/ -NEED FOR CORRELATION OF BINET-SIMON TESTS
f
WITH OTHER TESTS OF DOING. By Eleanor Vanderbilt
Clinic,
Keller,
New York
City.
intelligence that have won the These the Binet-Simon tests. doubtless widest recognition of a result in the United States are the as used generally gradual development. In 1904 Paris required the selection of all the menThe standardized tests for are
defective children in the public schools, to be ascertained by For this purpose Binet and individual examination of pupils. Simon chose from many tests a certain number arranged in the
tally
order of increasing difficulty, and tried them out on a selected group Ten children of of children of pedagogically average intelligence. each year, three to seven, and fifteen of each year, seven to twelve, were
chosen.
The tests
To
were
then
this scale to
adapt age. inmates of the Salpetriere
arranged
testing
were
in groups to suit each
feebleminded children, the
examined with it.
correlated well with the classification
previously
The results
made
by diag-
nosticians who had devised tests from their experience with feebleminded children.
Binet
was
anxious to
secure
a
uniformity
of
diagnosis into which the personal equation of the examiner would not enter. He was a student of language development, and believed that steps of intellectual progress are well marked by language ability. He divided all feebleminded into three groups: (1) idiots, in whom the power to express thoughts by language is wanting, their being made known by gestures or grunts; (2) imbeciles in whom the power of speech is often very poorly developed, isolated words or
wants
short, broken sentences frequently suffice, though the higher imbecile may speak as well as the next class but power to read or write it lacking; (3) lastly the morons who in addition to speaking can also read and write. While there are no hard or sharp lines of division between these classes, the idiots are grouped as one or two years old, the imbeciles as three to eight, and the morons as eight to twelve. In Binet's opinion, if there is congenital brain defect causing feeblemindedness, the subject does not pass into adolescence. Twelve years of age evidently marks for Binet the dividing line between childhood and adult life. Binet and Simon, assisted by their students, revised this scale again and again from 1904 to 1911. In America Goddard in Vineland, Huey of Johns Hopkins, (18)
NEED FOR CORRELATION OF TESTS.
Whipple Stanford
of
Cornell, University
Wallin of have
Pittsburgh and changed and adapted
19
Terman of Leland
these tests for use Previous to 1910 Goddard tested his translation and arrangement of the Binet-Simon tests on 400 feebleminded and about 2000 normal children.1 Dr. Leonard P. Ayres of the Russell Sage Foundation has comamong American children.
pared the results of Goddard's tests of 1547 normal children with his own results, gathered by him, showing the progress of children in the public elementary schools of twenty-eight American cities. Dr. Ayres has marked as normal all children who have covered the seven grades in seven years; those who have completed the same in six years as one year in advance; those taking eight years as one year behind; those taking nine years as two years behind, etc. When all reports are massed we get a normal curve for all cities; but by doing so we cover up the many variations in the different
I'
-7
-6
-5
-1*
-3
i
-2
'
i
;
-1
H
"
i
+1
+2
+3
?
tested Distribution curvcs children tested 1547 children curves showing variations from normal of 1547 28 cities cities rated their by the Binet-Simon scale (solid line) and 14,762 children in 28 rated by by their on relative based on figures relative figures progress through seven grades (dotted line). Curves based showing distribution of 1000 cases of each kind. (Ayres.*) (Ayres.2) 1 s
See Pedagogical Seminary, Sept., 1910, June, 1911. The Binet-Simon Measuring Scale for Intelligence: Some Criticisms Ayres, Leonard P.
and Suggestions.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.
20
and cities. If the distribution curve were based on ages the normal curve would not be obtained. This distribution curve obtained by measuring all returns from all cities, rating their standing by progress through the grades, almost corresponds to the curve obtained by Goddard for his 1547
grades
children tested by Binet-Simon test. The of 1 to 1000 as there are 14,762 children by
curve
is based
on
ratio
and 1547 for the
grades Ayres rightly concludes: "If this were true there would be far less need for securing a measuring scale of intelligence than there undoubtedly is, for in our public school system we should have just such a scale, scientifically correct and already at hand." Binet-Simon tests.
Let
us
Dr.
bear in mind that Binet's method of standardization
testing public
school children of
Paris,
was
selected group chosen
by Progress was based on language development. Remembering the overemphasis that the schools put on language work, talking versus doing, are not the results just what might be expected? Do the tests measure native ability or do they not rather a
school standards.
measure
scholastic attainment?
