Intelligence and Guidance

Another common use of an intelligence test is to help an examinee determine
specific areas of ability or aptitude which might be useful in selecting a
career route. As reported in Aiken, a college senior was given the Otis-
Lennon School Ability Test (O-LSAT, Advanced Form R) just before her
twenty-second birthday. She planned to enroll in a program in a graduate
business school and work toward an M.B.A. degree. The O-LSAT is designed
to gauge general mental ability, and it includes classification, analogy, and
omnibus (a variety of items to measure different aspects of mental functioning)
elements. The omnibus includes verbal comprehension, quantitative
reasoning, and the ability to follow directions.
The examinee was able to complete the test in thirty-five minutes and
used the remaining allotted time to check her answers. Her raw score (number
of items answered correctly) was 64 (out of 80), her school ability index
was 116—which approximated her IQ—and her percentile rank among
candidates in the 18-plus range was 84. These scores were in the average
range for college seniors, indicating an overall intellectual ability that could
be classified as “high average” in terms of the general population. Of the sixteen
items answered incorrectly, a superficial analysis pointed toward some
difficulty with nonverbal reasoning, but no conclusions could be reached
without further examination in this area. There was no significant pattern of
errors otherwise, and the random distribution offered no additional guide
to areas of weakness. The initial conclusion that was drawn from the test was
that a career in business was appropriate and that with hard work and the
full application of her intellectual abilities, she would be able to earn an
M.B.A. at a reputable university.
A particularly important application of intelligence assessment is the
identification and guidance of a child with advanced intellectual abilities. In
a case reported in Jerome M. Sattler’s Assessment of Children (1988), a threeyear-
old boy was tested repeatedly from that age until his sixth birthday. This
procedure required the implementation of the Stanford-Binet Form L-M,
the WPPSI, and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) for grade
equivalents. The Stanford-Binet scores were 127 (at age three), 152, 152,
and 159+ (with a linear extrapolation to 163). During his first test he was
anxious and did not give long verbal responses, but the range of his scores
indicated a very superior classification. He did not cooperate with the examiner
on the WPPSI vocabulary and animal subtests (the examiner believed
that he was not interested), but his performance at age four placed him in
the superior range. On the PIAT, he was consistently above average, earning
a grade equivalent above 4.0 at the age of six, with a grade equivalent of 7.4
(his highest score) in mathematics; the average grade equivalent for age six
is 1.0.
As Sattler points out, the case illustrates “a number of important principles
related to testing and assessment.” In the largest sense, it illustrates the
way different tests measuring general intelligence may yield different results
(although all pointed toward superior mental development). The same test
may also yield different scores at different age levels. The child’s motivation
(among other factors) may also play an important part in his results. More
specifically, because the boy showed more interest in reading at age three
and mathematics at age six, the test could not be considered a useful predictor
of later interest, although an interest in solving perceptual-logical problems
remained consistent throughout. Finally, because the parents had kept
a detailed record of the boy’s early development in a baby book, the rich history
recorded there was corroborated by the test results which reaffirmed
their initial suspicions that the boy was unusually gifted. During his first year
in school, he tended to play alone and had frequent minor tantrums which
affected his performance in school subjects. When he became accustomed
to the social process of school life, however, he was able to demonstrate the
ability that his parents had observed at home and that the initial tests validated.