THE INVENTION OF NONVERBAL
TESTS IN THE EARLY 1900S
Because of the heavy emphasis of the Binet-Simon
scales upon verbal skills, many psychologists realized
that this new measuring device was not entirely
appropriate for non-English-speaking subjects,
illiterates, and those with speech and hearing
impairments. A spate of performance scales therefore
arose in the decade following Goddard’s
1908 translation of the Binet-Simon. Only a brief
chronology of nonverbal tests will be supplied here.
The interested reader should consult DuBois
(1970). In this listing of early performance tests, the
reader will surely recognize many instruments and
subtests that are still used today.
The earliest of the performance measures was
the Seguin form board, an upright stand with depressions
into which ten blocks of varying shapes
could be fitted. This had been used by Seguin as a
training device for individuals with mental retardation,
but was subsequently developed as a test by
Goddard, and then standardized by R. H. Sylvester
(1913). This identical board is still used, with the
subject blindfolded, in the Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological
test battery (Reitan & Wolfson,
1985).
Knox (1914) devised several performance tests
for use with Ellis Island immigrants. His tests
required absolutely no verbal responses from subjects.
The examiner demonstrated each task nonverbally
to ensure that the subjects understood the
instructions. Included in his tests were a simple
wooden puzzle (which Knox referred to as the
“moron” test) and the same digit-symbol substitution
test which is now found on most of the Wechsler
scales of intelligence.
Several other early performance tests are
worthy of brief mention because they have survived
to the present day in revised form. Pintner
and Paterson (1917) invented a 15-part scale of
performance tests that used several form boards,
puzzles, and object assembly tests. The object assembly
test—reassembling cut-up cardboard versions
of common objects such as a horse—is a
mainstay of several contemporary intelligence
tests. The Kohs Block Design test (Kohs, 1920),
which required the subject to assemble painted
blocks to resemble a pattern, is well known to any
modern tester who uses the Wechsler scales. The
Porteus Maze Test (Porteus, 1915) is a graded series
of mazes for which the subject must avoid
dead ends while tracing a path from beginning to
end. This is a fine instrument that is still available
today, but underused.