It is
significant
that those
psychologists
who have used the
Binet-Simon most, agree that tests for the youngest
are too easy and those for the older pupils too difficult. With the disappearance of the old faculty-psychology and the rise of experimental and objective psychology, we note an advent of better things in the
increasing interest of medical practitioners, neurologists, and psysiologists in the mental life of the child. They would all put more emphasis on what a child does than on what he says. A measuring scale of intelligence would prove more significant when doing rather than talking is given greater prominence. Not that language development is not closely correlated with mental development, but any series of tests founded so largely on this one point must tend to give it undue weight. The finer musculature and neural centers involved in speech are but a part of the muscular and neural development of childhood. If the normal order of development is from the larger musculature, neurones and synapses involved, to the finer, would not a graded series of tests call for use of these muscles
more than does the Binet-Simon scale? The Binet-Simon tests fail the clinician in three kinds of cases: in the lower range, in the upper range, and in certain neuropathic
cases.
1. In the lower range, the child, often backward in speech is still intelligent in every other way, making his
development,
wants known
by gestures, smiles,
etc.
If tested
by the
Binet-
NEED FOR CORRELATION OF TESTS. Simon
scale,
Such
a
child
there
are
grade
a
great wrong would be done such
might
be classed
a retarded child. idiot or low grade imbecile, but which help in his diagnosis. Low
as an
other marks than
children
21
speech brought at an early age to the clinics. They other children at home, absorb entirely too much
are
are a menace to
of the mother's time and there is
great need for standardized tests
properly and separate them from the merely retarded. They should be passed over to institutions for proper care and training as early as possible. They can be made happy among their peers, cleanly in habits and in a small way helpful as institution workers. Otherwise they will be a source of misery to to
diagnose
these
a
cases
their families and themselves and
an
unnecessary cost
to the
community. 2. Furthermore in the upper limit of the scale, little satisfaction gained by use of the Binet-Simon tests, that is for those girls and boys of thirteen through fifteen who read and write, but have been is
laggards in school; never interested in the sedentary work of the school, longing to do things, and often landing in the truant school. Such a child would often be diagnosed as a moron, if the grade teacher
the strict devotee of the Binet-Simon scale were the diagnostician. The teacher complains of lack of attention, restlessor
disorder, etc., etc. Give such a boy something to do, involving initiative, continuous attention, memory, judgment, and see his response. Give the same problem to the congenitally feebleminded and note the difference. In the latter case there is no initiative, no In order to carry out his continuous attention, poor judgment. work all must be planned for the feebleminded step by step, almost incessant guidance and care is needed, but the boy who has failed in arithmetic, grammar, etc., takes a new lease of mental life if given something to do, something involving the exercise of the larger musculature; something calling for initiative, persistent attention, reason, judgment. Tests of doing rather than of talking will help to separate these two classes and test native ability rather ness,
than scholastic attainment. 3. The children who have been pressed (neuropathic cases) and in whom the nervous affection is marked by facial tics, twitches,
stuttering, stammering, lisping.
They
are
often ahead of
grade,
but
lack any wholesome interest in school. They are brain-fagged at twelve years of age. They have happened to have that type of
mind which enables them to grasp abstract reasoning early in life. They shine in the arithmetic and grammar classes. These are subjects which make a premature demand on the association centers. If as Kraes and others assert the entire middle cortical layer is
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.
22
in association fibres in childhood, but after the new growth they increase rapidly and continue to grow in to fifty years of age, should our course of study put complexity up
lacking
of the later teens
emphasis on subjects like arithmetic and grammar before the lower teens, subjects which call for the exercise of these centers? Should healthy boys and girls who fail here but succeed in tasks of doing, gathering and retaining facts to broaden their experience, be diagnosed as retarded? These neuropathic cases may show affec-
such
Would tions due to premature exercise of the association center. doing help us separate these cases from the retarded and feebleminded? Furthermore for clinical use, tests of doing help one to get a line
not tests of
choreic tendencies, and note a lack of coordination, give signs of dementia praecox, or other cerebral affections, and assist in the separation of dementia from amentia. What the clinician particon
ularly needs are first, tests of doing secondly, tests involving the larger as
rather than of well
To Binet and Simon is due credit for
ing to age?a scale intelligible to development, tests of doing are take the
as
arranging
but founded
all, needed,
talking;
and
the finer musculature. as
a
scale accord-
it is
speech perhaps
on
to correlate and
place of some tests in the scale. requires a trained and experienced psychologist to give the Binet-Simon tests, to record results and personal and family histories and in conjunction with these try out other standardized tests, preferably those of doing. It is also necessary to study the normal child, his interests and activities at certain ages, in order to formulate other tests leading to a more just estimate of the child's native ability at certain ages. It
f
WITH OTHER TESTS OF DOING. By Eleanor Vanderbilt
Clinic,
Keller,
New York
City.
intelligence that have won the These the Binet-Simon tests. doubtless widest recognition of a result in the United States are the as used generally gradual development. In 1904 Paris required the selection of all the menThe standardized tests for are
defective children in the public schools, to be ascertained by For this purpose Binet and individual examination of pupils. Simon chose from many tests a certain number arranged in the
tally
order of increasing difficulty, and tried them out on a selected group Ten children of of children of pedagogically average intelligence. each year, three to seven, and fifteen of each year, seven to twelve, were
chosen.
