Measurement

The earliest formal intelligence test required a person to perform such simple tasks as deciding which of two weights was heavier or showing how forcefully he could squeeze his hand. However, this was obviously proved to be inaccurate.

In 1904 the minister of public instruction in Paris named a commission to study or create tests that would insure that mentally retarded children received an adequate education. The minister was also concerned that certain children were being placed in classes for the retarded not because they were retarded but because they had behaviour problems, and teachers did not want them in their classrooms. Therefore, the more influential tradition of mental testing, which is the IQ test, was developed by Binet and his collaborator, Theodore Simon, in France.

It has been common to associate certain levels of IQ with labels. For example, at the upper end, the label "gifted" is sometimes assigned to people with IQs over a certain point, such as 130. And at the lower end, mental retardation has been classified into different degrees depending upon IQ.

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