What is Meant by Retardation
The Psychological Clinic Vol. IV. No. 5. October 15, 1919 :Author: Lightner Witmer, Ph.D.
A little more than a century ago, in the year 1797, a boy apparently about twelve years of age was found running wild like a beast of the fields through the forests of Aveyron, in the southern part of France. No one ever knew his origin, nor where, nor how he had spent the years between his birth and his discover^. Devoid of the faculty of speech he showed very few signs of intelligence and made his wants known through the simplest of inarticulate cries. He selected his food by the sense of smell, and what he chose proved him unaccustomed to the dietary of civilization. He drank by lying flat upon the ground and immersing his mouth beneath the surface of the water. He often walked on all fours, and fighting with his teeth like an animal, he resisted the placing of garments upon his back, and made unremitting efforts to escape. Subjected to confinement and forced to submit to the ways of civilized life, he proved to be fairly tractable. Brought to Paris, he excited the liveliest interest and was presented as an object of scientific curiosity before the French Academy of Science. The Paris of that day was feeling the full force of the intellectual revolution so intimately associated with the name of Rousseau. The natural rights of man, first put forward as an intellectual proposition and then fought for as a political doctrine, had become an object of the liveliest scientific discussion. No problem seemed more important than questions as to the original faculties of the natural man, uncontaminated by an artificial civilization.
The wild boy or savage of Aveyron challenged the erudition and scientific curiosity of the members of this famous academy. Was this the natural man, uneducated, undeveloped, capable of revealing to those who would undertake his study and training, important notions of the original constitution of man and of the development of his primitive faculties, or was the boy an idiot deprived of his natural birthright of reason, and therefore incapable of normal human development? Pinel, the famous physician of the insane at Bicetre, declared the child idiotic and therefore untrainable. But Itard, a physician of that first institution for the training of deaf mutes, established at Paris by the Abbe de l’Epee, believed the boy to be merely wild and untaught. Doubtless Itard had seen deaf mutes as degraded in intelligence as this boy, who, by means of the gesture and sign language and the consequent training of their powers of self-expression, had been reclaimed to a life of human capacity. He undertook this boy’s training “to solve the metaphysical problem of what might be the degree of intelligence and the nature of the ideas in a lad, who deprived from birth of all education should have lived entirely separate from the individuals of his kind.” He admitted the close resemblance of the boy’s condition to idiocy, but he believed that he could be restored to the normal mental life of humanity, because of his conclusions as to the “cause and the curability of that apparent idiotism.” To express Itard’s opinion in modern language the boy in his opinion was not a case of idiocy, but a case of arrested or retarded development, the result of neglect and separation from the normal human environment.
The outcome of Itard’s self-assumed task was to prove him doubly in the wrong. The result of the training showed first that the boy was an idiot and secondly that an idiot could be trained. Itard’s failure?for he could not restore this boy to normal mental condition?is one of the great successes in the history of education and mental science. In summing up the opinion of the Academy of Science, Dacier says of Itard’s work, “The academy cannot see without astonishment how he could succeed as far as he did. To be just toward Monsieur Itard and to appreciate the real worth of his labors the pupil ought to be compared only with his former self. We should remember the distance separating his starting point from the goal which he has reached, and by how many new and ingenious modes of teaching this lapse has been filled.”
Itard himself scarcely recognized the significance of his own success. Interested in the boy as a primitive savage, retarded in development because of the absence of the normal human environment, Itard failed to see that this boy, idiot though he was, suffered from an arrest or retardation of development due to phyWHAT IS MEANT BY RETARDATION? 123 siological causes resident within himself. The discovery that idiocy is retardation was left for Itard’s pupil, a physician, psychologist, and educator, Edward Seguin. Seguin, from whom I draw most of the above history, saw deep and clear into the significance of the discovery of which Itard himself remained so largely unconscious. With true scientific insight Seguin also gives Itard’s work its proper place, following as it does the experiments of that other pioneer in the training of defective children, the Portuguese Jew, Pereire. When Pereire showed before the Academy of New Rochelle in the year 1744 a congenitally deaf mute whom he had taught to speak by the physiological method, he demonstrated for the first time that mutism is not an incurable defect but merely the natural consequence of deafness. The deaf mute may suffer from a defect of hearing which is incurable, but his mutism is an arrest of the development of language which may be overcome by appropriate training. Moreover, the general intellectual retardation from which the deaf mute suffers in consequence of his defect is ameliorated and in many cases entirely overcome when he acquires articulate language as a means of expression and the foundation upon which to build an intellect. Small wonder that Seguin was stirred to the depths of his philanthropic and scientific soul when he heard a former pupil of Pereire’s, congenitally deaf and then a very old woman, speak not only in French, but in French tinged by the Gascon accent which characterized Pereire’s own speech. Thus on the basis of the accomplishment of Pereire and Itard, Seguin made the deduction that feeblemindedness is an arrest of mental development, necessarily consequent upon the imperfect sense organs and organs of motion with which these children are endowed at birth. He proposed to exercise the imperfect organs so as to develop their functions, as Pereire had previously developed the organs of articulation in deaf mutes, and to train the functions of the organism so as to develop the imperfect organs. He defines his system as “the adaptation of the principles of physiology through physiological means and instruments to the development of the dynamic, perceptive, reflective and spontaneous functions of youth.” The physiological method of education, says Pariset in a report to the Academy of Science, “is an example worthy of imitation, of the alliance of hygiene, medical science, and moral philosophy.”
