Intelligence is measured as a value that is distinct from education level. It is a measure of ability that is difficult to quantify, but decades of refinement have yielded a standard IQ test used to place kids into the appropriate class level and maximize their learning potential.
History
Intelligence testing for kids is based on the ratio of mental age to chronological age. French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the model in 1904 at the request of the French government which wanted to differentiate between children who were intelligent and those who were "inferior," according to Kirk A. Becker, author of "History of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scales: Content and psychometrics."
Henry H. Goddard, director of research at Vineland Training School in New Jersey, brought the test to America and used it to screen applicants to the school. He refined the model with the help of associates Lewis M. Terman and Carl Brighan. Brighan later developed the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT. This variation was dubbed the Stanford-Binet, and it was the standard in the United States for decades.
Techniques
Binet developed various tests requiring children to name objects, complete sequences, follow commands and more. If 70 percent of a particular age group passed the test, that became the benchmark for that age group and the basis for comparison between below average, average and above average. A child who successfully completed the test designed for his age group was assigned a value of 100. However, if an eight-year-old successfully passed a test designed for ten-year-olds, his intelligence quotient would be his mental age, 10, divided by his chronological age, 8, multiplied by 100. That child received an above average IQ score of 125.
Function
Modern IQ tests for kids ask questions that roughly fall into a several broad categories: knowledge, reasoning, spatial processing, visualization, classification, logic and pattern recognition. Tests are still age-specific because the cognitive abilities the test seeks to quantify develop rapidly in school-age children. This development tapers off around age 16 and stops completely by about age 18, according to psychologist Dr. Jonathan Rich of the Orange County Health Care Agency.
Testing
Children are asked to complete number sequences, unscramble words and identify relationships between shapes and patterns. Tests are often just 30 questions long, and they are timed. The 2003 revision, still in use as of 2010, assigns a composite score as well as component scores for each skill to better identify aptitude across a range of cognitive skills. The test is adaptive, meaning qualified proctors accumulate information about the subject to make a determination about where to begin the test so questions are neither too hard, nor too easy.
Scores
The average score for any age group is 100. High average describes a score of 115 while 125 is termed superior. Scores of 130 and above are considered very superior or gifted, and scores above 145 are called genius.
The incremental changes on the below average side of 100 are the same beginning with 85 and 70, or low average and borderline, respectively. Scores of 55, 40 and 25 are indicative of mild, moderate and severe mental retardation, respectively. Scores of 10 and below, posted by 1 child in 100,000, indicate profound mental retardation, according to Dr. Rich.
