| Abstract: | Thorndike compiled Stanford-Binet data which made it appear that children aged 6 and under have made greater IQ gains than older children and that this pattern dominated the whole period from 1932 to 1971–72. Therefore, he sought causal factors likely to affect preschoolers more than others, for example, TV in general and educational TV in particular. A wide array of data show that the atypical gains of young children are either an artifact of sampling error or totally antedate 1947, ruling out TV as an age-specific factor. This data also suggest that Americans have gained about 12 IQ points from 1932 to 1972 with verbal gains being a point lower and performance gains a point higher. |
