As far as observations go at present, intellectually gifted children between 130 and 150 IQ seem to find the world well suited to their development. As a group, they enjoy the advantages of superior size, strength, health, and beauty; they are emotionally well balanced and controlled; they are of good character; and they tend to win the confidence of their contemporaries, which gives them leadership. This is the "optimum" range of intelligence, if personal happiness is being considered. If a parent would want his child to enjoy "every advantage," he could not do better than wish the child to be endowed with an IQ not lower than 130 or higher than 150.
Above this limit, however—surely above 160 IQ—the deviation is so great that it leads to special problems of development which are correlated with personal isolation. As one boy with an IQ of 190 has said: "It isn't good to be in college so awfully young (twelve years of age). It produces a feeling of alienation."
How to provide against alienation from contemporaries of both sexes, and how to prevent the negativism that results from continuous living under inefficient or unreasonable authority, are two of the important problems for education in its attempt to insure good adjustment of personality for children of extremely high intelligence.
[1] For the original discussion of this topic see the paper by this title, by Leta S. Hollingworth, in the Fifteenth Yearbook of the Department of Elementary School Principals, National Education Association (July, 1936), pages 272-281.
[2] Terman, Lewis M. Genetic Studies of Genius: Vol. I. Stanford University Press, Stanford University, California; 1925.
[3] Hartshorne, H., and May, M. A. Studies in Deceit. The Macmillan Company, New York; 1927.
[4] Haggerty, Melvin E. Evaluation of Higher Institutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois; 1937.
[5] Burt, C. The Young Delinquent. D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., New York; 1924.
[6] Healy, W., and Bronner, A. F. Criminals and Delinquents: Their Making and Unmaking. The Macmillan Company, New York; 1928.
[7] Yoder, G. F. "A Study of the Boyhood of Great Men." Pedagogical Seminary (1894).