or perform on instruments without fostering expressivity. The umbilical cord between the child’s emotional core and her expression through music can’t be taken for granted.

In Willems’ approach to music education children are encouraged to take part actively in the lessons. Children are frequently asked to express themselves musically through melodic and rhythmic improvisation. Personal intelligences also play a significant role when students are asked to move to the music chosen because of its emotional content.

Conclusion

After opening a small window to the “transfer effects” of musical intelligence to all other Multiple Intelligences, through the lens of a specific approach to music education, we keep on asking ourselves: shouldn’t music education be taken more seriously by school administrators and political authorities worldwide?

When granting scholarships, the majority of the most prestigious Anglo-American schools and colleges take musical background into account. . Why is this so, even when the institution’s aim is not to help students pursue a career in music? Could it be that principals and deans are aware that students with a significant background in music are often good listeners, empathic, with considerable analytical and synthetic skills, with a predisposition to learn foreign languages more easily, with good spatial organization skills, great control over their bodies, a great capacity for self-motivation, discipline and a sense of responsibility? Who wouldn’t want to have this kind of students!?

Even if it just for practical reasons, given the positive “side-effects”, music education should have a much greater importance than what it has today. Having said this, let us put aside the benefits of music education and training, the effects on academic performance or the prospect of a coveted scholarship. The beauty, the grandeur and the value of music by itself can’t be stressed enough. We couldn’t agree more with Gardner’s words when he states in this same blog that “if the arts help with math or SAT scores, that’s just a bonus”.

Should we start encouraging teachers to use mathematics “instrumentally”, to help improve musical intelligences?

Guest Blog Series: Multiple Intelligences in Music, Part II

We recently received three guest blog entries regarding the use of Multiple Intelligences Theory in music education. The first, about MI and songwriting, is available by clicking here.

In the second blog, printed below, Graeme Winder, an advocate for music education reform for over 17 years, outlines how a multiple intelligences perspective can increase engagement and student success. Winder, who draws from a mix of personal experience as well as classroom studies, seeks to forge powerful new ideas into traditional paradigms in hopes of creating a much more effective way to teach music.

Click here to read the subsequent third post in the series about Edgar Willems' teaching system, MI, and music education.

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Can Multiple Intelligences Theory Save Music Education?

By Graeme Winder

Does this sound familiar? You, your child, or someone you know, enrolls into music lessons with the hopes of reaping all the cognitive benefits that music education has to offer. Before long, what started out as unabashed excitement to begin this new journey of musical exploration, quickly degrades into a frustrating path of learning how to convert pages full of little black dots into music on your instrument.

The vast majority of those taking this path end up quitting soon after. In fact, music learning across the board, both privately and in our school systems, suffers from an astonishingly high drop-out rate of almost 80 percent in the first three years in my experience. Given the enormous cognitive, social, and artistic advantages that music learners have over non-music learners, why wouldn’t more individuals persevere through the initial struggles in order to reap the rewards that are promised to come?

Research studies have shown that lack of interest, poor relationships with the instructors, scheduling, and budget concerns all play a role in student dropouts. And while all of these reasons are valid, what if the real issue was something much deeper, something at the core of the teaching itself? What if the learning process was too restricted by antiquated paradigms to motivate and inspire the learning diversity of today’s student?

Many aspects of music have evolved throughout the centuries. New styles, instruments, and digital music breakthroughs continue to excite us today. And yet, the core of how music elements are taught has not shifted far from its pre-Renaissance western origins. As more and more students continue to fall out of the traditional teaching, the desire for alternative options continues to grow.

For the past seven years, our incubator school, Winder Academy of Music, has been researching, testing, and developing a new approach to solving these pedagogical challenges head on. Our approach was simple: design a new system that allowed for multiple learning pathways using a creative-based foundation.

We began by dividing our lesson plans into nine musical sub-categories that formed the core of our multiple intelligence platform (See Table 1 below). We then tested our students using carefully crafted evaluation techniques that allowed us to define and isolate a particular strength or weakness in each of the nine areas, resulting in a jagged-line profile of the student. Once we had this information, we could then mold a personalized lesson plan centered around the highest scoring areas while creating a secondary plan that would work on bolstering the students’ weaker areas.

For example, let's say a student shows a particularly strong affinity towards the following fields: fine motor skills (kinesthetic), music theory and analysis (logical-mathematical), and lyricism (verbal-linguistic) . This student would then have a lesson plan that would include a stronger focus on technically challenging pieces and song-writing, highlighting those strengths in the very first lesson.

In seven years, Winder Academy has reported a retention rate of almost 75% and has found great success in the new method. The identification and development of individual learning strengths had clearly led to much higher levels of both effectiveness and enjoyment.

Students trained in this method are demonstrating a very advanced level of musical competency in many different areas. From playing anything by ear, to sight reading advanced sheet music, to writing original compositions, we have seen that the students advance much more quickly and with greater enthusiasm when they are learning in a style that aligns with their particular intelligence strength.

As one student who went on to pursue a career in music put it, “Early on, I struggled with reading notes. This new training allowed me to learn and develop much more quickly in ways that made a lot more sense.”

While there is still much more to be explored, tested, and understood, it is clear that offering multiple intelligence learning pathways to achieve stronger musical connections has had a profound impact on the direct success and retention in our school.

Music touches every person on this planet in such powerful ways. Perhaps with the help of MI learning, the questions and challenges facing music education today can finally be answered.

Table 1.