The Increase of the Intelligence Quotient Tgrough Training
- Author:
Gladys G. Ide, Ph.D.,
Director of Special Education, Pvblic Schools, Philadelphia, Pa.
Goddard has shown that many children maintain a constant I. Q. throughout their entire school life. So definite has the belief become that the I. Q. is unchangeable that many children are judged mentally on the basis of a Binet test without sufficient time having elapsed to determine whether their I. Q. would remain constant or not. Children whose mental level remains constant, relative to their increasing years, return a constant I. Q. A consideration of the tests included in the Binet series indicates, however, that many of the tests depend upon mental abilities other than those which are innate. The size of the vocabulary, for instance, and the amount of general information collected depend upon two factors; first, the innate mental ability of the child, and secondly, his environmental opportunities. The first is, of course, unchangeable. The second can be and often is changed. It is this second factor and the opportunity it offers for improvement in mental age that needs emphasis. A group of girls have been collected for a private institution endowed for the education of fatherless girls. These children are chosen from among those applicants whose mother or relatives are unable to furnish proper educational training for their children, rhey are subjected to a severe physical and mental examination before they are admitted to the care of the foundation, where they are kept until their seventeenth year.
Most of these girls come from homes where social opportunities have been few. They have had little chance to acquire language, whether they are American children or children of the foreign born. Their lives have been very simple and their best training ground has been the street. They have the direct stare and uncompromising attitude of the typical street child, with feelings masked under a sullen air of defiance. They have been difficult of control, but have proven well worth the trouble they have caused, as they display valuable characters of initiative, fearlessness and common sense. Many show a desire to do well in school.
This group has received ordinary teaching in classes of fifteen Under experienced normal school graduates, using the course of study ?f the Philadelphia public schools. The children have previously been in attendance at public or parochial schools in the city.
A psychological examination is given each girl when she enters the school. Thereafter, she is tested at intervals, usually about once in six months. This examination includes the Binet test among others. It has been noted that some children examined in 1921, and re-examined with this test in 1922 have improved in the interim, while others remained static. In the latter cases, the improvement in school work, although the class was small and much opportunity offered for individual work, was on a par with the mental age on the Binet series, as has been reported by Fernald at the N. E. A. 1922 in several thousand cases examined by his traveling clinics. In his cases, all of the children chosen for testing were selected as backward by the school authorities, and it may be assumed that the children were of the type mentioned above where the mental age and the school age as measured by school ability were on a par. Many of the backward girls cared for by the foundation showed a different history for their past two years of school work.
On the basis of the I. Q. one child raised her report sixteen points in two years. On entering, she was not able to read at all. She was past seven years of age and in good health. Her mother has had to work since the father’s death, but the standard of living in any case has always been low. The mother is very ignorant, but can read. Mary at the time she entered the school had an I. Q. of 95. She was alert and interested, but she had very little to say and her vocabulary was limited. She did not know the names of the days of the week nor of the months. She knew change and she knew the comprehension questions (6 and 8 years, Binet), because they called for the experience which was noticeably hers. She could not give differences or likenesses, because the questions asked seemed confusing, for she had very little language, although she is American born. At the end of two years of school work, she reads the simple stories suited to her age, she has the ordinary information common to a child of her years, and she has an I. Q. of 111. She is doingwell in school, entering the fourth grade in September, 1922, so that she had done three years of school work in two years. At the present time there is no evidence to show that she has reached her limit. By her side, Susie, a child of twelve, still has an I. Q. of 80, does poor work in school, and has shown no indication of increase in vocabulary or understanding of language.
Leslie, an Italian girl of fifteen, spoke very poor English when she was selected for the school. She had been to public school, but had never done well, partly because she is dull and partly because she has had no special teaching to help her with her English. She received no special help in this field at the institution either, but in two years her I. Q. has increased from 70 to 81. This girl has no literary ability, and no desire to do well in school. Even yet, she misses the point of most of the chapel talks. She is slow, she started late, and she has had no special help, yet she has made a definite gain over what might have been expected of her.
Emma is fourteen years of age. She entered the school from an American home where she had done very much as she pleased. She was fat and coarse looking and doing poor work in the fifth grade. Medical care removed much of the excess fat, and Emma betrayed interest and a desire to learn. She had an I. Q. of 101. At the beginning of her second year, her I. Q. was 112, and at the end of that year, as she is ready to enter the eighth grade, her I. Q. is 119. She is still somewhat retarded in age, but with a good foundation and ready to do good work. At her side are girls whose I. Q.’s of ^2, 105 and 107 have remained constant.
Bessie entered the school at 12 in the fourth grade. She had missed a good deal of school because of moving around and also because of illness, although she appeared strong when she entered. She is of the slender, bookish type, who reads everything at hand. Her I. Q. on entering was 108. She is now ready at thirteen to enter the eighth grade with an I. Q. of 124. She is not of the studious type. She reads and absorbs whatever is around her. She has read most of the school library in the past two years, and she is interested m discussion and debate, which do not interest the general group. A younger girl, Florence, entering the first grade at seven, had an I. Q. of 108. She came from a mediocre home where a fair standard of living had been maintained until the father’s death. Under the opportunity at the school, which included stories and reading after she learned how, this child’s I. Q. rose to 120, and she enters the fourth grade at nine years. At her side is another child, Ruth, who has shown a definite negative attitude during her two years at the school and whose sole interests are those connected with physical training, who has dropped from an I. Q. of 87 to 83, inasmuch as she had failed to make progress in vocabulary in the past two years. Her school work has not improved at all in the interim, and her sole right to exist in this environment consists in her ability at leadership in athletic games. She is now twelve years of age, working in the fourth grade, and really capable of doing second grade work. She has had no special training, but the same environment as have the others.
The Binet tests include a series of tests for language ability. Most children have an innate capacity for the acquirement of words. That is, there is a verbal memory which makes possible the acquire162 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. ment of an extensive vocabulary. Language can, however, be acquired only when a copy is set. It must be acquired through imitation. When the opportunity to hear language is missing, as in the case of children in a poor social environment, or living in institutions, especially orphanages, then the ability to acquire language may be present, but the vocabulary remains limited, due to lack of opportunity to hear words. When this opportunity comes to the child, words and their meanings are easily acquired and general information is increased. Results from tests, such as the Binet series or most of the group tests, which depend upon these qualities, will therefore show a gain on later trials and the I. Q. will be increased in proportion. Direct English training for English speaking children, somewhat on the plan used to teach the foreign child, would undoubtedly sort out from the group of derelicts not doing successful work in school, a group who would make definite advancement should special teaching be given.
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