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Terman's Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up
Exposes previously classified files and interviews with surviving subjects to follow up on the studies of psychologist Lewis Terman, who believed intelligence was inherited and tried to prove it by working with gifted children in 1921.
- GenresPsychology
317 pages, Hardcover
First published July 16, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 2, 2026
overall very pleasant to read and intellectually engaging. It is particularly interesting in how it exposes mechanisms of social engineering and an environmental fallacy- tendency to interpret observed differences in achievement as direct evidence of innate ability, while overlooking the powerful role of social, cultural, and economic context.
As we know, Terman dedicated the first Stanford -Binet intelligence test to his memory, implicitly assuming that Binet would have approved of his work- even though there is no evidence that Lewis Terman and Alfred Binet ever met or corresponded. Binet died in 1911, and this assumption, is highly questionable. In practice, Terman did exactly what Binet explicitly warned against. Binet viewed intelligence as a malleable construct, deeply influenced by environment and education. His tests were meant as diagnostic tools to identify children who needed educational support !! Terman, by contrast, transformed intelligence testing into a contest(where the winners were given support obv). He treated IQ as an objective, stable trait and used it to justify ranking individuals-and, by extension, groups-along a hierarchy of cognitive worth.
Besides the biased study of Terman’s children we can spot that high IQ do not operate in a vacuum: the participants’ later success was strongly shaped by privileged environments, access to education, social networks, and expectations placed upon them (although there are interesting patterns)- sisters raised in the same environment- one Stanford’s graduate and second an alcoholic- truly focusing what is our measure of success- being able to forge our dreams to reality?
Terman’s objectives rather than challenging social inequality, risked reifying it- even though the highly achieving students were usually the youngest ones… (still there is no question that the IQ points VARY across different locations) the question is then: isn’t it the people who need to “catch up”/ in a need of absorbing more material when the capacity is lower, the ones which later turn out with thick skin & “thick cognitive function”? Friction > endowment?
As we know, Terman dedicated the first Stanford -Binet intelligence test to his memory, implicitly assuming that Binet would have approved of his work- even though there is no evidence that Lewis Terman and Alfred Binet ever met or corresponded. Binet died in 1911, and this assumption, is highly questionable. In practice, Terman did exactly what Binet explicitly warned against. Binet viewed intelligence as a malleable construct, deeply influenced by environment and education. His tests were meant as diagnostic tools to identify children who needed educational support !! Terman, by contrast, transformed intelligence testing into a contest(where the winners were given support obv). He treated IQ as an objective, stable trait and used it to justify ranking individuals-and, by extension, groups-along a hierarchy of cognitive worth.
Besides the biased study of Terman’s children we can spot that high IQ do not operate in a vacuum: the participants’ later success was strongly shaped by privileged environments, access to education, social networks, and expectations placed upon them (although there are interesting patterns)- sisters raised in the same environment- one Stanford’s graduate and second an alcoholic- truly focusing what is our measure of success- being able to forge our dreams to reality?
Terman’s objectives rather than challenging social inequality, risked reifying it- even though the highly achieving students were usually the youngest ones… (still there is no question that the IQ points VARY across different locations) the question is then: isn’t it the people who need to “catch up”/ in a need of absorbing more material when the capacity is lower, the ones which later turn out with thick skin & “thick cognitive function”? Friction > endowment?
October 9, 2016
Lewis Terman, the creator of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, launched an unprecedented but flawed study of gifted children that would end up becoming the longest-running life study in history. The book “Terman’s Kids” by Joel N. Shurkin is an analysis of the history, insights, flaws, biases, personalities and lives that surrounded and were included in the study.
The most striking thing about this book is how haphazard and biased the foundation of intelligence testing was (and might still be). The authors of many of the studies were shockingly blind to their own seemingly obvious biases and misinterpretations of the data to the extend that Terman would actually intercede in many of the gifted children’s lives to both their benefit and detriment.
The book does a good job of humanizing the subjects of the study so that you see them as complex individuals rather than lifeless statistics. Despite their high intelligence, many of the children faced the same challenges and hardships as any other person growing up but overall they seem to have been more “successful” than the control groups. While Terman was convinced that intelligence is mostly hereditary, there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise, much of that evidence provided by Terman’s own study.
Most of the findings are not shocking and could even be considered common sense to most readers but there is also several surprises hidden in the data that is useful to understanding gifted children and how they develop throughout their lives.
I would recommend this book to any parent of a gifted child or to those that are interested in this history of intelligence testing.
The most striking thing about this book is how haphazard and biased the foundation of intelligence testing was (and might still be). The authors of many of the studies were shockingly blind to their own seemingly obvious biases and misinterpretations of the data to the extend that Terman would actually intercede in many of the gifted children’s lives to both their benefit and detriment.
The book does a good job of humanizing the subjects of the study so that you see them as complex individuals rather than lifeless statistics. Despite their high intelligence, many of the children faced the same challenges and hardships as any other person growing up but overall they seem to have been more “successful” than the control groups. While Terman was convinced that intelligence is mostly hereditary, there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise, much of that evidence provided by Terman’s own study.
Most of the findings are not shocking and could even be considered common sense to most readers but there is also several surprises hidden in the data that is useful to understanding gifted children and how they develop throughout their lives.
I would recommend this book to any parent of a gifted child or to those that are interested in this history of intelligence testing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews