Download Chapter 3: What is intelligence

In the underprivileged classes, it is the instruments such as intelligence
tests, which make it possible to detect these children. The intelligence tests are
very useful for identifying under-performing gifted children, and young schoolage children and gifted children with associated disorders. If we carry out the
tests without due care we are taking away from these pupils one of their
fundamental rights: the right of children to receive an education which makes it
possible to develop their capacities to the maximum.
With regard to the SBL-M, we would highlight the most important
contributions performed by Binet in his study into intelligence:
•
That intelligence was measurable.
• That intelligence was manifested as learning speed.
• That intelligence was related to performance.
Binet also reached the conclusion that the tests which included more
complex tasks and which presented a greater similarity to mental activities of
everyday life turned out to be more promising. The tasks in the Binet test were
based principally on language and gave importance to judgement, memory,
comprehension and reasoning.
Some later studies of the Binet-type tests, above all those performed by
Terman in his Stanford-Binet, led to the appearance of an elaborate technology
for this type of scale, studies which included the careful selection and
collocation of tasks in the scale, with the aim of producing measurements and
standard deviations approximately constant for the IQs of the different ages.
This was the factor that made it possible for the scale to be applied not only to
normal children and those with deficiencies but also to higher levels of ability.
The Stanford-Binet was used by Terman in assessing more than 1.500
individuals with IQ levels of over 130, the majority being +140. Perhaps his
rigorous creation and selection of the sample has meant that the SBL-M
continues to be a test which accurately assesses the intelligence of children not
only of average ability but also those children at the extreme ends of the curve.
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