The Psychology of Mentally Deficient Children
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. :Author: Naomi Nors worthy, Ph.D., Instructor in JUducational .b’syciioiogy, Teachers’ College, Columbia University. Archives of Psychology, No. 1. November, 1906.
In The Psychology of Mentally Deficient Children, Dr Norsworthy has endeavored to solve three problems in relation to the mentally deficient: “(1) Whether the mental defects of idiots are equalled by the bodily; (2) whether idiots form a separate species or not; and (3) whether the entire mental growth is retarded,?that is, whether there is a lack of mental capacity all around.”
The method used is the experimental one.” A series of physical and mental tests were made upon 157 “school cases” in the School for the Feeble-minded at Waverly, Mass., in the Institution for the Feebleminded at Lakeville, Conn., and in the classes for defectives in one of the New York public schools, and a comparative study is undertaken of the results of these tests and of similar tests made upon several hundred normal children. The main section of the monograph is devoted to the presentation of the results of these experiments. It is preceded by a sketch of the development of educational work with defectives, a chapter on definition and classification of idiocy, and a summary of previous experimental work. It is followed by a statement of conclusions and remarks on the application of the results to the subject matter and methods used in the education of defectives.
From so extensive a study and so imposing a display of tables we hoped to glean much valuable information, and were therefore greatly disappointed to find inaccuracy of historical statement, an incomplete resume of experimental work, conclusions quite unjustified by the data, and most impractical suggestions as to education. Thus, in recording the beginnings of work with feeble-minded children in this country Dr Norsworthy fails to give due recognition to Dr Wilbur’s experimental school for feeble-minded children at Barre, Mass., as the first school of the kind in this country, antedating by some months the one established by grant of the state legislature of Massachusetts. In taking up the newer aspect of the problem of caring for mentally defective children, i. e., that which is found in association with the education of normal children, Dr Norsworthy states, “a further step in advance has been made in this field since 1899. For years the public schools have been hampered by what we have called ‘defective children’ … In London in 1899 … a committee was appointed to investigate the conditions as existing at that time in the schools … Acting upon the report of the committee the London School Board established special classes in connection with schools in various parts of the city. … Philadelphia, Providence, Boston, and in 1903 New York City also have followed the example set by London and provided for children needing special and unique instruction in the public school system.” As a matter of fact, the London movement, which really dates back to 1892, was by no means the first of its kind. The Germans were the first to discover the existence of a large class of school children of a higher mental grade than that of the imbecile, who nevertheless required special instruction in the schools. This priority was doubtless due to the fact that Germany took the lead in the enforcement of compulsory education. Children who would ordinarily have drifted away from the schools and therefore from the view of educators, were forced by the compulsory education law to attend regularly, and in the course of time great numbers of them remained year after year in the elementary classes, making no perceptible progress. In 18G3 Ernest Stotzer, a teacher of Leipzig, energetically urged the establishment of special classes for their instruction. In the same year in Halle, a school was opened for retarded children, but this was designed principally for those retarded from other causes than mental defectiveness, although the mentally defective child also was admitted. The first school designed particularly for defectives was established in Dresden in 1867. Other cities followed the lead of Dresden in establishing Ililfsklassen and Ililfsschulen fur schwachbegabte Kinder. By 1892 they had been established in eighteen cities of Germany; the dawn of the new century found them in ninety-eight cities. The movement spread from Germany to Norway in 1874, to Austria and Switzerland in 1892, to Holland in 1896, and to Belgium in 1897; thus special classes and schools were well established throughout Teutonic Europe before the year 1899, which is signalized by Dr Norsworthy as the year of a “step in advance” in the treatment of defective children.
Even in Great Britain the movement was inaugurated before this year. The enforcement of the compulsory education laws in 1881 was followed by the opening of the first school for defective children in Leicester in the spring of 1892, and later in the same year three were established in London through the efforts of General Moberly, of the London School Board.
