Children Above 180 Iq Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development

Part I: Orientation

1. THE CONCEPT OF INTELLECTUAL GENIUS Concepts of the Ancients, Dictionary Definitions, Concepts of Genius, Miscellaneous Observations Tending to Define Characteristics of Genius, Speculation and Comment Concerning Genius

2. EARLY SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF EMINENT ADULTS Origin of Eminent Adults, Yoder's Study, Terman's Inferences from Biography

3. PUBLISHED REPORTS ON TESTED CHILDREN Modern Approach to the Study of Ability, Binet's Method, The Range of Intellect above 180 IQ, Children Observed before the Era of Binet, Children Who Test above 180 IQ by Binet-Simon Tests, Children Who Test above 180 IQ by Stanford-Binet Tests, Generalizations

Part Ii: Twelve Cases New to Literature Concerning Tested Children

4. CHILD A Family Background, Preschool History, School History, Judgments of Teachers, Mental Measurements, Traits of Character, Physical Measurements and Health, Miscellaneous Characteristics

5. CHILD B Family Background, Preschool History, School History, Traits of Character, Judgments of Teachers, Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements, Miscellaneous Characteristics

6. CHILD C Family Background, Preschool History, School History, Traits of Character, Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements, Later School History

7. CHILD D Family Background, Preschool History, Traits of Character, Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements and Health, Miscellaneous Characteristics, School History

8. CHILD E Family Background, Early History, School Achievement, Mental Measurements, Social Habits, Tastes, etc., Later Mental Measurements, Later Physical Measurements, Later Scholastic Records, Extracurricular Activities, Teachers' Comments, Summary up to 1921, Eventual Scholastic Records, Researches of E, Summary of Development

9. CHILD F Family Background, Preschool History, Early School History, Early Test Scores, Home Rating, Miscellaneous Characteristics, Later Educational Career

10. CHILD G Family Background, Educational History, Early Mental Tests, Later Test Records, Traits of Character, Physical Measurements, High School Record, G's Brother's Record

11. CHILD H Family Background, Preschool History, Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements, Intellectual Ability

12. CHILD I Family Background, Preschool History, Early Educational History, Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements and Health, Miscellaneous Characteristics

13. CHILD J Family Background, Childhood Characteristics, Later Mental Tests

14. CHILD K Family Background, Early Development, Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements, Later Educational Progress

15. CHILD L Family Background, Early History, Achievement at Speyer School, High School Record to Date of Writing, Later Tests and Inventories

16. SUMMARIES OF HEREDITIES AND EARLY BEHAVIOR Family History and Background, Physical and Behavioral Development

17. SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMENT AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY Scholastic Achievement and Educational Adjustment, Creative Work, General Statement

Part Iii: General Principles and Implications.

18. ADULT STATUS AND PERSONALITY RATINGS. Adult Status of Highly Intelligent Children, Critique of the Concept of "Genius" as Applied in Terms of IQ, Application of Bernreuter Inventory of Personality to Highly Intelligent Adolescents

19. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY IN HIGHLY INTELLIGENT CHILDREN General Considerations, The Part Played by Physique, Problem of Leadership, Problems of Adjustment to Occupation, Learning to "Suffer Fools Gladly", The Tendency to Become Isolated, The Concept of "Optimum Intelligence", Conclusion

20. THE CHILD OF VERY SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE AS A SPECIAL PROBLEM IN SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT The Quality of Gifted Children, The Problem of Work, The Problem of Adjustment to Classmates, The Problem of Play, Special Problems of the Gifted Girl, Problems of Conformity, The Problems of Origin and of Destiny, General Considerations

21. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLING OF VERY BRIGHT CHILDREN Considerations in Planning the Curriculum, Enrichment Units at Speyer School, Special Work, Emotional Education, Matters of General Policy

22. PROBLEMS OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE CASE OF HIGHLY INTELLIGENT PUPILS The Elementary School, Transition from Elementary to Secondary School, Consideration of the Questions Arising, What about Genius?

PREFACE

This study is founded upon the work of Francis Galton, on the one hand, and of Albert Binet, on the other. It goes back to Galton's Hereditary Genius, read as a prescribed reference in the courses of Professor Edward L. Thorndike, in 1912; and to the publication in 1916 of Professor Lewis M. Terman's Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence. It comprises observations, measurements, and conversations covering a period of twenty-three years, during which acquaintanceships and friendships, every one of them delightful, have been formed and maintained with the twelve individuals who form the basis of the study.

