How Fine Motor Skills Influence the Assessment of High Abilities and Underachievement in Math

Previously, fine motor skills have been of little or no interest to giftedness research. New lines of thought have been advanced that imply that fine motor skills can be of significance in the identification of gifted persons as well as gifted underachievers. This would also have consequences for the diagnostic process underlying identification. An empirical investigation with 788 fourth-grade pupils could show that fine motor skills have an incremental predictive value for mathematics achievement beyond cognitive abilities. Among pupils who had been identified as gifted by either an IQ test that places high demands on fine motor skills or an IQ test that places low demands on fine motor skills, only about every fourth child was identified by both intelligence tests. Furthermore, it could be shown that, when using the IQ test that places low demands on fine motor skills, more underachievers could be identified than with the test that places high demands on fine motor skills. The discussion offers several recommendations for the selection of IQ tests best suited for the identification of gifted students in general and gifted underachievers.