Theodore Simon

Théodore Simon
Simon in Brasil in 1928
Born	(1872-07-10)10 July 1872 Dijon, Burgundy, France
Died	4 September 1961(1961-09-04) (aged 89) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Psychologist
Academic background
Influences	Alfred Binet
Academic work
Influenced	Jean Piaget

Théodore Simon (10 July 1872 – 4 September 1961) was a French psychologist who worked with Alfred Binet to develop the Binet-Simon scale, one of the most widely-used scales in the world for measuring intelligence. This scale was revised in 1908 and 1911, and served as a template for the development of newer scales. Simon worked at various hospitals throughout France, including Sainte-Anne and Dury-les-Amiens. He also worked as the head psychiatrist at Saint-Yon hospital and as a medical director at Perray-Vaucluse. He was also the founder of the first nursing school in psychiatry at the Maison Blanche hospital in Neuilly-sur-Marne, in 1946. The training institute which continues to this day bears his name.

Théodore Simon was born on 10 July 1872 in Dijon, France. Simon's father worked as a railroad engineer for PLM. His early life was filled with great loss of family members. After becoming orphaned, Simon lived with his uncle in Sens. Simon's older brother also died at the young age of 23. During much of his early life, he was fascinated by Alfred Binet's work and constantly read his books. Simon was a medical doctor and was interested in questions of both philosophy and psychology. His interest in psychology continually increased, especially as the need for clinical experience in the field decreased.

In 1899, Simon was appointed as an intern at the asylum at Perray-Vaucluse where he began his famous work on abnormal children. This drew Binet's attention, who was at the time studying the correlation between physical growth and intellectual development. Binet came to the asylum and continued his work there with Simon. This research led to Simon's medical thesis on the topic in 1900.

From 1901-1905, Simon worked in various hospitals, from Sainte-Anne to Dury-les-Amiens. In March 1903, Simon worked with Binet in the Free Society for the Psychological Study of Children, which was dedicated to the discussion and the creation of a plan to aid in identifying and improving the education of abnormal children. This sparked Binet and Simon's work on establishing a scale to identify abnormal children. Simon and Binet released the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale to the public for the first time in 1905. The Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale would become the most widely used device for measuring a person's intelligence. The Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale premiered in L'Année psychologique () a journal founded by Binet in 1895.