It was in November, 1916, shortly after taking appointment as instructor in educational psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, that I saw for the first time a child testing above 180 IQ (S-B). I was teaching a course in the psychology of mentally deficient children, and it seemed to me that my class should if possible observe under test conditions one bright child for the sake of contrast. Accordingly, I asked whether any teacher present could nominate a very intelligent pupil for demonstration.

Miss Charlotte G. Garrison and Miss Agnes Burke, teachers in the Horace Mann School, Teachers College, New York City, thereupon nominated the child who is called E in this monograph. E was presented at the next meeting of the class. It required two full classroom periods to test this child to the limits of the Stanford-Binet Scale, which had just then been published. E exhausted the scale without being fully measured by it, achieving an IQ of at least 187. He was on that date 8 years 4 months old.

This IQ of at least 187 placed E in Galton's Class X of able persons; i.e., more than six "grades" removed from mediocrity. Taking 1 PE#dis# as one "grade," it placed him at least plus 11 PE from the norm; for 1 PE (Probable Error) equals 8 IQ, according to Terman's original distribution of 905 school children. This appeared as sufficiently striking to warrant permanent recording, since it would rate E as one in a million for statistical frequency, assuming "zeal and power of working" to be also abundantly present.

I did not at that time have any expert knowledge of highly intelligent children. I had been working for some years in the hospitals of New York City with persons presented for commitment to reformatories, prisons, and institutions for mental defectives. I had tested thousands of incompetent persons, a majority of them children, with Goddard's Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale, scarcely ever finding anyone with an IQ rating as high as 100. This thoroughgoing experience of the negative aspects of intelligence rendered the performance of E even more impressive to me than it would otherwise have been. I perceived the clear and flawless working of his mind against a contrasting background of thousands of dull and foolish minds. It was an unforgettable observation.

I then began to look for children like E, to observe them with reference to the principles of education. This search has been conducted in a desultory manner, in "odd" moments, ever since 1916. At times, as in 1922-1923 and in 1935-1936, when pupils were being sought for special classes at Public School 165, Manhattan, or at Public School 500, Manhattan, the search has been systematic. Usually, however, the quest has been quite otherwise, for in the course of long searching I have learned that it is nearly useless to look for these children, because so few of them exist. In twenty-three years' seeking in New York City and the local metropolitan area, the densest center of population in this country and at the same time a great intellectual center attracting able persons, I have found only twelve children who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B). This number represents the winnowing from thousands of children tested, hundreds of them brought for the testing because of their mental gifts. Of course there were and are others who have not been found, since search has never been exhaustive.

The most interesting part of this research is yet to come, in the form of a record of the mature performances of these gifted persons observed in childhood. However, I propose to make a report now of origin and development; to be followed, if I live so long, by further reports of adult status. Such researches require more than the life span of one investigator, since time is of the essence of the task. Universities should make provision for institutional prosecution of these long-time studies as distinguished from individual prosecution. In any case, I shall try to leave the records to some younger student who will comprehend them, and who will amplify them if I prove unable to do so myself.

Galton, in his efforts to understand ability, was limited to the study of the eminent adult, dead and gone. The only test he could use was that of reputation, for at the time he was at work on the problem, mental measurement had not yet been developed as a technique. He wished for a more valid method of gauging ability, and he fully realized that it would be of greater advantage to study "the living individual." "Is reputation a fair test of natural ability?" he asked. "It is the only one I can employ . . . am I justified in using it? How much of a man's success is due to his opportunities, and how much to his natural power of intellect?"

Galton's work was finished before Binet's studies made it possible to measure natural ability apart from reputation; and what is most essential of all, to measure natural ability in childhood. It was Binet's great and original service that he rendered it possible to determine accurately the permanent intellectual caliber of an undeveloped human being. It has always been possible to appraise the ability of people forty or fifty years old, after they have met "the tests of life," but for the pursuit of education and social science it is not very practically useful to know what a person is like only at the end of his life. It is essential, rather, to know with a high degree of precision and certainty the mental endowment of persons at the beginning of their lives if anything is to be done in the matter of special training for special children.

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