Childhood: Affective Disturbances on Responses to the Stanford-Binet Test. Mental Hygiene, 1922, Vol. VI, p. 39.

Terman claimed in 1916 that the intelligence quotient, as determined by the Stanford-Binet scale, remains constant for the individual, and that there is not one case in fifty in which the I. Q. proves unreliable. Bronner showed the great importance of affective conditions at the time of the test, but Terman contends that anomalies due to affective disturbances arise only when the scale is used by 'untrained and indiscreet examiners'. Further experience has, however, convinced the clinician that in certain cases, at least, the I. Q. does not become stabilised until the end of the developmental period is reached, at fourteen or sixteen years. This is recognised in the case of the low-grade feeble-minded, in which the I. Q. drops as physical age increases, and in some cases of superior children with whom spurts of mental development may occur, but the extent to which an average intelligence may be masked by the operation of affective factors has not yet been realised. The authors bring forward evidence of great value, for the majority of the fourteen cases quoted were tested and graded as to their I. Q. by well-known and thoroughly competent psychologists; the