The Superior Child
tryis ? 6 3:i J4J The psychological Clinic Copyright, 1923, by Lightner Witmer, Editor. Vol. XV, Nos. 1-2 March, April 1923 Beginning a series of Case Studies. By Alice M. Jones, M.A., The University of Pennsylvania.
During the present academic year, I have conducted, under Professor Witmer’s direction, a special study of Superior Children. Some of these children have been diagnosed as superior by parents and teachers outside the Laboratory of Psychology and are brought to the Clinic for an accurate determination of their mental status; others have been discovered in the Clinic, and in investigations in the schools. Every child included in the group to date has had a special examination and interview with me, and has been the subject of a rather intensive psychological study. For each case I have made an estimate of the degree of superiority manifested in terms of frequency of occurrence, as well as a careful analytic diagnosis. The manifold educational problems which arise in connection with such cases will be discussed at a later date. For the present, it is merely my purpose to present, from time to time, as case studies, some of the more exceptional children discovered in the course of investigation. These cases are selected and offered not only because of their intrinsic interest but also to indicate the enormous range of individual differences in a series of cases all of which fall unquestionably into the superior group. In this issue, I shall present a group of cases chosen primarily on the basis of exceptionally high Intelligence Quotients.
My first two cases are girls, both of whom, by chance, scored the same intelligence quotient, 181. The differences between these two girls are so many and so profound as to make them an especially * Throughout the study The Terman Revision of the Binet Test has been used. In scoring a test in which a child passes a Basal age of either average adult or higher, it is my custom to calculate the I. Q. on a basal age of fourteen years, adding thereto all months score above. This makes a slight difference in I. Q. in favor of the individual tested. I have used the abbreviated scale.
interesting pair for discussion. There is exactly twelve months’ difference between their ages, Florence being nine years and three months, and Hilda, ten years and nine months old.
Florence is a member of an accelerated fourth grade group in a suburban school. At the present time, her physical growth level both in height and weight are two years in advance of her actual age. She is not so much attractive, as arresting in appearance. She has very large brown eyes of a peculiar warm reddish tint which exactly matches her redbrown hair. Her face is small and oval with rather irregular features, which only serves to accentuate her remarkable eyes. Florence is an extraordinary well-poised Miss, with a degree of social orientation almost uncanny in one of her years. She has an “aura” of complete self-sufficiency, which is far from attractive. She is not a popular child, either with teachers or pupils, because of her personality, a natural (although my experience with such children’has shown it to be by no means inevitable) result of an honest and well-justified feeling of superiority. Although she is far from being an enthusiastic student in the classroom her school work is admitted to be excellent. She has never been singled out by the school for skipping a grade, or for any special attention, however. The fact that she has never been picked for special attention is, in itself, indicative of the chilling effect of her personality. She is most emphatically not the “teacher’s pet” type of child, and in spite of, or perhaps because of, her excess intelligence, has not been granted more than her share of attention.
On the psychological tests, her scores were excellent; she scored very high in both performance and intellectual tests. The Dearborn Formboard (C) for instance, she solved the first time in sixty-five seconds, making no false moves. This clean-cut manner of solving new problems was characteristic of her entire performance. Her memory span for digits, both visual and auditory, is nine and she gave eight reverse without the slightest difficulty. Her memory span for syllables of a sentence is twenty-five. On a group of three written tests, standardized on high school students in Philadelphia, Florence falls into the lowest quintile on none of the tests, into the second quintile in the Silent Reading and Hard Directions Tests, and into the median group in Arithmetic. On the Binet Test, her Basal age is fourteen years and her Mental Age, sixteen years nine months, which gives her an Intelligence Quotient of one hundred eighty-one. Of this Mental Age, two years one and a-half months are due entirely to her remarkable specific ability in memory span. For a nine-year-old girl, these performances are consistently superior and the child’s high I. Q. is in some measure justified by her general intellectual development. However, on a test for intellectual organization, such as the repetition of the thought in a paragraph heard (Binet Superior Adult level), for instance, Florence falls down completely, failing even to comprehend the ideas involved. Her vocabulary is fifty-eight words which scores her at the fourteen-year-old level. The basal age level of fourteen years, far more nearly approximates the child’s intellectual level than the sixteen years nine months with which she is credited. Furthermore, she is of course pre-adolescent, which lowers her actual performance level still further. I should not care to risk, for instance, a trial of this girl in high school work even after a year of special coaching. Florence’s one talent is for dancing, and at present this is her chief interest. Her ambition is to go on the stage; if she does so, I should predict for her a considerable success.
