Saturday, February 27, 2010

New Pieces at the Daily Beast

Last week, we wrote two-pieces for The Daily Beast that we're very excited about.

In our book, we explain how poorly early IQ scores predict kids' later achievement, and, since the book's release, a number of people have begun calling for schools to use behavioral measures to assess kids. So in our first piece, we explain that the truth is these alternative measures are even worse – less reliable – than IQ results.

Our second piece is about one of the most famous behavioral measures: the Marshmallow Task. This test measures a child's ability to delay gratification, and it has been suggested that a preschooler's success in it can predict his SAT scores, 15 years later. However, we write that the science to support that claim is razor thin.