Ahead of his time, Arthur Whimbey (Whimbey, Whimbey, & Shaw, 1975)
urged us to reconsider our basic concepts of intelligence and to question
the assumption that genetically inherited capacities are immutable.
Whimbey argued that intelligence could be taught, and he provided evidence
that certain interventions enhance the cognitive functioning of students
from preschool to college level. Through instruction in problem solving,
metacognition, and strategic thinking, Whimbey’s students not only
increased their IQ scores but also displayed more effective approaches to
their academic work.
Participants in such studies, however, ceased using the cognitive techniques
as soon as the specific conditions of training were removed. They
became capable of performing the skill that was taught, but they acquired
no general habit of using it and no capacity to judge for themselves when
it was useful (Resnick & Hall, 1998).
To accommodate new learning, the brain builds more synaptic connections
between and among its cells. It has been found that IQ scores have
increased over the years (Kotulak, 1997). These increases demonstrate that
instead of being fixed and immutable, intelligence is flexible and subject to
great changes, both up and down, depending on the kinds of stimulation
the brain gets from its environment