INTELLIGENCE TESTS

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6405, 20 October 1923, Page 2

INTELLIGENCE TESTS

WORK AMONG CHILDREN Miss W. A. Valentine, who has been appointed to make intelligence tests among school children, gave a talk on this very interesting subject to a Wellington audience recently. Miss Valentine has been for some time in America studying and working along these lines, and she spoke of some of the work in the schools there. In Canada they were doing some wonderful work in teaching music in the schools, and the parents’ associations were of great benefit. One way to keep ,up the standard of living Was to keep up the standard' of the public schools. Miss Valentine described the beginning of the intelligence test, which was worked out by Binet, a French psychologist. Before that there was no known standard whereby children or adults could be scientifically tested, and in regard to children sorted out for it, it should be remembered that such tests were made not only to discover the backward child, but the forward child, the child whose intelligence was above normal. Another point was that appearance was often no criterion to a chihTs mentality. The scheme of Madame Montessori was really the outcome of work among defective children# said Miss Valentine. The scale of tests made by Binet gave certain points for children of various ages, 3,4, 5 years, and so on, beginning with simple questions as to name, parts of the body, etc., and advancing with the child’s age. Unfortunately Binet died before he completed his work, but others took it up, and in California especially a great deal of work was done. A certain revision of Binet’s scale was made in America and England, but in Europe Binet’s scale is substantially used to-day. The intelligence quotient was found by dividing the mental age of the child by its age in years. A child of ten should have the intelligence of ten, but sometimes it had only eight, and it might have twelve.

One New York psychologist had stated that of the number of girls placed on probation from the courts there, 57 per cent, were defective. Another statement had been made that in similar cases a third were normal, a third sub-normal, and a third suffered from some nervous disorder. From this it could be seen how valuable such tests could be if children were sorted out in the schools and not given tasks above their intelligence. There were no classes for sub-normal children at present, but the speaker said she hoped there would be as the result of her work. A serious feature at present was that children were not attending school because they were not up to normal, and these children were getting no education at all. Miss Valentine answered a number of questions bearing on the subject, and a very interesting discussion followed. A hearty vote of thanks was accorded the speaker.