Howard Gardner's Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence
 

Spatial

 

Musical

Naturalist

 Introduction

Interpersonal

Intrapersonal

Logical mathematical

Linguistic

Bodily kinesthetic intelligence is related to physical movement and the knowledge of the body and how it functions; it includes the ability to use many parts of the body to express emotion, to play a game, and to interpret and invoke effective "body" language.  Those "at promise" in this domain enjoy and learn best from activities that use the body and involve movement, such as dance, crafts, mime, sports, acting and using manipulatives.

Children who demonstrate a strong bodily kinesthetic intelligence are highly coordinated and often quite tactile.  They enjoy all sorts of athletics and would rather be a participant than a spectator.  Also, this way of understanding the world is most evident in young children who have a hard time sitting still and are well coordinated.  When I had such children listed on my classroom register, I often called them my classroom movers.

Older children who demonstrate this type of intelligence may be good dancers or athletes, or particularly good at mimicking the classroom teacher.  As adults, these people have a keen body awareness.  They enjoy physical movement, dancing, hugging, making and inventing things with their hands, including role playing.  They are easily bored if they are not actively involved in what is going on around them.  They communicate well through body language and similar physical gestures (for a more detailed description of this intelligence, see Gardner 1983/1993, pp. 205-236).  n general, those who are "at promise" in this intelligence like physical games of all kinds and demonstrating how to do things.  In fact, they can often perform a task after seeing someone else do it only once.


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