Intelligence intrigued me from a young age. My mother used to refer to me as “smart” when I was a kid, but I quickly realized that all parents refer primarily to their children with the term smart. Over time, I realized that all children were not smart. Just like all babies aren’t cute. We’d have a world full intelligent, beautiful people if this were the case.
Some of us are smarter than others, but we aren’t as smart as we think. And some people are smarter that we think. So how can we define smart? What makes one person smarter or less intelligent than another? Are “street smarts” more important than “book skills”? Is it possible for you to be both intelligent and ignorant? Is it genetics or the environment that makes you smarter?
There are also the issues of intelligence, education, wisdom.
What does it imply to be highly educated What is the difference between being highly-educated and being highly intelligent? Is being well educated an indicator of your intelligence? Can you be highly educated and still be intelligent? What does IQ actually mean? What makes someone wise? Wisdom is typically associated with old ages.
The desire to answer these questions prompted hours of intensive research. I read 6 books, hundreds, and thousands of research documents. However, it pales in comparison of the decades of research and studies that pioneers in intelligence/education like Howard Gardner, Richard Sternberg (Linda S. Gottfredson), Thomas Sowell, Alfie Kehn, and Thomas Sowell. Their work is cited in this article.
My goal was to gather, synthesize, present and analyze data that would help anyone understand and benefit from what it meant to be smart, educated, or intelligent.
PRENATAL TCARE
With that in mind, the best place to begin is in the womb of a fetus.
It is becoming increasingly clear that eating foods high in iron before and during pregnancy is crucial to the development of the prenatal brain. Researchers found a strong connection between low iron levels during pregnancy, and a decreased IQ. There are many foods rich in iron, including kidney beans, pinto bean, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, legumes, spinach, beans, eggs, beans, salmon, beans, peanuts, dried fruits, oatmeal and fortified cereals.
Children with low iron status at birth (in the umbilicus) had lower scores on all tests, as well as significantly lower language skills, fine-motor skills and tractability than those who had higher prenatal iron levels. For cognitive skills development, it is important to receive proper prenatal care.
COGNITIVE CSS
Cognitive skills are basic mental abilities that we use to think and learn. They encompass a range of mental skills that can be used to analyze sounds, images, recall information from memories, make connections between different pieces, and maintain focus on particular tasks. They can be measured and individually identified. It is possible to correlate cognitive skill strength and efficiency with student’s ease learning.
PREGNANCY AND ITS INTELLECTUAL AFFECT
Drinking alcohol while pregnant is not smart. It’s even stupid.
Study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research showed that even light to moderate alcohol consumption, particularly during the second trimestre, was associated with lower IQs for offspring at ten years of age. This result was and more pronounced in African-American than Caucasian offspring.
“IQ is a measurement of a child’s ability to learn and adapt to his or her environment. It indicates the potential for success in school as well as in daily life. A small but significant proportion of children are diagnosed as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) each and every year. However, many children are exposed to alcohol while pregnant, even though they do not meet the criteria for FAS, and have cognitive impairments. Jennifer A. Willford is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Paul D. Connor has the following to say about the subject: