To qualify as an intelligence in Gardner’s multiple intelligences (MI) theory, each ability has to satisfy a range of criteria: the potential for isolated breakdown of the skill through brain damage; the existence of savants, prodigies, and other exceptional individuals with this ability; support from psychological training studies and from psychometric studies, including correlations across tests; evolutionary plausibility; and a distinct developmental history culminating in a definable set of endstate performances.

Gardner uses seven basic criteria to identify several different intelligences that all humans have as part of their cerebral endowment. Of course, given that the normal human brain consists of approximately 100 billion neurons and each individual is exposed to an infinite variety of environmental stimuli influencing the course of intellectual growth, each person possesses his / her unique profile of strengths and limitations.

1. Linguistic – good with spoken and written language. Lawyers, speakers, writers are among those with high linguistic intelligence.

2. Logical-mathematical – good at analysing problems logically and investigating issues scientifically. Mathematicians and scientists have high logical intelligence.

3. Musical – skill in performance, composition and appreciation of musical patterns.

4. Kinaesthetic – using one’s body or parts of the body to solve problems or make things. Dancers, actors, athletes, mechanics, craftspeople.

5. Spatial - potential to recognise and manipulate patters of wide space as well as patterns of confined areas. Navigators and pilots; sculptors, surgeons, architects.

6. Interpersonal – capacity to understand the intentions, motivations, desires of other people and therefore to work effectively with them. Teachers, religious leaders, salespeople, political leaders.

7. Intrapersonal – capacity to understand oneself – including desires and fears – and to use this effectively in regulating one’s life.