Intelligence Tests

The Stanford-Binet Test

In France, Alfred Binet developed the first true intelligence tests in response to requests from the French Ministry of Instruction to provide reliable diagnosis of mental ability levels in children considered subnormal. Binet's famous test was made up of a number of different measures of mental ability (now called subtests), and some were incorporated into the Stanford-Binet (S-B), which was made famous by Louis Terman when IQ tests were introduced into the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. The current S-B is in its fifth edition (S-B5) and a brief description of the ten subtests can be found at the publisher's Web site http://www.riverpub.com/products/sb5/details.html.

The wais for Adults

The S-B was initially constructed to measure intelligence in children and did not measure intelligence in adults adequately. Consequently, in the late 1930s, David Wechsler, a clinical psychologist working with patients in the Bellevue hospital in New York City, developed the Wechsler-Bellevue Scale of Intelligence, which in 1955 morphed into the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS). The WAIS is now in its third edition (WAIS-III). Aversion of the WAIS for children is called the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC, now in its fourth edition).

Like the S-B and the WAIS, intelligence tests have generally been developed for practical purposes: to aid educators, clinical psychologists, military recruiters, employment services, and so on. Apart from these famous IQ tests, numerous intelligence tests and specialized measures of mental ability are available. The Buros Institute of Mental Measurements provides reviews of nearly 4,000 tests. The Educational Testing Service has a test collection of more than 25,000 instruments and other mental measurement devices.