Alfred Binet

✶July 8, 1857

†October 18, 1911

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About their life

Alfred Binet, born Alfredo Binetti, was a French psychologist who together with Théodore Simon invented the first practical intelligence test, the Binet–Simon Intelligence Test. In 1904, Binet took part in a commission set up by the French Ministry of Education to decide whether school children with learning difficulties should be sent to a special boarding school attached to a lunatic asylum, as advocated by the French psychiatrist and politician Désiré-Magloire Bourneville, or whether they should be educated in classes attached to regular schools as advocated by the Société libre pour l'étude psychologique de l'enfant (SLEPE) of which Binet was a member. There was also debate over who should decide whether a child was capable enough for regular education. Bourneville argued that a psychiatrist should do this based on a medical examination. Binet and Simon wanted this to be based on objective evidence. This was the beginning of the IQ test. A preliminary version was published in 1905. The full version was published in 1908, and slightly revised in 1911, just before Binet's death.

French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test (1857–1911)

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Biography from the article Alfred Binet on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.