How Can I Help My ADHD Teen With ‘Fluid Reasoning’ Skills?

Written by Joanne in Uncategorized

How Can I Help My ADHD Teen With ‘Fluid Reasoning’ Skills?

Flexible thinking and problem-solving skills are the basis of cognition and are important in life as well as in school. In classroom contexts, these skills are evaluated in terms of academic fluency and fluid reasoning.[1] In brief, “fluid intelligence” has to do with reasoning about novel problems – that is, problems that one has never encountered before. Working memory and attention are key factors when assessing fluid reasoning, which will be our main concern in this article.[2]

The difficulty is that, by definition, teens and children with Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention-Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have attention difficulties. They also usually have poor working memories and slow processing speed. Therefore, they often score lower in fluid reasoning assessments than their non-attention-deficit peers.

Is there anything that can be done to assist our kids with their reasoning fluidity, and thereby also give a boost to their test scores? These questions will occupy us, here. I will explain a bit about the situation and then give suggestions on how to provide struggling youngsters with help.

Fluid Reasoning

Fluid reasoning “shows up” when students are asked to process new information. Subjects like math and science can be particularly troublesome because students routinely have to solve new problems. IN fact, most Science Technology Engineering Math (STEM) and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) type applications require this kind of thinking.

Still, fluid-reasoning difficulties can also arise in other areas as well – for example, when studying subjects like history and geography.[3] Even art, English, and literature can be problematic when grammatical, poetical, and syntactical or other rules are presented for the first time.

Typically, “fluid reasoning” is defined as the ability to think about and solve problems in new situations. Often this is qualified with a statement something like this: these novel situations are approached regardless of prior knowledge.[4]

Versus ‘Crystallized Intelligence’

Understood this way, fluid reasoning is different from what is called “Crystallized intelligence[,] which refers to the accumulation of knowledge, facts and skills that are acquired throughout life.”[5]

Crystallized intelligence is thought to increase with age, as a result of people gaining experiential and other knowledge. The basic idea seems to be that we accumulate knowledge over time.

On the other hand, the received view is that fluid intelligence decreases with age.[6]

Although they are interrelated, they are both separate – and needed – pieces of general intelligence. In broadest terms, fluid intelligence or reasoning is used when we encounter “new” situations. We then fall back on our crystallized intelligence to proceed from there.

What Is Really Going on?

What’s Likely Not Going on

Let me first describe what I think isn’t going on. I don’t think that most theorists are actually supposing that people are able to “bracket” or suspend some portion of their background knowledge when running into new situations. Obviously, we bring whatever we know to most every situation that we encounter.

Additionally, I don’t think that most thinkers would want to press an overly high standard for novelty. (For more on standards of novelty, see further on.) Human experience is indeed rich and varied, but there is still considerable continuity.

So, I think that the best way to understand this difference between fluid and crystallized reasoning is something along the following lines.

The ‘Figure-out-What-to-Do Model’

We are creatures of habit. We get used encountering certain situations, certain words, certain people, certain problems. When we encounter a new situation, word, person, or problem – it takes us a bit of time to decide just how “new” the person, place, thing, or idea really is. I take it that “fluid reasoning” is (at least partially) a fancy term for this decision-making process.

In other words, “fluid reasoning” just is the process by which you figure out what to do when you encounter a problem.

So, imagine giving a student a word problem in a mathematics textbook. He or she may have never read this particular word problem before. A person’s approach could be more or less silent or automatic. But, if we articulate them, some of the questions at this stage, then, might be like these.

  • How different is this problem, really, from other problems that I have read? For example, is this problem just a (perhaps disguised) version of other problems that I am used to solving?
  • Is there anything in my background knowledge that can help me to get a handle on this particular problem?
  • What happens if I treat this new problem like I would a problem that I am more familiar with?

And so on.

Some of these questions may be false starts. Others may be dead ends. If the problem is highly novel, then there may be little in the background knowledge to guide the student. But, probably, the problem is only novel in certain, maybe superficial, ways.

Sidebar: How Novel Is “Novel”?

Look at the previous paragraph. If you’d like, copy and paste it into a “Google” search. (I did that, myself.) It doesn’t appear to be a direct match to anything else on the internet (which is good news for me from a plagiarism perspective!) – and that’s a pretty big place.

Here’s my point. It is arguable that you’ve never before seen precisely the words that I just used, in precisely the order that I used them. Yet – hopefully! – you had little difficulty comprehending them.