Seguin began his first experiment in the training of a feebleminded child in 1837. So successful was this expert physiological education of all the senses that Seguin won for himself, as Itard had before him, the commendation of the Academy of Science. In 1842 he formed the first small class of feebleminded children whose training he -undertook at the Bicetre. Viewing idiocy as an arrest of mental development which had been produced before or during birth by diverse causes, he considered that this arrest of development ought to be conquered by an appropriate treatment and the idiot returned to society and life, if not to a high degree of intelligence.
Seguin’s work became a model for the countries of the civilized world. Inspired by his example and assisted by his treatise on idiocy, published in 1846, training schools for feebleminded children were established first in Massachusetts in 1849, and in the next few years in !New York, Pennsylvania, and other states of the union. It was no part of Seguin’s thought to draw a sharp line of demarcation between a class of feebleminded children and a class of normal children, nor to restrict his work to children congenitally so defective that their restoration to normal condition is impossible. Perhaps it was Seguin’s too enthusiastic claims as to the possibility of restoring the idiot to society, perhaps it was his failure to generalize the concept of retarded or arrested development to cover children not properly classified as feebleminded,? be this as it may, the fact is that Seguin’s message to the teacher of normal children has been neglected and “retardation” has come to be regarded as synonymous with an incurable mental defect. Feeblemindedness, imbecility and idiocy are but classes or grades of retardation. In these severe forms of retardation the mental defect usually rests upon some incurable brain defect. In milder forms of retardation the child may be backward because of no organic defect but because of functional nervous disease, of inadequate or improper nutrition, of defects of sight or hearing, or perhaps merely because he has not been sent regularly to school or may not have been subjected to satisfactory home discipline. Many of these cases of retardation are curable under appropriate physical and educational treatment, that is to say, the child can be restored to the mental and physical status of the normal child of his age. The next contribution to an understanding of the meaning of the word retardation came directly out of school practice. Por some years the people of the United States and of some other countries have indulged themselves with the conceit that every child was receiving a common school education. In practice the right to attend the public schools in the United States was treated as a privilege which could be withdrawn from the child for misbehavior, or failure to make satisfactory progress. Compulsory education laws were put upon the statute books, which by implication at least, required that every child be provided with an education commensurate with his abilities. But these compulsory education laws were not enforced for many years, and even now they are but feebly enforced in the most progressive states of the union. First among civilized nations, Germany addressed itself to the task of educating every child, long before this country had even awakened to the fact that its prospective citizens were not receiving sufficient school training to cast an intelligent vote. Just as soon as compulsory education laws were partially enforced and a serious effort made to educate every child, it was found that there are children not properly called feebleminded who are yet incapable of making normal progress in the ordinary day schools. The appreciation of the necessity of providing a special form of training for these backward pupils led to the organization of the first special class in Dresden in the year 1865. In this country the compulsory education laws began to be enforced in a few states about 1890. As a consequence, truant schools and disciplinary schools came into existence in some states. About 1895, the presence of slowly developing children attracted attention and special classes were formed here and there for backward and defective children. The school training of these children has now been undertaken in many cities of this country, but up to the present time not a single school system has made a really adequate or serious attempt either to train the backward child or to meet the situation presented by the truant and disciplinary cases. So far as the backward child is concerned, the situation in our American cities is the same as that which led to the establishment of a special class by the public school system of the City of Brunswick, Germany, in the year 1881.