Although Terman would unhesitatingly call an I. Q. of 181 indicative of genius I see nothing in the girl’s present performance level to indicate either genius or near-genius. She is without doubt both intelligent and intellectual, and is capable, in all probability, of reaching a very high achievement level. Whether or not she will do so is more or less a function of her motivation. Hilda is one of the most interesting of all cases I have seen. At four years of age she fell victim to infantile paralysis and for six months thereafter was flat on her back in a plaster cast. Her right arm and right leg were affected, but both have recovered remarkably. She walks with a limp, and the coordination of her right arm and hand are very slightly below par but not sufficiently so to interfere greatly with her manual productivity. She is noteworthy among the group of superior children who have come under my observation, however, in that she is not in excess of her age norms for height and weight, but slightly below them; in vital energy, strength and physical endurance, she is somewhat below par. However, there seem to be compensations for all things. This child has balanced a deficit in physical energy with a surplus of intellectual development.
Hilda, while still suffering acutely from the after-effects of her Paralysis, could always be quieted by a story. Having almost exhausted the patience of her family in this respect, suddenly, between the age of four and a half and five years, with no appreciable instruction, she taught herself to read. Now, at ten years, she is a voracious reader, her mother reporting that she would read four books a day if permitted. The “Book of Knowledge” which was bought for her j’ears ago, she has read again and again. She will not be torn from her books to play with other children; in fact, she dislikes the society and games of other children, because, physically, she is unable to compete with them.
She is now in the sixth grade, having started school at seven years of age, and skipped two half terms since. She easily leads her classes. A quick resume of her results on the psychological tests indicate the reason for this school record. She solved every mechanical test given with expedition and precision. In spite of her slight difficulty in coordination, her productivity in working with manual material is far greater than that manifested by the usual girl of her age. Her memory span, auditory and visual, is nine digits, with seven reversed. In a sentence, she is able to repeat thirty-five syllables, which is superior to most college students. The two paragraphs at the superior adult level of the Binet Test were digested, reorganized and given back, idea for idea, omitting nothing. This remarkable display of memory span, plus organization of ideas, is in itself sufficient to account for the girl’s excellent score. On the written tests of the high school group, Hilda falls into the best twenty per cent of high school pupils in the Silent Reading and Hard Directions Test, and because of two very minor errors, into a slightly lower quintile on the Arithmetic. Her Binet was remarkable, in that she passed every test at every age given. Beginning with a vocabulary of seventy-six words, she passed all of the tests at the superior adult level. Because so many of the tests at this level require the specific ability of memory span, I went back through the folder and gave her what I considered the most difficult tests back to twelve years. All questions were answered without hesitation. On the basis of these results, and her unusual degree of intelligence, I should risk the girl at this moment, in an ordinary freshman class in high school and predict success after a short period of adjustment. Given the necessary preliminary information, the girl even now should be able to pass ordinary college subjects. Her ability to acquire, organize and use knowledge is to-day far superior to that of most college students.
In so far as creative ability is concerned, if she has it in any direction, it is the ability to write. Her stories and compositions are very highly praised in school; she is frequently invited to read them in other classrooms. She has tried her hand at poetry once or twice. It is difficult to predict the future literary ability of a preadolescent, but the instinct to write is there, and with her general ability it seems highly probable that this girl will be a producer. This is doubly probable in that her health will always be a handicap and throw her back on her own intellectual life. Incidentally, it is interesting to speculate just to how great a degree this girl’s superiorTHE SUPERIOR CHILD. 5 ity is a result of her physical misfortune; it is entirely within the limits of probability that had she been normal physically this striking intellectual precocity would not have developed.
Hilda and Florence secured the same I. Q. I trust that what I have reported of the two cases makes it obvious that in spite of this quantitative measure of equality, qualitatively speaking, the girls are far apart. From many points of view, Hilda is as far superior to Florence as is Florence to the ordinary child. In interests, orientation, personality and motivation, the girls are utterly different. It would be folly to place them in the same group for educational treatment. The difference of one year in chronological age is by no means adequate to explain the marked qualitative differences in intellect in the two children. The I. Q., therefore, has proved itself in these cases, an inadequate diagnostic standard.
The following cases are individual studies of children securing high I. Q.’s with no attempt to correlate them with the preceding cases or with each other.
Ruth?aged eight years and eleven months, is in the fourth B grade of a demonstration school of practice teaching in one of the better social districts of Philadelphia. She has already skipped one grade, and this year, in a group of exceptionally bright children, is in the process of doing two years’ work in one. In this selected group, she is one of the best students. At eight years, she has the height and weight of a twelve-year-old girl. She is well built and sturdy looking, but by no means a beautiful child. By nature she is inclined to reserve?indeed, seems somewhat introverted. She is not popular with other children, does not enjoy their society, and, far from being a leader, seems to have a well-defined sense of inferiority. Her academic work is most excellent, however, and she is a very satisfactory school citizen, always well liked by her teachers. On the psychological tests she gave consistently superior performances. Her work on mechanical tests is exceptional for a girl of her age. She has a quick rate of discharge and good coordination, and is very planful, working out the principle of any new problem which is set before her. Her memory span is eight, auditory and visual, and she gives six digits reversed. She gave only twenty-four syallables in a sentence, however, arid her report on the ideas in the Binet paragraphs was a total failure. On the written tests, her results fall consistently into the lowest quintile of the high school pupils. Her vocabulary is fifty-six words, scoring at the fourteenyear-old level. Her basal age is twelve years; her mental age, fifteen seven and a half, which gives her an I. Q. of 175.
As yet, Ruth has given no evidence of any creative ability. There is nothing in the girl, qualitatively speaking, to mark her as a “genius.” She does, however, have an unusually fine type of intellect and she presents almost infinite possibilities of education. With fast oncoming adolescence, she may develop some creative ability in the literary field, although prediction of this sort is, at best, hazardous. Furthermore, adolescence may either decrease or enhance what now appears to be a mild defect in social orientation and balance. Just what her final achievement level will be, I am at loss to predict. From present indications, however, I see no reason to believe that she will be anything other than an exceptionally intellectual woman. Jack, aged twenty-four months, is in many respects the most precocious of all children examined in the course of this study. In spite of the difficulties encountered in making a formal psychological examination a two-year-old, Jack’s performances in the clinic plus the history given by his mother, are more than sufficient to place him unquestionably in the group of superior children. On the Binet test, Jack passed every test at the two-year-old level, form discrimination, counting, comprehension and memory span at the four year level, and aesthetic comparison at the five-year level. This gave him a mental age of three years eleven months, and an I. Q. of 195.8. One more test passed would have brought Jack up to an I. Q. of 200.
His height and weight are median for five years and in general appearance, he is a four or five-year-old child. His hands, however, are infantile, and he presents typical two-year-old restlessness. Were it not for these latter two facts, I should be inclined to question the mother’s statement as to the child’s age.
On the Seguin Circles, and the Three-Block-Formboard used in this Clinic, Jack immediately discriminated both size and form. He called the three blocks respectively, circle, square and triangle, when his mother asked him to name them. On the infinitely more complex Witmer Formboard, Jack gave a satisfactory performance, except that his attention wandered and he had to be urged to complete the test. He made no serious errors in discrimination, however, showing no confusion between the diamond and the hexagon or the two triangles on the Witmer board. He is the first two-year-old child successfully to complete the Witmer formboard at this Clinic. The Witmer Cylinders presented too large a problem for him, not because of lack of analytic discrimination of size, but simply because it required too much persistence. He does not know colors. His memory span is four, auditory, and, on visual presentation, he successfully repeated only three, being distracted from remembering the sequence by the attention required to read the numbers.
He has learned to count to fifty and successfully counted six objects. Above six he got confused and gave the typical performance of counting two blocks as one. Although he has not learned his number combinations, he is able to read number symbols and can read correctly 8 + 4 = 12, etc. He enjoys learning sequences of words, and can recite the names of the days of the week and of the months.
He reads correctly all the letters of the alphabet, all marks of punctuation and numerical symbols. It is amusing to hear him, with his infantile speech, assay words such as “exclamation point” and “quotation marks.” He can print on the blackboard words which he knows how to spell, although his hand is so infantile that he is unable to draw the square. If words which he knows are printed for him, he spells them out and names them correctly. His mother reports that he was first able to read all the letters of the alphabet at seventeen months. He has memorized the words in every book which he owns, so that he appears to be reading. In his alphabet book he recognizes words such as “Zouave” and “Zither,” ?mere memory tricks, of course. I have not the slightest doubt, however, that with a minimum of expert teaching the boy could be reading within the next six months.
Jack is, of course, the product of intensive training on the part of his mother; his attainment would be impossible without instruction, but I doubt if it would be possible to teach as much to most two-year-olds. In a recent article entitled “The Educability of the Two Year Old,”* Mrs. Skeritt states that at twenty-four months her child, Bob, was just progressing from a memory span of two to one of three digits, and that at twenty-five months he gave four digits on two repetitions. This was after a long period of experiment and training. Jack, on the contrary, gave two, three, and four digits immediately on first presentation without the slightest difficulty, having never been subjected to such a test before. I am quite convinced, from the manner of repetition, that this represents true integrated memory span, and not echolalia. No other two-year-old child examined in this Clinic has given a memory span of more than three digits. That Jack was able to give a visual memory span at all, at the age of twenty-four months, is, of course, most unusual, and it is not at all surprising that the mechanics of reading decreased the number of digits recalled, to three.
In comparison with two-year-old children so far examined in this Clinic, Jack appears to fall into a class by himself. This is the type of child, who, after he has acquired greater efficiency in the three R’s, is in danger of exploitation as an “infant prodigy.” The problem of his future education is a very serious one, as he will undoubtedly prove a misfit in almost any grade in which he may be placed, after he is of school age. From the point of view of the psychologist, it will be most interesting to observe a child, thus accidentally discovered, through a period of years, to see whether the promise indicated by the present clinical picture, is actually fulfilled.
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