Acceleration
by Dr. David Elkind, president emeritus, National Association
for the Education of Young Children
Originally published as "Our President:
Acceleration," Young Children, volume 43 number 4, May 1988
Reprinted with permission of the author
Whenever Jean Piaget visited this country and described his stages of
intellectual development he was always asked what he called the "American
Question." Why, he was repeatedly asked, do we have to wait for our
child to develop concrete operations (the new mental abilities that emerge
around the age of 5 to 7 and that enable young children to engage in the kind of
reasoning required by formal instruction)? Why can't we teach them these
operations earlier? Piaget replied that many animals go through the early stages
more rapidly than do infants, but they never go as far. In effect, achieving a
certain level of intelligence early may preclude moving on to higher levels.
With respect to intelligence, an early start can mean a lower finish.
Researchers, however, were reluctant to leave it at that. They undertook a
whole series of investigations to determine whether a child's progress through
the Piagetian stages could be accelerated by training. By and large the results
were negative. In general, the effects of training vary with the child's
developmental level. Although training has some positive effects at all age
levels, older children make more progress with considerably less training than
younger children. Most children who are living in a "normal expectable
environment" receive sufficient stimulation to realize their intellectual
potential.
Although this conception of intellectual development is generally accepted
among researchers, it is still not fully appreciated by many parents and
educators. Among the many arguments for early intellectual stimulation are those
that come from research on intellectually gifted youngsters. On the surface, the
research with these children seems to contradict the above conclusions about the
effects of training on development. This is true because a number of studies
have demonstrated that the acceleration of intellectually gifted is beneficial.
Young people who have been academically accelerated are intellectually
challenged, complete high school and college early, and in many cases go on to
successful careers. Doesn't this contradict the developmental position that
growth can't be accelerated? And, from my own standpoint, doesn't this fly in
the face of all that I have written about the stressful effects of hurrying?
Not really. In fact, acceleration is really the wrong word here. If it were
correct we would have to say that a child who was retained was
"decelerated." When an intellectually gifted child is promoted one or
several grades, what has been accelerated? Surely not the child's level of
intellectual development - that, after all, is the reason for his or her
promotion! What has been accelerated is the child's progress through the school
curriculum. But this can be looked at a different way, not so much as
acceleration as tailoring. What promotion does for intellectually gifted
children is to make a better fit between the child's level of intellectual
development and the curriculum.
Sound familiar? Promotion of intellectually gifted children is another way of
attaining the goal we have been arguing for at the early childhood level,
namely, developmentally appropriate curriculum. Promotion of intellectually
gifted children is simply another way of attempting to match the curriculum to
the child's abilities, not to accelerate those abilities. Accordingly, the
promotion of intellectually gifted children in no way contradicts the accepted
view of the limits of training on development, nor the negative effects of
hurrying. Indeed, the positive effects of promoting intellectually gifted
children provide additional evidence for the benefits of developmentally
appropriate curricula.
Read
The
Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon, also by Dr. David Elkind.
Thanks!