The tests
To
were
then
this scale to
adapt age. inmates of the Salpetriere
arranged
testing
were
in groups to suit each
feebleminded children, the
examined with it.
correlated well with the classification
previously
The results
made
by diag-
nosticians who had devised tests from their experience with feebleminded children.
Binet
was
anxious to
secure
a
uniformity
of
diagnosis into which the personal equation of the examiner would not enter. He was a student of language development, and believed that steps of intellectual progress are well marked by language ability. He divided all feebleminded into three groups: (1) idiots, in whom the power to express thoughts by language is wanting, their being made known by gestures or grunts; (2) imbeciles in whom the power of speech is often very poorly developed, isolated words or
wants
short, broken sentences frequently suffice, though the higher imbecile may speak as well as the next class but power to read or write it lacking; (3) lastly the morons who in addition to speaking can also read and write. While there are no hard or sharp lines of division between these classes, the idiots are grouped as one or two years old, the imbeciles as three to eight, and the morons as eight to twelve. In Binet's opinion, if there is congenital brain defect causing feeblemindedness, the subject does not pass into adolescence. Twelve years of age evidently marks for Binet the dividing line between childhood and adult life. Binet and Simon, assisted by their students, revised this scale again and again from 1904 to 1911. In America Goddard in Vineland, Huey of Johns Hopkins, (18)
NEED FOR CORRELATION OF TESTS.
Whipple Stanford
of
Cornell, University
Wallin of have
Pittsburgh and changed and adapted
19
Terman of Leland
these tests for use Previous to 1910 Goddard tested his translation and arrangement of the Binet-Simon tests on 400 feebleminded and about 2000 normal children.1 Dr. Leonard P. Ayres of the Russell Sage Foundation has comamong American children.
pared the results of Goddard's tests of 1547 normal children with his own results, gathered by him, showing the progress of children in the public elementary schools of twenty-eight American cities. Dr. Ayres has marked as normal all children who have covered the seven grades in seven years; those who have completed the same in six years as one year in advance; those taking eight years as one year behind; those taking nine years as two years behind, etc. When all reports are massed we get a normal curve for all cities; but by doing so we cover up the many variations in the different
I'
-7
-6
-5
-1*
-3
i
-2
'
i
;
-1
H
"
i
+1
+2
+3
?
tested Distribution curvcs children tested 1547 children curves showing variations from normal of 1547 28 cities cities rated their by the Binet-Simon scale (solid line) and 14,762 children in 28 rated by by their on relative based on figures relative figures progress through seven grades (dotted line). Curves based showing distribution of 1000 cases of each kind. (Ayres.*) (Ayres.2) 1 s
See Pedagogical Seminary, Sept., 1910, June, 1911. The Binet-Simon Measuring Scale for Intelligence: Some Criticisms Ayres, Leonard P.
and Suggestions.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.
20
and cities. If the distribution curve were based on ages the normal curve would not be obtained. This distribution curve obtained by measuring all returns from all cities, rating their standing by progress through the grades, almost corresponds to the curve obtained by Goddard for his 1547
grades
children tested by Binet-Simon test. The of 1 to 1000 as there are 14,762 children by
curve
is based
on
ratio
and 1547 for the
grades Ayres rightly concludes: "If this were true there would be far less need for securing a measuring scale of intelligence than there undoubtedly is, for in our public school system we should have just such a scale, scientifically correct and already at hand." Binet-Simon tests.
Let
us
Dr.
bear in mind that Binet's method of standardization
testing public
school children of
Paris,
was
selected group chosen
by Progress was based on language development. Remembering the overemphasis that the schools put on language work, talking versus doing, are not the results just what might be expected? Do the tests measure native ability or do they not rather a
school standards.
measure
scholastic attainment?
