Development, IQ Testing History & Foundational Theories

"Programming" (how people think/behave) is strongly shaped by surroundings.
- Family rules: some children encouraged to voice feelings; others silenced (“do what I say, not as I do”).
- Broader ecology: school, coaches, tutors, music teachers, sports instructors → all act as environmental inputs.
Result: Environment amplifies or suppresses innate characteristics; always influences expression.

Continuous (ramp): steady, incremental gains—typical in early childhood as skills accumulate gradually.
Discontinuous (stairs): stop-start, “aha!” leaps—more common in adulthood when multiple roles compete for time (work, internships, split attention in lecture, limited study hours).
Take-away: pattern depends on life stage & context.

Critical period = strict “only time” window; Sensitive period = more flexible “optimal time.”
Recent evidence favors sensitive periods—people are especially receptive but not exclusively limited.
Macro-principle: Development = orderly, adaptive change from birth → death, regardless of exact timing mechanism.

19th-century parents kept informal “baby biographies.”
- Logged motor milestones, reading/writing, etc.
- Highly biased (parents exaggerate), non-scientific, yet offered first glimpse of child development norms.
Slides will not be posted; students expected to take notes live (class policy mentioned).

Charles Darwin (1877)
- Daily records of his son → 1st scientific observational infancy account.
- Fame in biology boosted interest in child study; early “Dr. Spock” parenting influence.
G. Stanley Hall
- 1st APA president; large-scale studies (1891, 1904) on children’s cognitive development.
- Explored both what kids do and how they think (e.g., transition from crawling → walking requires bodily insight).

French govt. (1904) commissions Alfred Binet & Théodore Simon → identify pupils needing extra educational support.
Searched for best predictors of cognitive development (mental reasoning, memory, etc.).
Produced Binet-Simon Scale: 1st standardized child cognitive test.
- Intended usage: flag learning delays, not rank genius.
Equity vision: Binet wanted a tool that wouldn’t penalize low-SES children; advocated resource redistribution (equity ≠ equality).
- Equality example: $100$ dollars / $10$ people → $10$ each.
- Equity example: if $8$ people already have $100$ , remaining $100$ is split $50$ : $50$ between the two with none.

Cognitive development deficit = biological/neuro issue.
Lack of education/experience = environmental; can be changed via enriched context.
Ties back to nature (biology) vs. nurture (environment).

Lewis Terman (Stanford, 1916) translates & revises → “Stanford-Binet.”
Grad student Arthur Otis creates group version; Terman gets publication credit, Otis largely forgotten.

APA head Robert Yerkes uses Stanford-Binet en masse (≈ $1{,}750{,}000$ troops).
- Grades: A = officer/literate; B = ground troop; C–E = limited literacy → reject.
Test repurposed from diagnosing delays to military classification.
Eugenics backdrop: U.S. & Europe promote hierarchy of intelligence by race/immigration status.

Post-WW II group test evolves into CA K-12 achievement exams (CST → SBAC “Smarter Balanced”).
Question posed: “Are students learning & cognitively growing as expected?”

Binet-Simon based on g-factor theory; formula $IQ=\frac{\text{Mental Age}}{\text{Chronological Age}}\times100$ .
- Modern norm: mean $100$ , SD $15$ → $68\%$ of population within $100 \pm 15$ .
Large-scale U.S. military use → claims of racial superiority (ignored education, language, immigration factors).
Policies influenced: VA forced sterilization (1924); Nazi child killings.
Flynn Effect: each generation scores higher on same test → too rapid for genetics; points to environment (better health, education, nutrition).
IQ no longer used for psychiatric diagnosis; sub-test misuse for learning disabilities still debated.
Contemporary stance: IQ measures certain reasoning/problem-solving skills, not total potential; single number cannot define a person.

SAT/ACT: advantaged by travel, art/history exposure (affluence). One score shouldn’t dictate future.
ASVAB: still used by U.S. military to assign occupational roles; proposal to test all high-school seniors for draft preparedness.
Limitations: test anxiety, math anxiety, dyslexia, numerical dyslexia → not accounted for in early IQ era.

Psychoanalytic (Freud)
Behaviorist & Social-Learning (Watson, Skinner, Bandura)
Cognitive Development (Piaget)
Information Processing
Developmental Neuroscience
Ethology & Evolutionary (Lorenz, Bowlby)
Socio-Cultural (Vygotsky)
Ecological Systems (Bronfenbrenner)
Instructor will post review videos & a "cheat sheet" under Module 1 for those needing refreshers.

Environment: total set of external influences (family, school, mentors).
Continuous vs. Discontinuous growth.
Critical vs. Sensitive periods.
SES (Socioeconomic Status): finances, neighborhood, toxins (e.g., lead), food security.
Equality vs. Equity.
Cognitive Development Deficit (biological) vs. Educational Experience Gap (environmental).
g-factor: hypothetical general intelligence underlying diverse abilities.

Tools developed for assistance can be misused for exclusion.
Need for culturally fair, bias-checked assessment.
Importance of multiple measures (holistic review) over single-score determinism.
Ongoing dialogue between research, policy, and educational practice to avoid repeating historical injustices.