A medical specialist, Dr Berkhan, had been deputed by the city authorities of Brunswick to ascertain the number of feebleminded persons (idiots) in the city. In pursuance of this task and in company with the superintendent of schools, he visited all the schools of the city. Keilhorn, who subsequently became the teacher of the first special class, and who is now director of the special school in Brunswick, was at that time the teacher of a fifth year class. Entering Keilhorn’s class room, the two visitors asked the usual question, “Have you any feebleminded children (idiots) in your class ?” “No,” Keilhorn responded, “but I have several who are unable to advance with the instruction I can give them.” Asked to produce these children, he showed to the investigators five children ranging in age from nine to fourteen. They knew a few letters; they could count to ten, and could repeat a few Biblical stories. They had no capacity for observation or judgment. In this condition they had been advanced from the lower classes because they had physically, though not mentally, outgrown these classes. These boys were reported as not being feebleminded (idiots), but as mentally backward.
Keilhorn was then asked, “Could these children be advanced ?” His answer was, “Certainly, but not here with so many.” He was then told that he must undertake something special and individual with them every day. Keilhorn replied, “I did this last year, but I do not dare attempt it any longer.” “Why not ?” said the medical inspector. “Because the roster and the school superintendent do not permit me,” responded Keilhorn. The superintendent interjected, “Why not? I have nothing against it.” To which Keilhorn replied, “Last year I spent a great deal of time with the dullest members of the class. Then you, as superintendent, informed me that my class average had fallen off, and that I must exert myself in order to have the class reach the proper standard, so I have been compelled to let these children remain for the most part uninstructed and uncared for.” The superintendent then said, “The class as a whole most certainly cannot be allowed to suffer. We must see what can be done.” As a result of this investigation forty children were found, exclusive of such as belonged to the feebleminded (idiot) class.
The awakening of the school authorities and general public to the existence of retardation as an educational problem of serious import was due in part to the introduction of medical inspection into the schools. Appointed in most instances as a part of the health department of our large cities and intended solely for the discovery and prevention of contagious and infectious diseases, the school medical inspectors in a very commendable way extended their usefulness to the discovery and treatment of defects of vision, hearing, nasopharyngeal obstruction and other ailments. Medical inspection has proved itself necessary to the satisfactory realization of the purposes for which the schools exist. Medical inspectors and school nurses are being appointed in most of our cities as an integral part of the school system. In many of our large cities their reports are valuable contributions to the study of the causes of retardation. As early as 1890 an impetus was given to this type of work through the efforts of Dr Francis Warner who examined for various defects, as many as one hundred thousand children of the City of London. Both in England and in this country Dr Warner’s discovery of a surprisingly large number of defective children has been a stimulus to superintendents of schools and medical inspectors. In England these results acquired unusual significance when it was found that the work of recruiting men for the South African War was seriously hampered owing to the fact that a sufficient number of men could not be found to meet the full physical requirements for military service. I believe that we are now able to give a definition of retardation which is both illuminating and instructive for the educational treatment of all children, the normal as well as the backward. Retardation is not a disease, it is not a brain defect, nor is it necessarily the result of a brain defect. It is not even a condition with a definite number of assignable characteristics. It is a mental status, a stage of mental development. Take a perfectly normal child of six years of age and let him arrive at the age of ten with the same characteristics that he had at six, and he will manifest retardation. Let him arrive at the age of twenty with characteristics entirely normal for a child of six, and his retardation will not only be all the more severe, but will be the cause of a permanent arrest of development, for the reason that he will then have passed the formative or developmental period. We may, therefore, say that any child, the functions of whose brain are not developed up to the normal limit for his age, is suffering from retardation, and a youth who arrives at the age of maturity with his brain below the level of functional development which it might have attained if other methods had been employed, will carry through life a permanent arrest of mental and moral development. Retardation must be defined in terms of individual capacity for physical and mental development. Children and youths of any given age vary greatly in physiological and psychological development. The physiological and psychological age does not always correspond with the chronological age. What may be retardation for one may not be retardation for another. Indeed, it may very well happen that the child who stands at the head of his class in school may be more retarded than the child who is at the bottom of his class. The schools give less education to those who are mentally well endowed than they do to the average student or dullard. The bright ones get an education, but they learn in the schools as they learn on the streets. It reminds one of the father who, when asked whether his boy took French in college, replied, “I am not sure, but he was exposed to it.”
While this definition of retardation in terms of individual development may be made clear enough, it cannot be made precise. An opinion as to whether a child at a given stage of development is as far along as he ought to be is necessarily a matter of mere conjecture. It is impossible for us to estimate the natural endowment of any brain except in terms of what it produces in thought and action. Nevertheless this definition of retardation is much more satisfactory than that even vaguer one which endeavors to use the normal child as a standard of comparison. We may not know much as yet concerning the defective child but we know immeasurably less about the hypothetically normal child. This expression of retardation in terms of individual development gives rise to the concept of what I prefer to call psychological retardation.
