Alfred Binet and His Life

Binet attended law crop in Paris, and received his degree in 1878. He also analyse Natural Sciences at the Sorbonne. His first formal job was as a inquiryer at a neurological clinic, Salpetriere Hospital, in Paris from 1883 1889. From there, Binet went on to being a researcher and associate director of the Laboratory of observational psychological science at the Sorbonne from 1891 1894. In 1894, he was promoted to being the director of the research laboratory until 1911 (his death). After receiving his law degree in 1878, Alfred Binet began to study science at the Sorbonne.However, he was not overly interested in his formal schooling, and started educating himself by reading psychology texts at the National Library in Paris. He soon became fascinated with the ideas of John Stuart Mill, who believed that the operations of intelligence could be explained by the laws of associationism. Binet eventu al unitaryy realized the limitations of this theory, but Mills ideas go along to influence his work. In 1883, historic period of unaccompanied study ended when Binet was introduced to Charles Fere, who introduced him to jean Charcot, the director of a clinic bawled La Salpetriere.Charcot became his mentor and in round, Binet accepted a job offer at the clinic. During his seven days there, any and every of Charcots views were accepted unconditionally by Binet. This of course, was where he could have utilise the interactions with otherwises and training in critical sentiment that a University education provided. In 1883, Binet began to work in Jean-Martin Charcots neurological laboratory at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris. At the time of Binets tenure, Charcot was experimenting with hypnotism. Binet was strongly influenced by this great man, and create four articles ab give away his work in this area.Unfortunately, Charcots conclusions did not hold up below professional person scrutiny, and Binet was forced to make an discomfit public admission that he had been wrong in supporting his teacher. When his spellbind with hypnosis waned as a result of failure to establish professional acceptance, he glowering to the study of festering spurred on by the birth of his cardinal daughters, Madeleine and Alice (born in 1885 and 1887, respectively). In the 21 year period following his metamorphose in career interests, Binet make more than 200 books, articles, and reviews in what right off would be called experi psychological, develop rational, educational, social, nd differential psychology (Siegler, 1992).Bergin and Cizek (2001) suggest that this work whitethorn have influenced Jean Pi suppuratet, who later studied with Binets collaborator Theodore Simon in 1920. Binets research with his daughters helped him to further refine his developing suppositionion of intelligence, e redundantly the importance of maintenance span and suggestibility in intellectual development. Despite Binets extensive research interests and grand breadth of publications, today he is most widely cognise for his contributions to intelligence. fauna (1973) postulates that this is the result of his not being affiliation with a major university. Because Binet did not have any formalized graduate study in psychology, he did not hold a professorship with a prestigious existence where bookmans and funds would be sure to perpetuate his work (Siegler, 1992). Additionally, his more reform-minded theories did not provide the hardheaded proceeds that his intelligence scale would evoke. Binet and his coworker Fere spy what they called transfer and they also recognized perceptual and emotional polarization.Binet and Fere thought their findings were a phenomenon and of utmost importance. After investigations by many, the two men were forced to assent that they were wrong about their concepts of transfer and polarization. Basically, their patients had known what was expected, what was supposed to happen, and so they just assented. Binet had risked everything on his experiment and its results, and this failure took a toll on him. In 1890, Binet resigned from La Salpetriere and never mentioned the place or its director again. His interests then turned toward the development of his youngsterren, Madeleine and Alice, who were two years apart.This research corresponds with that done by Jean Piaget just a short time later, regarding the development of cognition in children. A job presented itself for Binet in 1891 at the Laboratory of Physiological Psychology at the Sorbonne. He worked for a year without pay and by 1894, he took over as the director. This was a position that Binet held until his death, and it enabled him to pursue his studies on mental processes. bandage directing the Laboratory, Theodore Simon applied to do doctoral research under Binets supervision. This was the beginning of their long, fruitful collaboration.During this time he also co-founded the French daybook of psychology, LAnnee psychologique, se rving as the director and editor-in-chief. n 1899, Binet was asked to be a instalment of the lax Society for the Psychological Study of the Child. French education changed abundantly during the end of the nineteenth century, because of a law that passed which made it mandatory for children ages sextet to fourteen to attend school. This group to which Binet became a member hoped to begin canvass children in a scientific manner. Binet and many other members of the society were appointed to the Commission for the Retarded.The question became What should be the adjudicate given to children thought to maybe have learning disabilities, that might place them in a special classroom? Binet made it his problem to establish the differences that separate the regular child from the abnormal, and to measure such differences. LEtude experimentale de lintelligence (Experimental Studies of Intelligence) was the book he used to describe his methods and it was published in 1903. Development of more tests and investigations began soon after the book, with the help of a young medical student named Theodore Simon.Simon had nominated himself a few years before as Binets research assistant and worked with him on the intelligence tests that Binet is known for, which share Simons name as well. In 1905, a new test for measuring intelligence was introduced and simply called the BinetSimon scale. In 1908, they revised the scale, dropping, modifying, and adding tests and also recording them according to age levels from three to thirteen. In 1904 a French professional group for child psychology, La Societe Libre pour lEtude Psychologique de lEnfant, was called upon by the French political science to appoint a armorial bearing on the education of retarded children.The commission was asked to create a mechanism for identifying students in need of alternative education. Binet, being an active member