It is
significant
that those
psychologists
who have used the
Binet-Simon most, agree that tests for the youngest
are too easy and those for the older pupils too difficult. With the disappearance of the old faculty-psychology and the rise of experimental and objective psychology, we note an advent of better things in the
increasing interest of medical practitioners, neurologists, and psysiologists in the mental life of the child. They would all put more emphasis on what a child does than on what he says. A measuring scale of intelligence would prove more significant when doing rather than talking is given greater prominence. Not that language development is not closely correlated with mental development, but any series of tests founded so largely on this one point must tend to give it undue weight. The finer musculature and neural centers involved in speech are but a part of the muscular and neural development of childhood. If the normal order of development is from the larger musculature, neurones and synapses involved, to the finer, would not a graded series of tests call for use of these muscles
more than does the Binet-Simon scale? The Binet-Simon tests fail the clinician in three kinds of cases: in the lower range, in the upper range, and in certain neuropathic
cases.
1. In the lower range, the child, often backward in speech is still intelligent in every other way, making his
development,
wants known
by gestures, smiles,
etc.
If tested
by the
Binet-
NEED FOR CORRELATION OF TESTS. Simon
scale,
Such
a
child
there
are
grade
a
great wrong would be done such
might
be classed
a retarded child. idiot or low grade imbecile, but which help in his diagnosis. Low
as an
other marks than
children
21
speech brought at an early age to the clinics. They other children at home, absorb entirely too much
are
are a menace to
of the mother's time and there is
great need for standardized tests
properly and separate them from the merely retarded. They should be passed over to institutions for proper care and training as early as possible. They can be made happy among their peers, cleanly in habits and in a small way helpful as institution workers. Otherwise they will be a source of misery to to
diagnose
these
a
cases
their families and themselves and
an
unnecessary cost
to the
community. 2. Furthermore in the upper limit of the scale, little satisfaction gained by use of the Binet-Simon tests, that is for those girls and boys of thirteen through fifteen who read and write, but have been is
laggards in school; never interested in the sedentary work of the school, longing to do things, and often landing in the truant school. Such a child would often be diagnosed as a moron, if the grade teacher
the strict devotee of the Binet-Simon scale were the diagnostician. The teacher complains of lack of attention, restlessor
disorder, etc., etc. Give such a boy something to do, involving initiative, continuous attention, memory, judgment, and see his response. Give the same problem to the congenitally feebleminded and note the difference. In the latter case there is no initiative, no In order to carry out his continuous attention, poor judgment. work all must be planned for the feebleminded step by step, almost incessant guidance and care is needed, but the boy who has failed in arithmetic, grammar, etc., takes a new lease of mental life if given something to do, something involving the exercise of the larger musculature; something calling for initiative, persistent attention, reason, judgment. Tests of doing rather than of talking will help to separate these two classes and test native ability rather ness,
than scholastic attainment. 3. The children who have been pressed (neuropathic cases) and in whom the nervous affection is marked by facial tics, twitches,
stuttering, stammering, lisping.
They
are
often ahead of
grade,
but
lack any wholesome interest in school. They are brain-fagged at twelve years of age. They have happened to have that type of
mind which enables them to grasp abstract reasoning early in life. They shine in the arithmetic and grammar classes. These are subjects which make a premature demand on the association centers. If as Kraes and others assert the entire middle cortical layer is
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.
22
in association fibres in childhood, but after the new growth they increase rapidly and continue to grow in to fifty years of age, should our course of study put complexity up
lacking
of the later teens
emphasis on subjects like arithmetic and grammar before the lower teens, subjects which call for the exercise of these centers? Should healthy boys and girls who fail here but succeed in tasks of doing, gathering and retaining facts to broaden their experience, be diagnosed as retarded? These neuropathic cases may show affec-
such
Would tions due to premature exercise of the association center. doing help us separate these cases from the retarded and feebleminded? Furthermore for clinical use, tests of doing help one to get a line
not tests of
choreic tendencies, and note a lack of coordination, give signs of dementia praecox, or other cerebral affections, and assist in the separation of dementia from amentia. What the clinician particon
ularly needs are first, tests of doing secondly, tests involving the larger as
rather than of well
To Binet and Simon is due credit for
ing to age?a scale intelligible to development, tests of doing are take the
as
arranging
but founded
all, needed,
talking;
and
the finer musculature. as
a
scale accord-
it is
speech perhaps
on
to correlate and
place of some tests in the scale. requires a trained and experienced psychologist to give the Binet-Simon tests, to record results and personal and family histories and in conjunction with these try out other standardized tests, preferably those of doing. It is also necessary to study the normal child, his interests and activities at certain ages, in order to formulate other tests leading to a more just estimate of the child's native ability at certain ages. It
