MENTAL MEASUREMENTS
At the time E was first tested, at Teachers College, Columbia
University, in November, 1916, the Stanford revision of the
Binet-Simon measuring scale was used for the determination of
the child's mental level.
General intelligence. The examiner [L. S. H.] began with the "ball-in-the-field" test. E responded at once with the superior solution, thus giving a preliminary cue to the quality of his mind, and the examiner proceeded immediately with the other tests at the 12-year level of intellect. E passed all the 12-year tests with facility and ease, giving responses of excellent quality. From the 12-year level the examiner then worked forward in all the higher levels through Superior Adult. This is, of course, a long examination, and in view of the actual age of the child it was deemed best to give the tests at two separate sittings, when it was seen that he would cover the whole upper range of the scale. The examination was therefore accomplished in two sittings of about fifty minutes each. The final record of E shows that he measures on the scale as follows:
Levels 1 year
to 7 years YEARS MONTHS
8
9
10
12 12
14 16
Adult 15
Superior Adult 12
—- ——
Total 15 7
Since his actual age is 8 years 4 months and his Mental Age is 15 years 7 months, his IQ is 187. On the curve of the distribution of intellect he stands eleven times the probable error (11 PE) removed from the norm, a position occupied by but one child in more than a million. He stands as far removed from the average in the direction of superiority as an idiot stands removed from the average in the direction of inferiority.
An analysis of his performance shows that E had extraordinary appreciation of the exact use of words and of the shades of difference between words. He gave correct meanings for 64 words out of the 100 in the vocabulary test. His vocabulary thus includes 11,520 words. The score of the Average Adult is 65 words. Thus he just missed scoring on this Average Adult test. Samples of his definitions are as follows:
scorch—is what happens to a thing when exposed to great heat.
quake—is a kind of movement, unintended.
ramble—is a walk taken for pleasure.
nerve—is a thing you feel by—for instance, cold.
majesty—is a word used to address a king—your majesty.
Mars—is a planet.
peculiarity—is something you do that nobody else does.
mosaic—is a picture made by many small pieces of marble.
bewail—is to be extremely sorrowful.
tolerate—is to allow others to do what you don't like yourself.
lotus—is a kind of flower.
harpy—is a kind of half-bird, half-woman, referred to in Virgil.
fen—is a kind of marsh.
laity—is not clergy.
ambergris—it comes from a whale.
straw—the stalk of a cereal plant.
lecture—someone giving a very long talk about something to an
audience.
E also has a prodigious ability for comprehending and formulating abstract ideas, and for working with symbols. He gave the differences between the abstract concepts under Average Adult as follows:
a—laziness and idleness. Laziness is that you don't want to work; idleness is that you can't, for a while.