ABSTRACT
In 1939 a psychologist, Harold Skeels, and the superintendent of the Glenwood, Iowa, Institution for Feebleminded Children, Harold Dye, presented to the Association a paper that, along with a number of other papers from the University of Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, challenged the concept of intelligence as a fixed, unmodifiable entity, and gave impetus to a movement that has continued to gain momentum (Skeels & Dye, 1939). The serendipitous event that impelled the study was their observation of two children, both under 17 months of age, and with IQs of 46 and 35, who had been transferred from an orphanage to an institution for the feebleminded, where they were placed in a ward with older retarded girls and women. When Skeels visited the ward 6 months later he was greatly surprised at the children's development. Retested on the Kuhlmann-Binet, they obtained IQs of 77 and 87, and at about 42 months had IQs of 95 and 93. Skeels and Dye attributed this improvement to the stimulation provided by the attendants and the residents of the ward, who grew attached to their young visitors and played with them constantly. When they were no longer classified as retarded, the two children were returned to the orphanage, where they maintained their average IQs.
