Read Chapter 5 and The trancript of an interview about Infant IQ Testing, then a

Read Chapter 5 and The trancript of an interview about Infant IQ Testing, then answer the following questions:
TRANSCRIPT
Infant I.Q. Testing
JANE PAULEY, anchor:
Parents can plot their new baby’s growth on charts that show if the baby is bigger or smaller or taller or shorter than average. On AFTER EIGHT, a new frontier, infant I.Q. testing. Your first question is why? We’ll start with how. The test is simple enough, it is based on what scientists call cognitive skills. Babies as young as three months will be shown a simple image. It’s given ample time to study the image, the image is then taken away for a time, and then introduced along with another. The more intelligent infant supposedly will recognize the picture he’s seen before and move on quickly to the newer one. Dr. Joseph Fagan of Case Western University is with us this morning and he uses this test to predict a child’s I.Q. as a preschooler. And good morning, Dr. Fagan. All right, why would I want to predict the I.Q. of a baby?
Dr. JOSEPH FAGAN: Ordinarily you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t use this with babies that you have no reason to suspect maybe in difficulty. It’s really the test is used with high risk infants.
PAULEY: Give me an example of how it’s being used.
Dr. FAGAN: Babies who are born very premature, for example, some where babies that are at risk for later cognitive deficit. And it will be used in hospitals to assess these particular babies.
PAULEY: Theoretically though, if I had a new born baby and just kind of wanted to know, you know, how smart he was, I could have such a test done and get some kind of an idea?
Dr. FAGAN: Not really.
PAULEY: No?
Dr. FAGAN: No, it’s really used with high-risk infants and it really isn’t supposed to be used for normal infants. It’s really no reason for you to know how the baby would be doing, unless you were anxious or had to– some risk reason.
PAULEY: Dr. David Henry Feldman is a professor of developmental psychology at Tufts University, and good morning.
Dr. DAVID HENRY FELDMAN (Tufts University): Good morning.
PAULEY: Is there any doubt that what Dr. Fagan is in fact accurate and that it is a breakthrough?
Dr. FELDMAN: It is modestly accurate and it’s certainly is significant kind of work to be doing. But I think Dr. Fagan would agree that the amount of knowledge that you have of babies’ capabilities is pretty modest even with this new technique.
PAULEY: But the purpose is that he described it, for high-risk babies, where there might be some question that later on there could be a developmental problems, better to recognize it early?
Dr. FELDMAN: The problem that Dr. Fagan identifies is a very real one, and for the purposes that he’s advocating, no problem. The problem is that you can’t put something into the world like this and then control the way it’s going to be used. And as cautious as he and the others who work in this area are trying to be, there’s nonetheless, I think, real concern about the uses to which such a technology might work.
PAULEY: Of what? Give me an example of a way it should not be used.
Dr. FELDMAN: Well, just the way you were asking about it a minute ago, which is to find out how bright your child is at six months or twelve months. The technology wouldn’t do that and nor would I think there should be a technology that were.
PAULEY: Wouldn’t or shouldn’t or couldn’t or mustn’t or what? I’m not clear on…
Dr. FAGAN: It’s not at the level to tell you, you know, the exact I.Q. of your child. First of all, it’s not an I.Q. test, OK. It’s a test of visual information processing which tends to predict how well the child develops in their language, actually, if you want to look at it that way. Because many of these further intelligence tests are test are tests of–of language development. But the real use for it is to, since it picks up mental retardation very early in life, is to get at the causes of mental retardation.
PAULEY: But it doesn’t pick up genius early in life or would it?
Dr. FAGAN: It picks up above average I.Q., yes it does.
PAULEY: There we go.
Dr. FAGAN: On some statistical basis…
Dr. FELDMAN: Genius and above average I.Q. are really very, very different things.
Dr. FAGAN: Are different things, yeah. But that’s a statistical concept. Above average is 115 and above. Genius is a 130 and above.
PAULEY: There are some societies which will identify a gifted children who are, say athletically gifted, and they will be virtually removed from homes and trained for the Olympics. I’ve seen some of these children. We don’t do that, we are offended by that. What’s to keep unscrupulous from using such a test to identify very bright to single them out for something?
Dr. FAGAN: We try to transfer this technology to responsible professionals. I know everybody in the country that’s using this test. There’s only place they can get it and is from me. We train them, we certify them, we know their credentials and so forth. And they’re really used in hospitals with that are tertiary level…
PAULEY: Dr. Feldman, is there any, that’s good enough, I mean…
Dr. FELDMAN: It’s not good enough.
PAULEY: No?
Dr. FELDMAN: At least not for point of view. I just think that it’s extremely delicate to put a technology into the world, the same as putting nuclear technology into the world with all the best intentions, you say, “We want it to be used for peaceful purposes”, but you can’t control that.
PAULEY: Well, it’s too late isn’t it? It’s out of the box.
Dr. FELDMAN: It’s too late to keep it out of–from getting out of the box, but it’s not too late to have Dr. Fagan and others try to make clear to the public what this instrument is and what this instrument is not. It’s not a measure of genius, it’s not a measure of giftedness, it’s a specific instrument for uses in clinical diagnosis of high-risk infants. Used that way, I think we would both agree it’s proper.
PAULEY: Well let the record show, Dr. Fagan was agreeing with virtually everything you said.
Dr. FAGAN: Absolutely.
PAULEY: Well thank you, it’s fascinating new territory.
Do you believe babies/young children’s IQ should be tested before starting kindergarten? Explain.
Based on the results of the IQ testing, would it be fair to place some young children in more advanced or remedial classes based on the results? Why or why not?
Based on the chapter, do you believe such testing might result in disparate treatment or in identifying children as potential offenders or as being feeble-minded? Explain.
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