Probably, you just took in stride the novelty of the word selection and the uniqueness of the word order. This novelty and this uniqueness weren’t difficulties for you from the standpoint of comprehension. Why not?

Well, one reason might be because you’ve had practice understanding English sentences. Most readers will have had lots of practice – years, decades. This may mean that, by now, the novelty for most readers is, for this example anyway, largely superficial.

Why Can Novelty Be a Problem for Some Students?

Arguably, students encounter novelty fairly frequently. For one thing, many (though not all) students are young. They have fewer years – and less experience – under their belts. More situations and ideas are just new to them.

Moreover, students run into contrived problems that are intentionally designed by their teachers to tax fluid reasoning skills. And some of these problems are even disguised so that they don’t look familiar, even though they may have been (and probably were) included in some past lesson.

Any student might feel a certain sense of intellectual paralysis when encountering these kinds of “new” problems. But, for some reason, or for some set of reasons, particular students seem to be more inclined to “freeze up.”

This may be because, by definition, novel problems are presented to us without a procedure for obtaining a solution. This lack of a solution-derivation procedure can be off-putting for certain individuals.

When this occurs, an evaluator may say that the student’s “fluid-reasoning skills” are lacking. This basically means that the student seems less able (or unable) to try to get a handle on “new” problems by drawing connections to past experience and knowledge.

Fluid Reasoning as ‘Control of Attention’

If ADHD-afflicted students are more susceptible to this than their non-afflicted classmates, it may be for several reasons. One might be that with novel problems, they are left without an obvious object of attention. To put it slightly differently, since it’s not obvious what needs to be done, it is not obvious what needs to be attended to. But this means that there’s nothing that’s “jumps out” and grabs them.

In a sense, a novel problem requires that the student him- or herself determine what needs their attention. This may be what Kevin McGrew has in mind when he defined “fluid reasoning,” in part, as “The deliberate but flexible control of attention to solve novel[,] ‘on the spot’ problems…”.[7] But this arguably requires a kind of meta-attention – that is, attention to attention that an ADHD sufferer is hard pressed to display.

One example of this can be seen in the so-called “matrix” problems that are fixtures of various academic and intelligence tests. The problems are not delivered to students with algorithms. Students must figure out the algorithm and then apply it to get the solution. But, for most test subjects, this is only discoverable after paying attention to various features of the matrix, some of which are going to be unhelpful in terms of determining the algorithm.

Domain Independence

It should be stressed that the received view has it that fluid reasoning is found within an area of general intelligence that is “domain independent.” This basically means that it’s not specifically tied to any one subject. It’s not exclusively mathematics-oriented, or history-oriented, or the like of that.

On this view, arguably, fluid reasoning does not fall within the purview of any one, particular field. (Asterisk! See below.) Rather, it coexists alongside other domain-independent cognitive faculties, such as short- and long-term memory and, arguably, imagination.

But perhaps this is too quick.

Fluid Reasoning and Logic

There may actually be at least one discipline with which fluid reasoning has a fairly intimate relationship. Again, I turn to McGrew who, when defining fluid intelligence, immediately went on to define the following logical concepts.

“Induction…: The ability to observe a phenomenon and discover the underlying principles or rules that determine its behavior. General Sequential Reasoning…: The ability to reason logically using known premises and principles. This ability is also known as deductive reasoning or rule application. Quantitative Reasoning…: The ability to reason, either with induction or deduction, with numbers, mathematical relations, and operators.”[8]

McGrew’s comments suggest that he sees a somewhat close relationship between, on the one hand, fluid reasoning and, on the other, deduction, induction, and quantitative reasoning.

Deduction, Induction, & Quantitative Reasoning

Now, induction is reasoning from specifics to generalities. It is “ampliative,” which means that an inductive argument has the ability to give us new knowledge that wasn’t already containing in the premises. But this new information is not known with certainty.

I think what McGrew is possibly focused upon is the idea that, as he writes, induction can be thought of as a process of rule discovery. Earlier, we commented that novel problems are not presented with solution algorithms. We could say, then, that we’re not given the rules to solve novel problems and must therefore discover governing rules on our own.

This is not the space to puzzle through the question of whether devising algorithms for novel problems is a species of induction. It does have some features in common, and I’ll leave it at that.

Deduction, by contrast, is generally understood as reasoning from generalities to specifics. Although a deductive conclusion may be known with certainty, a deductive argument is “non-ampliative,” which means that it doesn’t increase our knowledge beyond what was contained in its premises.