Dr Norsworthy fails to recognize the fact that the American movement was as independent of the English as was the English of the German. The idea of special classes for defective children in the public schools was first introduced to American teachers by Professor August Sclienck, of Detroit, in 1878, in a talk before the American Teachers’ Association. Acting on this suggestion Dr Andrew Rickoff, Superintendent of Schools of Cleveland, established two schools in that city, which, however, took care only of the morally deficient. The second American class was established in Chicago in 1892. This is still in existence and in charge of the original teacher. New York established a special class in’ 1895 under the direction of Miss Elizabeth Farrell. Providence was the fourth American city to establish a special class for mentally deficient children; this was in the year 1896, although several years previously special classes for truants had been inaugurated following the abolition of corporal punishment and the strict enforcement of the truancy laws. A special class was organized in Portland, Maine, in 1896, and the first of seventeen classes for backward children was established in Philadelphia in the year 1899.
Striking as is the incompleteness of Dr Norsworthy’s history, her summary of previous experimental work presents more glaring omissions. Thus, Binet and Simon report a long series of experiments in L’Annee Psychologique, 1905, Vol. XI, pp. 63-336, which are entirely overlooked, as is also the well-known experimental work of Ranschburg, of Demoor and Daniels, and of many others.
Dr Norsworthy’s use of the term idiot to designate any and all grades of mental deficiency is apt to cause confusion in the minds of her readers. The term idiot is usually limited to the lower grades of the mentally deficient. Dr Kerlin, whose classification of the mentally defective is based upon educability, classes idiots as those whose intelligence is so slight as to be subject for habit training only in life-long asylum care.” Dr Barr, whose classification is also conceived from the standpoint of the trainer, describes idiocy as the lowest form of mental defect, and the idiot as untrainable. As the children used for subjects by Dr Norsworthy were all “school cases,” they were admittedly trainable and therefore not idiots. Moreover, the tests were such as to call for considerably more mental ability than an untrainable child could possibly possess. Nevertheless the results obtained by experimenting on these children, none of whom was an idiot and many of whom were even above the grade of imbecile (the special school cases) leads the author to the following conclusions about idiots: “(1) The mental defects among idiots are by no means equalled by the bodily, in fact in measurements of height and weight the defectives are indistinguishable from ordinary children; (2) In general, at least as far as intelligence is concerned, idiots do not form a separate species, but ?Ranschburg. Rccherclies comparatives cliez des enfants d’4cole normaux et faiblcs d’esprit. Die Kinderfeliler, 1905. Reviewed in L’Annee Psychologique, 1906, Vol. XII, pp. 518-522. Demoor and Daniel. Lcs Enfants anormaux a Bruxelles. L’Annee Psychologique, 1900, Vol. VII, pp. 296-313. Kuhlmann, F. Experimental Studies in Mental Deficiency. American Journal of Psychology, 1904, Vol. XV, pp. 391-446. Heller. Ermiidungsmessungen an schwaclisinnigen Schulkindern. Wiener med. Presse, 1899, Nos. 11, 12, 13. Lobsien. Einige TJntcrsuchungcn iibcr das Ocdaclitniss bei Sclncachbefiihigten. Die Ivinderfehler. Band VIII, Heft 4. Wreschner. Eine experiment-die Studie iibcr die Association in einem Falle von Idiotic. Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatric. Band LVII. Simon. RccJicrchcs anthropomttrique sur 223 gar^ons anormaux agts de 8 d 23 ans. L’Annee Psychologique. 1899. Vol. VI, pp. 191-247. simply occupy a position at the extreme of some large distribution, probably approximately that expressed by the normal probability curve; (3) Among idiots there is an equal lack of mental capacity in all directions: there is something of the same lack of correlation among the traits measured in the case of idiots as there is with ordinary people.” In criticising these conclusions we must bear in mind that idiot as used by the author applies to imbeciles and still higher grades of the mentally defective.
