Lester M. Sdorow,
Arcadia University
Cheryl A. Rickabaugh,
University of Redlands
| achievement test | A test that measures knowledge of a particular subject.
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| aptitude test | A test designed to predict a person's potential to benefit from instruction in a particular academic or vocational setting.
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| autism | An often severe developmental disorder that includes deficiencies in social relationships, disordered communication, and repetitive and restricted patterns of behavior.
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| cerebral palsy | A movement disorder caused by brain damage and that is sometimes accompanied by mental retardation.
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| crystallized intelligence | The form of intelligence that reflects knowledge acquired through schooling and in everyday life.
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| cultural-familial retardation | Mental retardation apparently caused by social or cultural deprivation.
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| differential psychology | The field of psychology that studies individual differences in physical, personality, and intellectual characteristics.
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| Down syndrome | A form of mental retardation, associated with certain physical deformities, that is caused by an extra, third chromosome on the 21st pair.
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| eugenics | The practice of encouraging supposedly superior people to reproduce, while preventing supposedly inferior people from reproducing.
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| factor analysis | A statistical technique that determines the degree of correlation between performances on various tasks to determine the extent to which they reflect particular underlying characteristics, which are known as factors.
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| fluid intelligence | The form of intelligence that reflects reasoning ability, memory capacity, and speed of information processing.
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| heritability | The proportion of variability in a trait across a population attributable to genetic differences among members of the population.
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| intelligence | The global capacity to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment.
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| intelligence quotient (IQ) | 1. Originally, the ratio of mental age to chronological age; that is, MA/CA 3 100.
2. Today, the score on an intelligence test, calculated by comparing a person's performance to norms for her or his age group.
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| intelligence test | A test that assesses overall mental ability.
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| mental giftedness | Intellectual superiority marked by an IQ above 130 and exceptionally high scores on achievement tests in specific subjects, such as mathematics.
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| mental retardation | Intellectual deficiency marked by an IQ below 70 and difficulties performing in everyday life.
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| phenylketonuria (PKU) | A hereditary enzyme deficiency that, if left untreated in the infant, causes mental retardation.
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| savant syndrome | The presence, in person with below-average general intelligence, of a talent--typically in art, music, or calculating--developed beyond the person's level of functioning in other areas.
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| theory of multiple intelligences | Howard Gardner's theory of intelligence, which assumes that the brain has evolved separate systems for seven kinds of intelligence.
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| triarchic theory of intelligence | Robert Sternberg's theory of intelligence, which assumes that there are three main kinds of intelligence: componential, experiential, and contextual.
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| variability hypothesis | The theory that men, as a group, are more variable than women.
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education