This definition of retardation is of little assistance to us in determining the number of backward children in the public schools. Some more precise and objective standard is necessary. I have sought this objective standard therefore, more particularly for public school children, in terms of age and grade. I undertook to define as pedagogical retardation the number of years that a child was behind the grade for his age. If we wish to ascertain the causes of retardation in school children we must first obtain the whole number of retarded children irrespective of any preconceptions we may have as to the causes. It will not do first to find the children with defects and then to ascertain which of these are retarded. This will give a very poor idea of the result of various defects in producing retardation. To ascertain the number of children in a city school system who are retarded involves first a classification of the children by grades and ages. In a large city like Philadelphia the task seemed to me too great to be successfully accomplished. I believed that we should undertake it first in a smaller city. At my suggestion therefore, Superintendent Bryan undertook this investigation for the city of Camden which has a school enrolment of about ten thousand children. Dr Bryan investigated the enrolment figures of Camden for two successive years, 1904-06. There was very little variation in the results of each of these two years. Pedagogical retardation follows from the supposition that a child enters upon the first year of school work before lie lias passed his seventh birthday. If he advances one grade each year, he will complete the eight years of the elementary course before he has passed his fifteenth birthday. This establishes a theoretical age limit for each grade, apparently not excessive in its educational requirements, for the child who leaves the elementary schools in his fifteenth year cannot complete the high school before his nineteenth year, nor graduate from college before his twenty-third year, and yet in the elementary schools of Camden 72 per cent of the children exceeded this theoretical age limit. It seemed absurd to assert that 72 per cent of a city school system were retarded and moreover the group of children obtained in this way was too large to be studied for the purpose of discovering the causes of their retardation. It was therefore determined to allow one or more years in excess of this theoretic age limit. In the city of Camden 47 per cent were found to exceed the age limit by one year or more, 26 per cent by two years or more, 13 per cent by three years or more, and 5 per cent by four years or more. It was determined to call all those children pedagogically retarded who exceeded the age limit by two years or more. This definition of retardation has been generally accepted in subsequent investigations of retardation statistics in other cities. A surprisingly large percentage of children are pedagogically retarded. For five cities of the United States comprising one-fifth of the elementary school population, District Superintendent Cornman of Philadelphia ascertained that from 7.3 per cent in one city to 26.3 per cent in another city are two or more years behind the theoretic age limit for their grade. In these cities an average of 13.5 per cent were found to be pedagogically retarded. In the mean time Superintendent Maxwell of New York City had awakened great interest in the over age child among school men in the United States. In his report for 1904 Dr Maxwell prints for the first time a series of tables giving the ages of the pupils in each of the grades. Studying these figures, he establishes the notion of a normal age for each grade, and is disconcerted to find such a large percentage of pupils above the normal age. Independently of this work in Philadelphia and New York, Dr Roland Ealkner while Commissioner of Education for Porto Rico, and Mr. Ayres while Superintendent of Schools at San Juan came upon this problem from the standpoint of a superintendent. In the report of the Commissioner of Education for Porto Rico, 1905-06, there are found comprehensive statements in regard to the ages of children in the several grades and also the number of years the children had been in school.
Desiring to compare the schools of Porto Rico with those of the United States, Dr Falkner and Mr. Ayres could find no statistics which would enable them to determine whether the pedagogical retardation of children in the Porto Rican schools was greater or less than that prevailing in the city school systems of the United States. It was not until they obtained the statistics of Bryan and Cornman that they had the material data for a preliminary statistical comparison and an analysis of conditions. Dr. Falkner and Mr. Ayres have since published in The Psychological Clinic contributions which have considerably advanced our knowledge of the facts and causes of retardation. With the cordial co-operation of the New York City school authorities, the Backward Children Investigation of the Russell Sage Foundation was Undertaken two years ago under the general supervision of Dr. Luther H. Gulick and the direction of Mr. Ayres. The purpose of this investigation was to determine as far as possible, from an examination of existing records of about twenty thousand selected school children in New York City, the relations between retardation and such’ phenomena as date of entering school, transfers, regularity of attendance, nationality, and physical defects. The result of this investigation together with material obtained from the printed reports of other cities has recently been published by the Russell Sage Foundation under the editorship of Mr. