Child Psychopathology Ch5

  • Low IQ - under 70 (intellectual disability) 

  • Evolutionary degeneracy theory - people with low IQ are degenerating and reverting to an earlier stage of evolution — J. Langdon Down

  • Eugenics — science of improving the inborn qualities of a race (selective breeding)

    • sterilizing lower-functioning individuals (allowed by 32 states)

    • Goddard’s Kallikak family of feeblemindedness

      • woman sterilized without knowing

  • Binet and Simon

    • developed first intelligent tests 

    • how do we measure how well someone will do in school (IQ tests) Binet-Simon scale

    • 1905

  • Adaptive functioning is now used to determine the severity of IDD

    • conceptual skills

    • social skills

    • practical

    • occupational skills

  • IQ controversy

    • stable over time

    • mental ability is modified by experience (unequal access to school, food)

    • Flynn Effect — IQ scores have risen 3 points per decade