Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development

by Leta Stetter Hollingworth

B walked a few steps at 8 months (under the excitement of running after a dog), but walked no more till she was 12 months old. She employed short sentences when she was about 16 months of age. Her mother reports that B expressed her thought in sentences, rather than in isolated words, almost from the beginning of language development; she excited considerable comment among friends by displaying an extensive vocabulary and by using nursery rhymes at age 2.

B was taught to read by her mother at age 4, by the "picture-story" method. (She knew the alphabet long before.) A few lessons only were given her and thereafter B read and has continued to read independently.

B has had no serious illnesses or accidents; her health history appears normal and her physical condition at the present time is excellent. Furthermore, she seems unusually well balanced from the standpoint of mental hygiene. B exhibits regularity in habits, sleeps soundly, seldom reports dreams, displays no unusual fears, and adapts herself quickly and successfully to the demands of her child-group.

B's parents appear distinctly above the average both in intelligence and in academic training. The mother finished a two-year normal course and taught for a number of years in a metropolitan school system. The father is an electrical engineer, a graduate of Case College of Applied Science; he has pursued graduate studies at Cornell University, and has done some college teaching. At present he is a practicing electrical engineer. . . . Her maternal great-grandfather (who is still active and robust at age 82) was private secretary to each of four executives of a large railroad system. . . . Her paternal grandfather was an inventor and manufacturer of polishes and waxes. . . .

The mother reports B to be of pure Negro stock. There is no record of any white ancestors on either the maternal or paternal side.

B has not much ability or interest in music. Her favorite subject is science, and chemistry attracts her to the extent that she wishes to become a chemist.

Child R. In 1936, Zorbaugh and Boardman (38) described a boy, R, of IQ 204 (S-B). They mention also three other children of IQ above 180, tested at New York University's Clinic for the Social Adjustment of the Gifted, but R is the only one described.

R was brought to the Clinic when he was 8 years old, and at that time he had on the Stanford-Binet an IQ of 204. His father, an engineer, is a well-known writer in the scientific field. His mother holds a doctor's degree in physical chemistry from a foreign university. Neither the father nor the mother has been tested, but they are both persons of very unusual mental ability. R's two younger brothers are also of very superior mentality. The family is of Jewish origin and both the father and the mother were born in a foreign country.

R, their first child, was born when the mother was thirty and the father was thirty-five. His early development was exceedingly precocious. His first tooth erupted at five months of age; he began to walk at nine months and was running at eleven months; he was talking in sentences at eleven months; he learned to read at four years of age, and was reading omnivorously before he entered school. When he entered school he had an unusual vocabulary, using such words as "casuistry" and "disproportionate." At the age of 2 he was modeling in clay, and at the age of 3 he began to design and make machines. He applied through his father to the United States Patent Office for two patents before he was 8 years old. At 8 years of age he had a large library in his home composed mostly of books of science, history, and biography, which he had catalogued himself, on the Dewey decimal system. At this age he was writing a book on electricity. Also at the age of 8 he had a small machine shop in which he was working on his machines. At the age of 6 he enjoyed discussing philosophy. At the age of 7 he would debate on the significance of religion in world development.

The day he first came to the Clinic, Claudel's experiments on developing power by raising the colder water from the lower levels of the sea had just been reported in the scientific section of the New York Times. R explained the theory involved much more clearly than had the scientific writer of the Times.