Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and DevelopmentHollingworth, Leta Stetter
Science
Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development
Hollingworth, Leta Stetter
Gifted children; Stanford-Binet Test
Interpreting and summarizing our experience with J. M.: Our
system of individual instruction has permitted her to make
full use of her intellectual ability. When we tried to depart
from it to prevent her progress from becoming too rapid, she
showed a lack of interest and in some parts of her school work
she did not work up to capacity, and even became to a slight
extent a discipline problem. Given, however, an incentive to
first-class work and the training in social behavior which we
are trying to give in our junior high school, J. M. developed
successfully and well. On the whole, our system has enabled
us to deal with her flexibly and as an individual. It has
prevented us from prolonging our mistakes. Probably no system,
or uniform plan, can be made to fit children of such exceptional
mental endowments. The most we can hope for is a flexibility
which will enable us to deal with such children as individuals,
feeling our way as we go along.
As for family background, J. M. originates from ancestors of very
superior intelligence. Her parents were both tested by means of
Army Alpha and both scored far above the generality of adults.
Her father was educated as an electrical engineer but subsequently
went into investment banking. J. M.'s paternal grandfather
was an architect, trained in Manchester School of Science.
He also attended the University of Edinburgh. The paternal
great-grandfather was an architect and shipbuilder, expert in
laying out factories, and he was descended from a line of builders.
The paternal grandmother was an English woman, educated by her
aunt, "who had advanced ideas on what a girl should study."
The father of this grandmother was a dealer in building materials.
On the maternal side, J. M.'s grandfather was first a teacher,
then a merchant, who became very wealthy, and a mayor of a Southern
town for eighteen years. The line of his descent was through
Southern planters. The maternal grandmother was the daughter
of a college professor, who in turn was the son of a physician
and surgeon, coming from a long line of physicians. The mother
of the maternal grandmother was descended from wealthy farmers.
It is of some interest that for three generations at least,
J. M. and her immediate progenitors were born when the parents
were thirty years or older, in some cases being more than sixty
years old.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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