CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHILD J
Early in 1937 the principal of P.S. 107, The Bronx, New York City, referred one of her pupils to the Bureau of Educational Guidance of Teachers College, Columbia University. [1] This child was J, a girl then about 7 years 6 months old, born May 18, 1929. She was at this time in Grade 5A, and the principal and teachers had concluded that she was so superior in mental level that the ordinary school program could offer her no challenge.
Examinations by the psychologists of the Bureau showed clearly enough the correctness of this judgment. At the age of 7 years 10 months, March 22, 1937, her Mental Age by Stanford-Binet was 15-5. Since she met with success on the Superior Adult level, no actual upper limit of her ability was established. She was reported, therefore, as having an IQ of 197 or better, and was recommended for admission to the experimental class for quick learners in Speyer School, P.S. 500, Manhattan, which she entered.
In connection with these tests at the Bureau of Child Guidance a most instructive and detailed report was made by the psychologist (Edna Mann). Most of the items of the following description of J at this age are drawn from this report, which fills three single-spaced typewritten pages.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Both parents graduated from college. The father is an instructor in English in a large Eastern university. In the interests of educational research he took, on April 20, 1939, IER Intelligence Scale CAVD, Levels M-Q. His score was 445 points, which the examiner, Leta S. Hollingworth, reports "is included in the top 1 per cent of college graduates and indicates an IQ of not less than 180 in childhood."
The mother of J is a graduate of a large Midwestern university and a former schoolteacher. She also took the CAVD test at the same time that her husband did, making a score of 436 points. This, the examiner reported, "is included in the top 5 per cent of college graduates and indicates an IQ of not less than 170 in childhood."
J has one sister, four years younger than herself, born May 1, 1933. This sister was given a Stanford-Binet test under distracting conditions following a trolley-car accident. Of the outcome, the examiner (Dr. M. C. Pritchard) notes: "This was not a good test and perhaps should not even be included. . . . Several times she asked to leave the room to see how her mother was. She was obviously distracted throughout." Nevertheless, the Mental Age found was 9-2 at Chronological Age 7-0 (IQ 131). In "the routine test given to pupils in 1A grades of the public schools" this sister is reported to have had a score of 143 (presumably IQ, by some group test).
CHILDHOOD CHARACTERISTICS
At the age of 7 years 10 months J is described as poised, competent, self-controlled, and with social and intellectual maturity strikingly advanced. She had clear speech, excellent diction, fertile and pointedly expressed ideas. She was a rather thin child, with clear complexion and very bright blue eyes, and was neatly dressed. Teeth were described as "slightly protruding."
In the test she was interested and coöperative. Her conversation revealed a rich cultural background. She disliked the necessity in school of repeated drills in things she already knew, and she did not need or wish repeated instructions for the tests, even when standard practice called for them.
She was well-read, and discussed with discrimination plays, books, and radio programs. At 3 years of age she had been reading books. At 5 she learned to write her name so that she could take out a library card. At 7 years 10 months she had read six Shakespearean plays. She read all kinds of books, and used dictionaries and encyclopedias independently. She was at that time composing, with a playmate, a "Jingles Book."
At this age she liked to play with children two or three years older than herself. She played vigorously and for several hours a day at many outdoor sports; she did not need to do school homework.
Her manner was natural, free from conceit and from exhibitionism of her abilities. She had good habits of work and enjoyed the challenge of the mental tests. Her vocabulary, language responses, and abstract thinking were clearly on an adult level. She is credited by the examiner with remarkable degrees of mental control, concentration, constructive visual imagery, and manipulation of mathematical and verbal concepts, rote memory, and inductive reasoning.
On a standardized test of reading ability she exhibited a Reading Age of 14 years 5 months at this time (7 years 10 months). Her writing was reported as excellent.
Her earlier educational progress reflects her extraordinary ability. In her first six months at school she completed four terms of work. She was one term in Grade 3A, and then in one term passed through 3B, 4A, and 4B.
J's parents had from the beginning given intelligent attention to her adjustments in school and to her friendships. She had been wisely guided, motivated to make friends rather than to be in constant leadership, and she was well liked and accepted by her classmates.
At this early age the psychological examiner was able confidently to predict: "In view of her exceptional intelligence, her apparently good health, her apparently excellent social adjustment, she can be expected to attain distinction and to win leadership in higher educational and professional fields."
LATER MENTAL TESTS
J was given a second Stanford-Binet test by Dr. M. C. Pritchard within three days of her tenth birthday, on May 15, 1939, using the 1937 Revision, Form L. A Mental Age of 20 years was achieved which, if her limit had been reached, would have meant an IQ of 200—very like the 197 plus attaned at the earlier Chronological Age.
On February 17, 1938, at the age of 9 years 9 months, J had also taken IER Intelligence Scale CAVD, Levels I to M, making a score of 384 points.
Several records are available on the New Stanford Achievement Tests given, a different form each time, to the pupils in the experimental class at Speyer School at intervals of six months. Annual tests at the close of each school year, for a period of three years, may be used here to show J's ability and progress in these respects. Such scores are as follows:
EDUCATIONAL AGE
FUNCTION FORM W FORM Y FORM X FORM W
June 16, June 1, May 31, May 18,
1937 1938 1939 1940
Paragraph Meaning 17-0 18-5 Unmeasured Unmeasured
Word Meaning 15-9 16-10 17-2 17-8
Dictation 16-6 17-8 18-2 Unmeasured
Language Usage 16-5 19-2 18-11 Unmeasured
Literature 16-0 16-2 18-8 Unmeasured
History and Civics 12-6 12-10 15-11 17-4
Geography 11-11 16-2 17-4 18-5
Physiology and Hygiene 12-6 14-6 16-10 18-5
Arithmetic Reasoning 13-1 16-6 17-4 17-6
Arithmetic Computation 11-10 14-6 17-6 17-6
Average score 14-4 16-3 17-8 18-5
Grade status 8.4 Unmeasured Unmeasured Unmeasured
The first of these achievement tests was given shortly after J entered the experimental class, from the fifth grade in a public school, at the age of about 7 years 6 months. At that time her school achievement scores show her to have been between eighth- and ninth-grade status, with an Educational Age just about twice her Chronological Age. So far as Educational Age is concerned, although the experimental program was half concerned with enrichment activities rather than with the conventional fundamentals, J advanced one year and eleven months during the first school year there, one year and five months during the second year, and nine months during the last year. By this time progress was practically impossible because after the first year most of her scores were unmeasured in grade status, being above the standards for tenth grade.
As a matter of mere achievement scores, J was ready for high school work at the age of being received from the fifth grade into the experimental classes at Speyer School.
There are in the files several poems written by J while she was in Speyer School, before May, 1939; that is, before her tenth birthday. The following may be given as a representative sample of these compositions.
A MARCH SNOWFALL
It's March, yet snow is falling fast,
And one may hear the wintry blast.
A budding tree, a sign of spring,
Will to me great gladness bring.
When crocuses have put their heads,
Above the softened garden beds,
And when in all the fields around
Lively little lambkins bound,
And green creeps up across the lawn
I'll be glad the snow has gone.
[1] This chapter was written by H. L. H.