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.