That “mental defects of idiots are not equalled by the bodily,” may be the opinion of Dr Norsworthy, but to designate it as a conclusion from the data presented is an unwarrantable employment of experimental results in the service of generalization. As representative of bodily conditions Dr Norsworthy limits herself to height, weight, pulse rate and temperature. Those who know the imbecile would like to ask the author whether asymmetry of bodily parts, spinal curvature, abnormalities of limbs, features and sense organs, are not defects of body. Dr Norsworthy herself states that some of the children examined were paralytic and had not full control of their hands, and that others had very poor eyesight (see page 53). Such afflictions are as surely defects as unusually light weight or short stature. The determination of appropriate tests to measure certain conditions, and the determination of just what conditions are measured by each test, are among the most difficult tasks of the experimentalist. Here the problem does not seem even to be recognized, so meagre are the data brought forward to represent this complex condition. The second conclusion, that idiots do not form a special class or species,?that there is no distinct line of demarcation between normal children and idiots; and the third, that there is not among idiots an equal lack of mental capacity along all lines, are supported by the results of the tests, but Dr Norsworthy’s investigation could scarcely suffice to establish these conclusions as novel propositions. “About a year after these tests were made they were repeated for some of both the defective and the ordinary children, in order to see what changes and what degree of change had taken place in each class, and how far these changes were comparable.” Dr Norsworthy’s interpretations of the results obtained from this latter investigation are startling. They would almost lead one to believe that there is some slight advantage in being an idiot. The results show that fifty per cent of the defectives improved, while only forty-three per cent of the normal did so; that in one-half of the tests the defectives improved more than the normal, while with the other half the reverse was true; further, that in only two tests did the defectives fail of any improvement, while the normal failed in three tests; and that the further removed the defective was from the normal the greater was his improvement. She further compares year for year the increase in ability of the defectives with the increase in ability of normal children of the same age. These results were overwhelmingly in favor of the defectives, the total improvement mark of the defectives exclusive of height and weight being 24.1, and that of ordinary children being 8.7. From these figures the conclusions are drawn: “(1) That among mental defectives a decided improvement in mental ability may be looked for after the lapse of a year, in some directions even exceeding that shown by ordinary school children; (2) That the greatest improvement is not confined to those defectives most like ordinary individuals; (3) That the improvement is not equal in all directions, but that some mental functions improve more rapidly and to a greater extent than others, and that even the functions we designate as intellectual show marked improvement.”
Such results, one would think, would have been sufficient to lead Dr Norswortliy to look for some flaw in her method. On the contrary, she accepts them unquestionably, states that “they show definitely that the feeble-minded do improve from year to year and that the improvement is no mean one,” and confidently proceeds to build educational theories upon these results. To those familiar with feeble-minded children, the defect in the method is conspicuous. The ability of the feeble-minded child to comply with the requirements of a test on one day is no surety that he will be able to do so on another day. One of the greatest difficulties in the training of these children is the lack of uniformity of mental power. Dr Norsworthy might have found just as great improvement in ability had she taken her second series of tests after an interval of one day as after the interval of one year. Moreover, no attempt was made to ascertain and eliminate the effect of practice either with the so-called idiots or with the normal children.
