The Abilities of Babies: A Study in Mental Measurement

Abstract

This book aims to demonstrate a method for studying the mental abilities of babies from 2 weeks to 2 years of age. As a result of observations of the growth and development of babies, the author has devised a comprehensive measuring instrument to cover the following five areas: locomotive, personal and social, hearing and speech, hand and eye, and performance. These areas were selected on the basis of various investigations and were assumed to reflect the general intelligence of a baby, which, after two years, could be comparable to the usual battery of intelligence tests. Such comparison has yet to be made. In 1953 the intelligence scale was standardized on about 600 babies in London; 370 boys and girls were tested in infant welfare centers, 113 in day nurseries, 14 in residential nurseries, 44 in their own homes or in private offices, and 30 in outpatient departments of hospitals (not