Part 13 (1/2)
The forty-minute test had told more about the mental ability of this boy than the intelligent mother had been able to learn in eleven years of daily and hourly observation. For X is feeble-minded; he will never complete the grammar school; he will never be an efficient worker or a responsible citizen.
Let us change the picture. Z is a bright-eyed, dark-skinned girl of 9 years. She is dark-skinned because her father is a mixture of Indian and Spanish. The mother is of Irish descent. With her strangely mated parents and two brothers she lives in a dirty, cramped, and poorly furnished house in the country. The parents are illiterate, and the brothers are r.e.t.a.r.ded and dull, though not feeble-minded.
It is Z's turn to be tested. I inquire the name. It is familiar, for I have already tested the two stupid brothers. I also know her ignorant parents and the miserable cabin in which she lives.
The examination begins with the 8-year tests. The responses are quick and accurate. We proceed to the 9-year group. There is no failure, and there is but one minor error. Successes and failures alternate for a while until the latter prevail. Z has tested at 11 years. In spite of her wretched home, she is mentally advanced nearly 25 per cent. By the vocabulary test she is credited with a knowledge of nearly 6000 words, or nearly four times as many as X, the boy of cultured home and scholarly parents, had learned by the age of 8 years.
Five years have pa.s.sed. When given the test, Z was in the fourth grade and, as we have already stated, 9 years of age. As a result of the test she was transferred to the fifth grade. Later she skipped again and at the age of 14 is a successful student in the second year of high school. To a.s.say her intelligence and determine its quality was a task of forty-five minutes.
The above cases, each of which could be paralleled by many others which we have found, will serve to ill.u.s.trate the fact that exceptionally superior endowment is discoverable by the tests, however unfavorable the home from which it comes, and that inferior endowment cannot be normalized by all the advantages of the most cultured home. Quoting again from Stern, ”The tests actually reach and discover the general developmental conditions of intelligence, and not mere fragments of knowledge and attainments acquired by chance.”
PART II
GUIDE FOR THE USE OF THE STANFORD REVISION AND EXTENSION
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
NECESSITY OF SECURING ATTENTION AND EFFORT. The child's intelligence is to be judged by his success in the performance of certain tasks. These tasks may appear to the examiner to be very easy, indeed; but we must bear in mind that they are often anything but easy for the child. Real effort and attention are necessary for his success, and occasionally even his best efforts fall short of the desired result. If the tests are to display the child's real intellectual ability it will be necessary, therefore, to avoid as nearly as possible every disturbing factor which would divide his attention or in any other way injure the quality of his responses. To insure this it will be necessary to consider somewhat in detail a number of factors which influence effort, such as degree of quiet, the nature of surroundings, presence or absence of others, means of gaining the child's confidence, the avoidance of embarra.s.sment, fatigue, etc.
One should not expect, however, to secure an absolutely equal degree of attention from all subjects. The power to give sustained attention to a difficult task is characteristically weak in dull and feeble-minded children. What we should labor to secure is the maximum attention of which the child is capable, and if this is unsatisfactory without external cause, we are to regard the fact as symptomatic of inferior mental ability, not as an extenuating factor or an excuse for lack of success in the tests.
Attention, of course, cannot be normal if any acute physical or mental disturbance is present. Toothache, headache, earache, nausea, fever, cold, etc., all render the test inadvisable. The same is true of mental anxiety or fear, as in the case of the child who has just been arrested and brought before the court.
QUIET AND SECLUSION. The tests should be conducted in a quiet room, located where the noises of the street and other outside distractions cannot enter. A reasonably small room is better than a very large one, because it is more homelike. The furnis.h.i.+ngs of the room should be simple. A table and two chairs are sufficient. If the room contains a number of unfamiliar objects, such as psychological apparatus, pictures on the walls, etc., the attention of the child is likely to be drawn away from the tasks which he is given to do. The halls and corridors which it is sometimes necessary to use in testing school children are usually noisy, cold, or otherwise objectionable.
