Vn016

Binet Test

5/27/77


Miriam has known for over a week that our next trip into Boston would be for taking a test. I had introduced her to the idea with the explanation that nearly everyone takes such a test some time and that she was simply taking this test earlier than most other children. So, after kindergarten and a rousing 2 hours with her playgroup (see Home Session 3), Miriam put on a dress and we took the Green Line into the center of Boston.

Miriam had earlier expressed concern that she didn’t know how to get ready for this test. (The only other test formally so defined to her was having her ears checked. She apparently does not think of our experiments at Logo as being tests.) This concern surfaced again as we waited for the trolley car. “Daddy, what kind of questions did they ask you?” I could recall only one question from an earlier intelligence test (25 years ago). “They asked me who was the president before Franklin Roosevelt.” “Who was it?” Thinking she now had the inside track, Miriam asked who was the president before Carter, and before him, and before that one. We stopped at Eisenhower when the trolley came.

It was a beautiful day as we strolled through the Common, stopped at an ice cream store, and continued to the testing center. Miriam was clearly content and relaxed when she went with the tester. She was also relaxed and pleased with herself when she had finished.

Although we need wait another week or so for a formal evaluation, the tester offered these general comments: since Miriam had just turned 6, she began with the age 6 series; Miriam had to be confronted with questions from the eleven year old series before she failed to get at least some of them correct; they have never had to go through so many series with such a young child in their laboratory. I believe the comments need be put in this perspective: the laboratory (Tufts-New England Medical Center Neuropsychology Section) typically is called upon to diagnose problems. Thus, they do not see as a matter of course so young a child as Miriam who has no immediately caused requirement for such a test.

In the evening before going to bed, I asked Miriam if the questions were difficult or easy and if she tried hard to answer them. She responded that she tried as hard as she could, but that some of the questions were just too difficult for her to answer. She was pleased with her performance — having overheard the comment about never having to go through so many tests with a child her age; she was proud that she “did better than anybody else.” Her only gripe was that they didn’t ask her a single question about the presidents.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email