The false conclusions that Dr Norsworthy has drawn from her figures lead her to. make most startling suggestions as to subject matter and method of education. She states that the psychological methods of educating the feeble-minded have been based upon the opinion “that the poorly nourished body is a draw-back to a certain extent to mental growth and development,” and draws the conclusions that as idiots “are about as ordinary children in their bodily development” as is indicated by her results, there is not so much need for this kind of treatment as is supposed. She further states that the same facts of bodily condition do away with the need for gymnastics as a spur to mental activity; also that the argument “that the physical method not only develops the body but also increases the motor control and co-ordination of the muscles and so develops the mental control” loses its importance “if the lack of muscular control is not so much a matter of muscles as it is a matter of mind, for if the benefit on the mental side from these exercises is gained because of the promptness and exactitude demanded in all class gymnastic work, and is not a matter of muscular development and co-ordination, then it may be that the mental development could come just as well through some other means.” Dr Norsworthy seems to lose sight entirely of the psycho152 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. logical character of muscular control. Control is a psychic function, not a bodily condition, and muscular control is only gradually built up through a rich and varied experience of bodily movements associated with some achieved result. Only in this way can the fundamental kinesthetic sensations be realized, and only in this way can the complex associated movements become habitual. Thus through active movement the bodily power and the mental control develop simultaneously. This, it seems to the reviewer, is nearer the meaning of psychological education. It is not simply that vigorous health increases mental activity, but that without certain physical development there is a corresponding lack of mental development; the two are inseparably associated. From the conclusion that there is no distinct line of demarcation between the idiot and the ordinary child, Dr Norsworthy deduces the opinion that the education of the idiot should conform to the present methods of education for the ordinary child. “Certain it is,” she says, “that the idiot is more easily reached by such training [physiological method], but whether it is better for him in the long run, and whether it is impossible to reach him in the same way that we do ordinary children, is not fully decided. It is probable that could the idiot once be taught to write and read, he might gain more and progress more quickly than he does by the present methods of education.” The objection to giving the idiot more of the intellectual training, our author thinks, is the practical one that as idiots can never become “leaders of men,” they can be made of more practical use by manual training, trades, etc. It is very evident that Dr Norsworthy has had little real experience with idiots.
The statement in the final paragraph that “we must criticize the methods of educating idiots from the same standpoint, and use the same arguments, either for or against, that we do in criticizing the methods and curricula used in the general education of the masses,” would be better if inverted and stated as follows: We must criticize the methods U6ed in the education of the masses from the same standpoint and use the same arguments that we do in criticizing the methods used in the education of the feeble-minded. Expressed in this way it conveys the real lesson for pedagogy contained in the conclusion that defectives are not a species distinct and separate. It is in educating the feebleminded that the true psychological methods of education reveal themselves. Dr Norsworthy seems to recognize this in the final sentence of her monograph,?”What, in education,” she says, “is not good for the idiot is probably not good for also ten per cent of school children at large.” Turning from the conclusions to the tests and results, we are attracted by the admirable clearness with which the restilts are presented both in tabulated and graphic form. This can be attained only by an expenditure of time and mental effort that too many investigators neglect to make, and Dr Norsworthy deserves great praise for the consideration she lias shown her readers and the skill she has displayed in meeting this requirement of scientific exposition. The method of comparing the results of tests upon an individual feeble-minded child with those obtained with normal children is suggestive and worthy of further trial. It is uncertain, however, whether the mathematical treatment will stand criticism from the theoretical side. It is a pity that a larger number of children were not observed. Many of the tests employed are open to criticism on the score of being very complicated for the ability of the feeble-minded child. Asking for the opposite of words like peace, enemy, sad, below, and the wholes of which the following words are parts, door, pillow, letter, leaf, button; and particular things of which class names are given, booh, tree, room, etc.:?requires readiness of association as well as a stock of information. Several of the tests require a knowledge of reading and writing, with which the majority of the feeble-minded children are not equipped.
Dr Norsworthy’s investigation is one of a number of interesting attempts to gain an insight into the psychology of the mentally deficient by means of the experimental method. Her methods and results offer no conclusive settlement of any question as to the correlation of mental and physical characters of normal and mentally defective children. That her work is not more conclusive is probably due to the fact that experimental psychology has hardly reached the stage of development where it can supply the requisite tests. For the present, we remain in the position of testing the tests. Laudable as is Dr Norsworthy’s attempt to demonstrate the value of a small group of tests, and to show us a method of correlating results, we cannot help but feel that her monograph is marred by an injudicious jumping at far-reaching conclusions, which can only serve to subject the experimental psychologist to the derisive criticism of his scientific colleagues.
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