It is doubtful to me whether deduction, properly so-called, is rightly considered a part of fluid reasoning. Deductive logic – whether in its classical or modern permutations – has quite an elaborate system for checking on validity and soundness (two marks of good deductive arguments). Therefore, it might seem that deduction depends upon a subset of what has already been crystallized intelligence.

Quantitative Reasoning (QR) is a bit different. On the one hand, this sometimes refers to “the application of basic mathematics skills… to the analysis and interpretation of… information…”.[9] However, this definition seems to place QR under the umbrella of mathematics and, as has been said, fluid reasoning is supposed to be (more or less) domain independent. So, if we accept this mathematics-relative notion of QR, then it appears to be ruled out as a part of fluid reasoning straightaway.

So, in this context, an alternative definition for QR should probably be favored. One is ready at hand.

In turns out that there are logical operators known as “quantifiers” – chiefly, “all” and “some.” And these show up both in traditional (or Aristotelian) logic as well as in modern logic (e.g., the Predicate Calculus).

Much more time could be spent on this question, but my intuition is that, as was the case with deduction (and unlike things like memory), quantification is itself dependent on a somewhat complex tapestry of rules that will only have been mastered by a person schooled in them. If this is so, however, then QR is probably best thought of as part of crystallized intelligence.

That said, the point could reasonably be pressed that there is at least a latent, rudimentary grasp of concepts like “all” and “some” that most people possess pre-philosophically. To say it in a slightly different way, either though having a technical command of logical operators might depend on learning formal logic, having an intuitive grasp of notions like everything, nothing, and something may only depend on something innate that belongs to us merely in virtue of being human.

So, maybe there’s a kind of “QR-Lite” that consists of our basic human grasp of quantification. And maybe this is indeed a part of fluid reasoning. However, there is also a more robust sort of QR that can only be accessed (let alone mastered) in virtue of having the requisite body of knowledge as part of your crystallized intelligence. Or so it seems to me.

Other Concepts in the Vicinity

As another article relates: Other skills that are also involved “include …visual intelligence, simultaneous processing, and abstract thinking …”[10] And these are certainly a part of what we need for “understanding complex problem solving, realizing the implications of a behavior or action, and identifying patterns”[11]

Examples of Fluid Reasoning

  • Applying knowledge in various situations
  • Applying rules “across the board”
  • Developing problem-solving strategies
  • Finding your way to (or in) a new place
  • Gathering pertinent data from visuals
  • Generalizing information from one setting to another
  • Learning new material easily
  • Solving puzzles

 Struggles with Fluid Reasoning

  • Comprehending directions
  • Devising inferences
  • Drawing conclusions
  • Generalizing
  • Identifying patterns and relationships
  • Making connections
  • Transferring skills or information to new ideas

General Strategies to Help Improve Fluid Reasoning[12]

  • Begin with explaining the purpose of an activity or assignment. I post my learning intention or objective on the board. This is a part of Visible Thinking[13] that helps to make assignments meaningful and clear to students by specifically explaining what is to be learned.
  • Introduce new material with visuals, texts, demonstrations, manipulatives and concrete examples whenever possible. This makes the impact stronger and easier to understand and remember
  • Tie in new concepts to older material.
  • Use graphic organizers because they do what their name implies. They help students organize their topics and thoughts.
  • Make concept maps with them. Give a topic and let the students come up with related words. Categorize and label them.
  • Break material and activities into smaller parts and time frames.
  • Monitor understanding of concepts and directions.
  • Model problem-solving strategies.
  • Draw diagrams to represent the problem.
  • Have anchor charts available for use to free up the burden on their working memory. This lets them then concentrate on solving the problem.

Problems With Deductive / Inductive Reasoning

Without getting into the weeds with discussion on logical fallacies and the like of that, let me simply say that problems with deductive and inductive reasoning may occur with some children who can see the details, but can’t discern the “big picture” – or vice versa.

If your child has trouble using the rules or procedure to solve problems, as in deductive thought, we would need to provide different kinds of examples that he or she could use as a model. “Discovery-Learning” or “Constructivist” methods – simply construed as allowing children to learn by “doing” or through hands-on experience – might also have a place, here. It may also help to discuss principles with them as they explore and experience, so that they may begin to understand how to apply those principles through your example.

If your child has trouble coming up with the rules to fit certain illustrations or problems, as in needed with inductive thinking, he or she may need the rule stated for them “up front,” as it were. A child might even need to be given a set of steps to follow – for instance, in cases where the child is unable to discover the appropriate algorithm for him- or herself.

