The Milwaukee Project : supervision of Rick Heber of the University of Wisconsin

The Milwaukee Project

In the late 1960s, under the supervision of Rick Heber of the University of Wisconsin, a project was begun to study the effects of intellectual stimulation on children from deprived environments. In order to find a “deprived environment” from which to draw appropriate subjects for the study, Heber and his colleagues examined the statistics of different districts within the city of Milwaukee. One district in particular stood out. The residents of this district had the lowest median income and lowest level of education to be found in the city. This district also had the highest population density and rate of unemployment of any area of Milwaukee. There was one more statistic that really attracted Heber’s attention: Although this district contained only 3 percent of the city’s population, it accounted for 33 percent of the children in Milwaukee who had been labeled “mentally retarded”!

At the beginning of the project, Heber selected forty newborns from the depressed area of Milwaukee he had chosen. The mothers of the infants selected all had IQ’s below 80. As it turned out, all of the children in the study were black, and in many cases the fathers were absent. The forty newborns were randomly assigned, 20 to an experimental group and 20 to a control group.

Both the experimental group and the control group were tested an equal number of times throughout the project. An independent testing service was used in order to eliminate possible biases on the part of the project members. In terms of physical or medical variables, there were no observable differences between the two groups.

The experimental group entered a special program. Mothers of the experimental group children received education, vocational rehabilitation, and training in homemaking and child care. The children themselves received personalized enrichment in their home environments for the first three months of their lives, and then their training continued at a special center, five days a week, seven hours a day, until they were ready to begin first grade. The program at the center focused upon developing the language and cognitive skills of the experimental group children. The control group did not receive special education or home-based intervention and enrichment.

By the age of six all the children in the experimental group were dramatically superior to the children in the control group. This was true on all test measures, especially those dealing with language skills or problem solving. The experimental group had an IQ average of 120.7 as compared with the control group’s 87.2!

At the age of six the children left the center to attend the local school. By the time both groups were ten years old and in fifth grade, the IQ scores of the children in the experimental group had decreased to an average of 105 while the control group’s average score held steady at about 85. One possible reason for the decline is that schooling was geared for the slower students. The brighter children were not given materials suitable for their abilities and they began to fall back. Also, while the experimental children were in the special project center for the first six years they ate well, receiving three hot, balanced meals a day. Once they left the center and began to attend the local school, many reported going to classes hungry, without breakfast or a hot lunch.

Sources:

Dworetzky, J. P., Introduction to Child Development (St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1981).
Engle, T. L., & Snellgrove, L., Psychology: Its Principles and Applications (6th ed.), (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.: New York, 1974).
Swiegers, D. J., & Louw, D. A., “Intelligensie,” in D. A. Louw (ed.), Inleiding tot die Psigologie (2nd ed.), (Johannesburg: McGraw Hill, 1982).
“Test Score Interpretation,” Hampton City Schools, Psychological Services.
Wilson, G., & Grylls, D., Know Your Child’s IQ (Futura Publications: London, 1977).
Copyright: Remedium 2001.

http://answers.learninginfo.org/iq-scores.htm




===

yahoo answer


Well I have taken one, got 126 on it. So from looking at the chart below here that's gifted. So look at that chart, see where your at. But they change over time, right now I am 17 and a senior in High School. I am more advanced than anyone in my class and everything the teacher teaches, I already know or I pick it up like instantly. I am really smart in computers though. I even had to teach my computer teacher alot of things, so yeah, I would say I am pretty smart.


Designation Intelligence interval
Average 85 - 115
Above average 115 - 125
Gifted 125 - 135
Highly gifted 135 - 145
Genius 145 - 155
Genius 156 - 165
High genius 166 - 180
Highest genius 181 - 200

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060710215806AAZaJdx