This intelligence involves the knowing which comes through language; through reading, writing, and speaking. It involves understanding the order and meaning of words in both speech and writing and how to properly use the language. It involves understanding the socio-cultural nuances of a language, including idioms, plays on words, and linguistically-based humor.
If this intelligence is strong, there are highly developed skills for reading, speaking, and writing and you tend to think in words. Various kinds of literature, playing word games, making up poetry and stories, engaging in involved discussions with other people, debating, formal speaking, creative writing, and telling jokes are preferred activities. Learning new words, written assignments, comprehension of anything read is higher
This intelligence uses numbers, math, and logic to find and understand the various patterns that occur in our lives: thought patterns, number patterns, visual patterns, color patters, and so on. It begins with concrete patterns in the real world but gets increasingly abstract as we try to understand relationships of the patterns we have seen.
People inclined towards logical-mathematical intelligence tend to think more conceptually and abstractly and are often able to see patterns and relationships that others miss. They probably like to conduct experiments, to solve puzzles and other problems, to ask cosmic questions, and analyze circumstances and people’s behavior. Also most likely enjoy working with numbers and mathematical formulas and operations, and loving the challenge of a complex problem to solve. They are more systematic and organized, have a logical rationale or argument for what actions undertaken.
“A picture is worth a thousand words!” or “Seeing is believing!” This intelligence represents the knowing that occurs through the shapes, images, patterns, designs, and textures we see with our external eyes, but also includes all of the images we are able to conjure inside our heads.
People are strong in this intelligence tend to think in images and pictures. They are highly aware of object, shapes, colors, textures, and patterns in the surrounding environment. They like to draw, paint, and make interesting designs and patterns, and work with clay, 2 colored markers, construction paper, and fabric. Many who are strong in visual-spatial intelligence love to work jigsaw puzzles, read maps and find their way around new places. They tend to have definite opinions about colors that go together well, textures that are appropriate and pleasing, and how a room should be decorated. And, they are likely to be excellent at performing tasks that require “seeing with the mind’s eyes,” such as visualizing, pretending, imagining, and forming mental images.
At the heart of this intelligence are human self reflective abilities or thinking inside of one’s self. This is the introspective intelligence. It involves uniquely human propensity to want to know the meaning, purpose, and significance of things. It involves our awareness of the inner world of the self, emotions, values, beliefs, and our various quests for genuine spirituality.
People high on this intelligence prefer to work alone and sometimes may shy away from others. They are self-reflective and self-aware and thus tend to be in tune with the inner feelings, values, beliefs, and thinking processes. They are frequently bearers of creative wisdom and insight, are highly intuitive, and are inwardly motivated rather than needing external rewards. Generally such people are strong willed, self-confident, and have definite, well-thought out opinions on almost any issue, hence people come to seek advice and counsel.
“Learning by doing.” This way of knowing happens through physical movement and through the knowing of physical body. The body “knows” many things that are not necessarily known by the conscious, logical mind, such as how to ride a bike, how to parallel park a car, dance the waltz, catch a thrown object, maintain balance while walking, and where the keys are on a computer keyboard.
People strong in this intelligence tend to have a keen sense of body awareness. They like physical movement, dancing, making and inventing things with your hands, and role playing.
They communicate well through body language and other physical gestures. They can often perform a task much better after seeing someone else do it first and then mimicking their actions. They also like physical games of all kinds and like to demonstrate how to do something for someone else. They may find it difficult to sit still for long periods of time and are easily bored or distracted if not actively involved in what is going on around.
This is the person-to-person way of knowing. It is the knowing that happens when working with and relating to other people, often as part of a team. This way of knowing also develops a whole range of social skills that are needed for effective person-to-person communication and relating.
People strong in this intelligence learn through personal interactions. They have lots of friends, show a great deal of empathy for other people and exhibit a deep understanding of other points of view. They love team activities of all kinds and are a good team member. They are sensitive to other people’s feelings and ideas.They are skilled in conflict resolution, mediation, and finding compromise when people are in radical opposition to each other.
This is the knowing that happens through sound and vibration. In the original research on the theory of multiple intelligences this intelligence was called musical-rhythmic intelligence. However, it is not limited to music and rhythm but also auditory-vibrational, for it deals with the whole realm of sound, tones, beats, and vibrational patterns as well as music.
People strong in this intelligence are likely have a love of music and rhythmic patterns. They are very sensitive to sounds in the environment; the chirp of cricket, rain on the roof, varying traffic patterns. They may study and work better with music in the background. They can often reproduce a melody or rhythmic pattern after hearing it only once. Various sounds, tones, and rhythms may have a visible effect on them while others can often see a change in facial expressions, body movement, or emotional responses. They like to create music and enjoy listening to a wide variety of music. They often are skilled at mimicking sounds, language accents, and others’ speech patterns, and can eadily recognize different musical instruments in a composition.
The naturalist intelligence involves the full range of knowing that occurs in and through our enco unters with the natural world including our recognition, appreciation, and understanding of the natural environment. It involves such capacities as species discernment, communion with the natural world and its phenomena, and the ability to recognize and classify various flora and fauna.
People strong in this intelligence have a profound love for the outdoors, animals, plants, and almost any natural object. They are probably fascinated by and noticeably affected by such things as the weather, changing leaves in the fall, the sound of the wind, the warm sun or lack thereof, or an insect in the room. At a young age such people were likely nature collectors, adding such things as bugs, rocks leaves, seashells, sticks, and so on to your collections. They probably brought home all manner and kinds of stray animals and today you may have several pets and want more. They tend to have an affinity with and respect for all living beings.
