Psychological Testing in Flowers for Algernon

 IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient and is a score derived from one of several standardized tests designed to assess human intelligence.  Created by psychologist Alfred Binet who was commissioned to identify students who needed educational assistance.  Faced with this task, Binet began developing a number of questions that focused on things that had not been taught in school such as attention, memory, and problem-solving skills.

 Using these questions, Binet determined which ones served as the best predictors of school success.  He quickly realized that some children were able to answer more advanced questions that older children were generally able to answer, while other children of the same age were only able to answer questions that younger children could typically answer.  Based on this observation, Binet suggested the concept of a mental age, or a measure of intelligence based on the average abilities of children of a certain age group.

So how exactly do IQ scores break down? The average score on an IQ test is 100. Sixty-eight percent of IQ scores fall within one standard deviation of the mean. So that means that the majority of people have an IQ score between 85 and 115.  1 to 24 - Profound mental disability  25 to 39 - Severe mental disability  40 to 54 - Moderate mental disability  55 to 69 - Mild mental disability  70 to 84 - Borderline mental disability  85 to Average intelligence  115 to Above average; bright  130 to Moderately gifted  145 to Highly gifted  160 to Exceptionally gifted  180 and up - Profoundly gifted

 A psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both.  The test is named after its creator, Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach.  Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning.  It has been employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly.