Mental Deficiency
- Author:
Duncan, Headmaster, Hampshire County Special
(M.I).) School. | Watts & Co., 2/6.|
Air. Duncan is well-known to those interested in the education of retarded children, by reason of his experimental work at Lankhills Residential School, and we welcome his contribution to the literature on mental deficiency which has hitherto lacked an adequate introductory text book at a price within the reach even of the most modest income.
The chapters on ” What is Mental Deficiency?” “Mental Deficiency in Childhood,” and ” The Adult Defective,” give a useful summary of the nature of mental defect and of the legislative position in regard to it. Free quotations are given from the Wood Report, including references to the historical background and the social implications of the problem, though considerations of space have prevented a more comprehensive treatment of these particular aspects.
In discussing the question of Special Schools, the abolition of medical certification as a condition of admission is advocated, and it is suggested that if children at” the age of 11 plus, with Intelligence Quotients of below 60 or thereabouts, were more frequently notified for transfer to Occupation Centres or to Institutions, there would then be little difficulty in dealing with the higher-grade defectives in ” C ” or ” D ” streams in the ordinary schools. As a result of the Hadow reorganisation, the Day Special School, Mr. Duncan maintains, is no longer needed.
In a chapter 011 ” Intelligence and Intelligence Tests” and in the two following chapters, some new material is included that should be of particular interest to teachers, including a descriptive account of two types of Special Schools and their contrasting educational methods. In these chapters, Mr. Duncan writes from personal experience, and in discussing Performance Tests he emphasises the ” capacity to deal intelligently with things” (as distinct from abstract thoughts and words) which can, by careful training, be developed in defectives so that in such tests, they may in some instances score higher than a normal subject. To the whole subject of the educational treatment of defectives Mr. Duncan has given long and intensive study accompanied by practical experimental work of outstanding merit, and we hope that at a later date he will write of it in greater detail in a companion volume to the present book.
Chapter VIII deals with “The Problem of the Intellectually Dull.” In ‘.t is pointed out the fallacy of the conception that this is a problem separate and distinct from any other educational problem?that ” on the one hand there will be a large group of what are called normal ‘ children having one kind of education ; on the other hand will be a smaller group of dull children having an entirely different kind of education.” Though the ” dull ” may have special needs due to their difficult}- in the understanding of the use of words and to their general slowness in acquiring skill of any kind, the principles underlying their education are?it is urged ?equally sound for the education of the normal child; in fact, “the education of the dull appears to be the i base on which the whole of education can be built.”
The concluding chapters of the book deal with sterilisation and touch on other methods of preventing mental subnormality, such as birth control, educational improvements and the raising of the standard of life, particularly in the case of the skilled workers.
This book is brief (only 149 pages), easily and quickly read and free from technicalities. It should be of real value as an introduction to a more profound study of its subject and it can be recommended without hesitation to students, to social workers, and to those teachers who have not as yet come to grips with the challenge presented by every ” retarded ” child under their care. A. L. H.
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