2025 Edition
Stanford-Binet Testing Guide
| Stanford-Binet Test Summary
|
|
|---|---|
| What: Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales are tests to screen for learning disabilities. | |
| Who: Children as young as two can be tested. | |
| Where: Tests are given in schools. | |
| When: Tests can be given when a child is two years old. | |
| How: The test is both verbal and non-verbal. | |
| Type: Paper and pencil | |
| Why: The test screens for learning disabilities, IQ and high abilities. | |
| Time: Five minutes per subtest. | |
| Language: English | |
| Preparation: No special preparation is needed. | |
| Cost: Materials range in price from $64 to $1,261. | |
By: Erin Hasinger, Tests.com
The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, now in its fifth edition (SB5), is a cognitive ability test that is used to assess student intelligence and students’ strengths and weaknesses as part of an evaluation for early learning disabilities and special education referral. The test can be used to identify learning disabilities that are already developed or those that are emerging and can be used to discover both reading and math disabilities. The test may also be used to identify children with high intelligence abilities. The SB5 is appropriate for children as young as two years old as well as adults of all ages.
In addition to identifying learning disabilities, the Stanford-Binet can be used in clinical and early childhood assessment, psychoeducational evaluations, information for IEP and other intervention, ability and aptitude research and evaluations for adults in social security and workers’ compensation claims.
Most recently updated in 2003, the Stanford-Binet was developed in 1916 as Lewis Terman’s American revision of Frenchmen Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon’s Binet-Simon Scale. The Binet-Simon Scale had been developed to assess degrees of mental retardation. Today, the test is published by Riverside Publishing.
The SB5 is a battery of ten subtests, five verbal and five non-verbal, to evaluate students’ skills in:
- Fluid Reasoning (Nonverbal tests use object series and matrices)
- Knowledge (Nonverbal tests use picture absurdities and procedural knowledge)
- Quantitative Reasoning
- Visual-Spatial Processing (Nonverbal tests use form boards and patterns)
- Working Memory
Twenty-six percent of the test focuses on general knowledge, 21 percent on quantitative reasoning, 18 percent on visual-spatial processing, 17 percent on fluid reasoning, 12 percent on working memory and six percent on short-term memory.
The test taker begins the test in Book 1, Fluid Reasoning, and the starting point is determined by one’s age and estimated ability level. The test taker’s performance on Book 1 determines the starting point for Book 2, Verbal Knowledge. The test continues like this, with the ability demonstrated in each subtest determining the level of difficulty presented in the following subtests. Each subtest only takes about five minutes to complete.
Scores from the SB5 can be used to develop a nonverbal IQ (NVIQ) score using scores from the five nonverbal subtests, as well as to develop a verbal IQ (VIQ) score using those scores from the five verbal subtests. All ten subtest scores can be combined to form a full scale IQ (FSIQ) score. Scores range from 430, which is the equivalent of the two-year-old level, to 520, the adult level. All scores are calculated using the test taker’s age. The test was normed against a diverse group of 4,800 people ranging in age from two to 85.
A complete test kit is available from Riverside Publishing for $1,080. Other test components are available ranging in price from $64 to $1,261.
For more information on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale or to find test materials, please visit the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales Directory. For more information on intelligence tests in general, read the IQ Test Guide. For more on cognitive ability tests, please read the interviews with cognitive ability test experts Tim Sitar and Robin MacFarlane, Ph.D.