Working Memory

Studies[14] have found a very high correlation between working memory and fluid reasoning. Many studies are confirming that working memory contributes to fluid reasoning. This being the case, it is hardly surprising – at least on a computational model of memory (one that likens a child’s memory or attention to the Random-Access Memory in a computer) that those with attention of memory deficits would also have fluid-reasoning difficulties.

One new study looked at an additional factor: timing.

When people were given more time to reason on a test, working memory was not as big a contributing factor in the outcome. But if they were timed, working memory impacted their performance considerably. Again, this too is significant in relation to our ADHD teens and children whose academic fluency is often poor.[15]

These studies also highlighted the distinction between fast intelligence and slow intelligence. For my previous article on processing speed, see HERE.

Not-So-Academic Pursuits

Current literature has found several other ways to possibly improve fluid reasoning while also improving crystallized intelligence.[16]

  • Seek Novelty – I know; right? Didn’t we previously identify novelty as problematic? Here’s the deal. Every new activity helps you build new synaptic connections. These interconnect with each other and allow for even more connections to be formed. So, novelty can actually help. Plus, those with attention deficits are, in a sense, almost addicted to novelty. They crave it. When they can’t pay attention to a lecture, sometimes it’s because they’d rather be paying attention to something else. Mixing things up, presentation-wise, can help grab – and keep – a child’s wandering attention.
  • Challenge Yourself – As soon as you master one of the new challenging activities, move on to another one. If you have mastered something, your brain gets a little lazy and stops working as hard. You need to be constantly struggling a little to learn.
  • Think Creatively – To put it in a somewhat artful way, this means that you engage “both halves” of your brain. Even if this isn’t strictly accurate from the point of view of neuroscience, I think you catch my drift. Examples would be artists that delve into scientific learning for inspiration or scientists who use imagination to visualize solutions. It can be as simple as finding historical connections to current events.
  • Do Things the Hard Way – This coincides with the phrase use it or lose it. So, use a map instead of GPS. Grab a hard-copy dictionary instead of shouting “Okay, Google.” Shortcuts are not always the best for your brain.
  • Be Social – When you are with other people you are exposed to different ideas and opportunities. You have to stay focused and remember what people say to be able to respond to it. This keeps us on our toes.

One other research study found that “educational practices designed to raise knowledge and boost test scores do not improve fluid intelligence.”[17] As a matter of fact, it found that schools that had the largest test score gains did not show fluid-intelligence gains.

This article might suggest to some that non-academic activities would be better to improve fluid intelligence. This would include things like:

  • Creating works of art
  • Getting enough sleep
  • Learning or practicing a musical instrument
  • Maintaining a healthy diet
  • Participating in physical Activity
  • Playing strategy games like checkers and chess

Final Thoughts

Crystallized intelligence has been very important in our so-called “Information Age.” But some commentators believe that we are now entering a new age that is more concept- and problem-solving driven.

Today, fluid intelligence is often thought of as just as important (if not more so) than crystallized intelligence. Although we need both forms of intelligence to compete in this world, we really need to assist our kids now to develop their fluid reasoning skills for tomorrow.

For more ADHD-related resources, please visit my new “Resources” page, HERE. (It’s a work in progress!)

Notes:

[1] Fluid Reasoning, or Fluid Intelligence, is a part of what’s generally considered “General Intelligence.”

[2] Relevant tests, here, include the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, 4th Ed. (abbreviated WPPSI-IV) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th Ed. (or WISC-IV). These have been revised from their original formats, as devised by the late, 20th-century, Romanian-born psychologist David Wechsler. For instance, they now include Visual-Spatial and Fluid-Reasoning categories as separate sections that are also separately scored. A Working-Memory component has also been added. Not only are the content revisions noteworthy, it is also worth observing that newer models of test structure and learning development are influencing the way that test results are interpreted. Testers hope that, with these various changes, test results will be clearer and more useful to educators and parents.

[3] In my classroom I require my students to make predictions about new countries or civilizations. I also need them to make connections between the material and other texts or books and/or events happening in the world.

[4] Frankly, this qualification strikes me as somewhat odd. Firstly, it is arguable that it is practically impossible for a person, wholly, to set aside – whether intentionally or unintentionally – “prior knowledge” when approaching new problems. Secondly, it’s not entirely clear to me that a person could even partially set aside prior knowledge. This seems to depend on how high we set the bar for “novelty.” To put it another way, if a problem is sufficiently novel, then there may be no relevant prior knowledge at all. Let’s call this “maximum novelty.” If a problem, p1, is maximally novel for John, then there is no prior knowledge that John has that is relevant to solving p1. On the other hand, if there is overlap between a new problem, p2, and John’s background knowledge, then both (i.) the problem isn’t maximally novel and (ii.) there is something that John already knows that is relevant to solving p2. But if (ii.) is the case, then why would John set this relevant background knowledge aside?

[5]Kendra Cherry, Fluid Intelligence vs.  Crystallized Intelligence verywell minds Dec. 13, 2018 https://www.verywellmind.com/fluid-intelligence-vs-crystallized-intelligence-2795004

[6] Once again, however, this seems debatable. Is the claim supposed to be that we become less able to deal with novelty as we age, or that we simply have fewer opportunities to do so? If the latter, then this “decrease” may simply be a product of the way “fluid intelligence” is defined. To put it another way, if fluid reasoning depends upon encountering novel situations, then its exercise depends upon the number of opportunities one has to encounter novel situations. Intuitively, nearly everything that a baby encounters will be novel. But as we age, and after we have encountered numerous situations, it is arguable that we have fewer and fewer opportunity to encounter novelty. This is all very rough, I admit. And, as previously stated, it depends quite a lot on how high a standard we set for “novelty.” To give you an idea of what I mean, consider the difference between types and tokens. Think of the 26 letters of the English alphabet. “A,” “B,”, “C,” and so on. Now think of a word like “Apple.” Considered as types, this word contains four letters: “A,” “E,” “L,” and “P.” Considered as tokens, the same word contains five letters, because “P” occurs twice. From the standpoint of letter type, “P” is the same letter in both instances. From the other standpoint, each instance counts as a different token. Now thinking of an experience, such as John and Jane saying “hi” to each other. The first time Jane says “hi” to mike, it’s type-novel. (Or, at least, it’s subtype novel. It’s arguably only truly type-novel if this is the first time ever that John has anyone say “hi” to him. After his mom said “hi” to him at his birth, every occasion of “hi”-saying is arguably only a token of that first experience.) But every other occasion of Jane saying “hi” to John will still be token-novel, even if it’s not type-novel (or subtype-novel). So, how novel does something have to be to count as “novel” in the relevant sense? Is type-novelty required? Subtype-novelty? Is token-novelty enough? Etc.

[7] Kevin McGrew, CHC Theory: Reasoning or Intelligence (Gf) Definitions IQ’s Corner http://www.iqscorner.com/2013/01/chc-theory-fluid-reasoning-or.html. Emphasis added.

[8]Kevin McGrew, CHC Theory: Reasoning or Intelligence (Gf) Definitions IQ’s Corner http://www.iqscorner.com/2013/01/chc-theory-fluid-reasoning-or.html

[9] Susan Elrod, “Quantitative Reasoning: The Next ‘Across the Curriculum’ Movement,” Peer Review (publication of Association of Amer. Colleges and Univ.), Vol. 16, No. 3, Summer 2014, https://www.aacu.org/peerreview/2014/summer/elrod. 

[10]What Does the Fluid-reasoning Index Measure? South County Child & Family Consultants https://southcountychildandfamily.com/fluid-reasoning-index-measure/

[11] Ibid.

[12]John Seaman,Ph.D Interventions for Cognitive and Academic Deficits: A Compendium of Accommodations and Instructional Strategies Corresponding to Woodcock-Johnson III Cognitive and Achievement Clusters Granite School District https://adayinourshoes.com/wp-content/uploads/Accommodations-for-Cognitive-and-Academic-Deficits.pdf

[13]John Hattie visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning Routledge 2012

[14]Scott Barry Kaufman Working Memory and Fluid Reasoning: Same or Different Jan. 2014 Scientific American https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/working-memory-and-fluid-reasoning-same-or-different/

[15] “Academic fluency” is a measure of how – and how quickly – a student applies his or her skills in a timebound context.

[16]Andrea Kuszewski You Can Increase Your Intelligence: 5 Ways to Maximize Your Cognitive Potential March 2011 Scientific American https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/you-can-increase-your-intelligence-5-ways-to-maximize-your-cognitive-potential/

[17]Christopher Berland Can Physical Activity Improve Fluid Intelligence? Dec. 2013 Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201312/can-physical-activities-improve-fluid-intelligence

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