of this group, found the impetus for the development of his mental scale. Binet an d Simon, in creating what historically is known as the Binet-Simon Scale, comprised a variety of tasks they thought were articulation of typical childrens abilities at various ages. This task-selection process was based on their many years of observing children in natural settings. They then tested their bar on a sample of fifty children, ten children per five age groups.The children selected for their study were identified by their school teachers as being intermediate for their age. The purpose of this scale of normal functioning, which would later be revised double victimisation more stringent standards, was to compare childrens mental abilities relative to those of their normal peers (Siegler, 1992). The scale consisted of thirty tasks of increasing complexity. The easiest of these could be accomplished by all children, even those who were severely retarded. Some of the elementaryst test items assessed whether or not a child could follow a lighted match with his eyes or sha ke hands with the examiner.Slightly harder tasks required children to point to various named clay parts, repeat back a series of 3 digits, repeat simple sentences, and to define words like house, fork or mama. More hard-fought test items required children to state the difference surrounded by pairs of things, reproduce drawings from store or to construct sentences from three given words such as Paris, river and fortune. The hardest test items included asking children to repeat back 7 ergodic digits, find three rhymes for the French word obeisance and to answer questions such as My neighbor has been receiving strange visitors.He has received in turn a doctor, a lawyer, and then a priest. What is taking place? (Fancher, 1985). For the practical use of determining educational placement, the score on the Binet-Simon scale would cave in the childs mental age. For example, a 6 year-old child who passed all the tasks usually passed by 6 year-oldsbut nothing beyondwould have a menta l age that exactly matched his chronological age, 6. 0. (Fancher, 1985). Binet was forthright about the limitations of his scale. He disturbed the remarkable diversity of intelligence and the subsequent need to study it using qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, measures.Binet also stressed that intellectual development progressed at variable rates and could be influenced by the environment therefore, intelligence was not based solely on genetics, was malleable rather than fixed, and could only be found in children with comparable backgrounds (Siegler, 1992). Given Binets stance that intelligence exam was subject to variability and was not generalizable, it is important to look at the transfiguration that mental testing took on as it made its way to the U. S. While Binet was developing his mental scale, the business, civic, and educational leaders in the U.S. were facing issues of how to mollify the needs of a diversifying population, while proceed to meet the demands of s ociety.There arose the call to form a society based on meritocracy (Siegler,1992) while continuing to underline the ideals of the upper class. In 1908, H. H. Goddard, a champion of the eugenics movement, found utility in mental testing as a way to bear witness the superiority of the white race. After studying abroad, Goddard brought the Binet-Simon Scale to the United States and translated it into English. spare-time activity Goddard in the U. S. ental testing movement was Lewis Terman who took the Simon-Binet Scale and standardized it using a large American sample.The new Standford-Binet scale was no longer used solely for advocating education for all children, as was Binets documental. A new objective of intelligence testing was illustrated in the Stanford-Binet manual with testing ultimately resulting in curtailing the reproduction of feeble-mindedness and in the elimination of an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial inefficiency (p. 7) Terman, L. , Lyman, G. , Ordahl, G. , Ordahl, L. , Galbreath, N. Talbert, W. (1916).The Stanford order and Extension of the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence. Baltimore Warwick York. (White, 2000). It follows that we should question why Binet did not verbalise out concerning the newfound uses of his measure. Siegler (1992) pointed out that Binet was somewhat of an isolationist in that he never traveled outside of France and he barely participated in professional organizations. Additionally, his mental scale was not adopted in his own verdant during his lifetime and therefore was not subjected to the same fate.Finally, when Binet did become aware of the inappropriate ideas being grafted on his instrument he condemned those who with brutal pessimism and deplorable verdicts were promoting the concept of intelligence as a single, unitary construct (White, 2000). From 1905 to 1908, Binet and Simon developed a test primarily for kids ages 3 to 15 that would compare their intellectual capabilities to other children of the same age. He did a lot of trial and error testing with students from his area.Binet studied groups of normal children, and also children who were mentally challenged. He had to figure out which tasks each group of students was able to complete, and what would be considered standard in the groups. The tests were held between one interviewer and one student, and determined what level of intellectual thinking the student had achieved. The invention of the intelligence test was extremely important to the field of education. Binet published the third version of the Binet-Simon scale right before he died in 1911, but it was still unfinished.If it were not for his early death, Binet surely would have continued to revise the scale. Still, the Binet-Simon scale was and is hugely popular around the world, mainly because it is light(a) to give and fairly brief. Since his death, many people in many ways have honored Binet, but two of these stand out. In 1917, the Fre e Society for the Psychological Study of the Child, to whom Binet became a member in 1899 and which prompted his development of the intelligence tests, changed their name to La Societe Alfred Binet, in memory of the renowned psychologist.The certify honor was not until 1984, when the journal Science 84 picked the Binet-Simon scale, as one of twenty of this centurys most significant developments or discoveries. He studied familiar behavior, coining the term erotic fetishism to describe individuals whose sexual interests in dehumanised objects, such as articles of clothing. He also studied abilities of Valentine Dencausse, the most storied chiromancer in Paris in those days.Referenceshttp//www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/psychtesting/profiles/binet.htmhttp//www.indiana.edu/intell/binet.shtml