PRESENCE OF OTHERS. A still more disturbing influence is the presence of other persons. Generally speaking, if accurate results are to be secured it is not permissible to have any auditor, besides possibly an a.s.sistant to record the responses. Even the a.s.sistant, however quiet and un.o.btrusive, is sometimes a disturbing element. Though something of a convenience, the a.s.sistant is by no means necessary, after the examiner has thoroughly mastered the procedure of the tests and has acquired some skill in the use of abbreviations in recording the answers. If an a.s.sistant or any other person is present, he should be seated somewhat behind the child, not too close, and should take no notice of the child either when he enters the room or at any time during the examination.
At all events, the presence of parent, teacher, school princ.i.p.al, or governess is to be avoided. Contrary to what one might expect, these distract the child much more than a strange personality would do. Their critical att.i.tude toward the child's performance is very likely to cause embarra.s.sment. If the child is alone with the examiner, he is more at ease from the mere fact that he does not feel that there is a reputation to sustain. The praise so lavishly bestowed upon him by the friendly and sympathetic examiner lends to the same effect.
As Binet emphasizes, if the presence of others cannot be avoided, it is at least necessary to require of them absolute silence. Parents, and sometimes teachers, have an almost irrepressible tendency to interrupt the examination with excuses for the child's failures and with disturbing explanations which are likely to aid the child in comprehending the required task. Without the least intention of doing so, they sometimes practically tell the child how to respond. Parents, especially, cannot refrain from scolding the child or showing impatience when his answers do not come up to expectation. This, of course, endangers the child's success still further.
The psychologist is not surprised at such conduct. It would be foolish to expect average parents, even apart from their bias in the particular case at hand, to adopt the scientific att.i.tude of the trained examiner.
Since we cannot in a few moments at our disposal make them over into psychologists, our only recourse is to deal with them by exclusion.
This is not to say that it is impossible to test a child satisfactorily in the presence of others. If the examiner is experienced, and if the child is not timid, it is sometimes possible to make a successful test in the presence of quite a number of auditors, provided they remain silent, refrain from staring, and otherwise conduct themselves with discretion. But not even the veteran examiner can always be sure of the outcome in demonstration testing.
GETTING INTO ”RAPPORT.” The examiner's first task is to win the confidence of the child and overcome his timidity. Unless _rapport_ has first been established, the results of the first tests given are likely to be misleading. The time and effort necessary for accomplis.h.i.+ng this are variable factors, depending upon the personality of both the examiner and the subject. In a majority of cases from three to five minutes should be sufficient, but in a few cases somewhat more time is necessary.
The writer has found that when a strange child is brought to the clinic for examination, it is advantageous to go out of doors with him for a little walk around the university buildings. It is usually possible to return from such a stroll in a few minutes, with the child chattering away as though to an old friend. Another approach is to begin by showing the child some interesting object, such as a toy, or a form-board, or pictures not used in the test. The only danger in this method is that the child is likely to find the object so interesting that he may not be willing to abandon it for the tests, or that his mind will keep reverting to it during the examination.
Still another method is to give the child his seat as soon as he is ushered into the room, and, after a word of greeting, which must be spoken in a kindly tone but without gus.h.i.+ness, to open up a conversation about matters likely to be of interest. The weather, place of residence, pets, sports, games, toys, travels, current events, etc., are suitable topics if rightly employed. When the child has begun to express himself without timidity and it is clear that his confidence has been gained, one may proceed, as though in continuance of the conversation, to inquire the name, age, and school grade. The examiner notes these down in the appropriate blanks, rather unconcernedly, at the same time complimenting the child (unless it is clearly a case of serious r.e.t.a.r.dation) on the fine progress he has made with his studies.
KEEPING THE CHILD ENCOURAGED. Nothing contributes more to a satisfactory _rapport_ than praise of the child's efforts. Under no circ.u.mstances should the examiner permit himself to show displeasure at a response, however absurd it may be. In general, the poorer the response, the better satisfied one should appear to be with it. An error is always to be pa.s.sed by without comment, unless it is painfully evident to the child himself, in which case the examiner will do well to make some excuse for it; e.g., ”You are not quite old enough to answer questions like that one; but, never mind, you are doing beautifully,” etc.
Exclamations like ”fine!” ”splendid!” etc., should be used lavishly.
Almost any innocent deception is permissible which keeps the child interested, confident, and at his best level of effort. The examination should begin with tests that are fairly easy, in order to give the child a little experience with success before the more difficult tests are reached.