ASSESSMENT OF CHILDREN'S MENTAL AND SOCIAL ABILITIES

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The purpose of this research is to develop new materials, a Project Spectrum Field Assessment Battery, based on the curriculum-oriented Project Spectrum, organized between the Harvard University School of Education and the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study at Tufts University. Project Spectrum is unique in the United States for its development of a curriculum that goes far beyond IQ to assess a wide range of preschool children's interests and capabilities. The 'multiple intelligences' that Project Spectrum's procedures assess include natural science ability, bodily- kinesthetic skills, musical talents, distinctive styles of work, as well as linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities. Because traditional psychometric measures of intelligence at this age sample from a narrow range of mental abilities, such measures are limited in terms of the information they provide about the possible relevance of antecedent variables and are also restricted in terms of the outcome variables they successfully predict. In contrast, the Project Spectrum Field Assessment Battery samples from a wide range of preschoolers' cognitive capabilities and interests and thus affords richer opportunities to respond to many theoretical and pragmatic questions that surround the central issue of stability in mental development.