Mary N. Meeker

Mary Meeker died in 2003, survived by her husband, her three daughters, and two grandchildren. Her husband, Robert Meeker, continues her work via the operation of SOI Systems in Springfield, Oregon.

In the 1990s, Meeker worked extensively with Bridges Learning Systems, a commercial enterprise founded by former U.S. Senator William E. Brock to implement school programs based on Meeker's SOI work and on the Integrated Practice Protocol (IPP) she developed with her husband, Robert Meeker. IPP comprises SOI-related assessments and learning and teaching materials that incorporate intelligence assessment (such as with the SOI-LA test), vision assessment, and sensory integration assessment. For example, some children who cannot read may lack the underlying ability to visually distinguish one alphabetical character from another. This perceptual (visual) aspect of SOI illustrates the extensions of SOI application made in IPP by Meeker and Meeker.

In 1975, Meeker and her husband, Robert Meeker, opened the SOI Institute, a business producing SOI tests and educational materials and conducting training for educators and related research. During the 1980s and 1990s, Meeker developed a wide reputation in the field of educational psychology, and continued to run the SOI Institute. During this time, Meeker was engaged as a consultant for the state departments of education in California, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Meeker was born in Louisiana and grew up there and in Texas. She attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology. Meeker subsequently moved to California and began graduate studies in educational psychology at the University of Southern California, where she studied with J. P. Guilford, whose work would be central to her career. Meeker earned a Master of Science, a Master of Education and, in 1971, a Ph.D. in Education from USC.

SOI assessment materials, including the SOI Learning Abilities (or "SOI-LA") test instrument, measure intelligence corresponding to those intellectual abilities from Guilford's SI model that Meeker determined to be most closely correlated to educational and professional success. (She excluded other SI abilities from SOI due to their perceived difficulty of assessment or their lack of correlation to educational requirements.) After she normed and validated the SOI-LA instrument in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she began producing tests and corresponding remedial materials for school districts and private clinics. In many states, the SOI-LA is accepted for screening students for admission into gifted and special education school programs, and worldwide, SOI-LA is used in private clinics.

Mary Nacol Meeker (1921–2003), was an American educational psychologist and entrepreneur. She is best known for her applying J. P. Guilford's Structure of Intellect theory of human intelligence to the field of education.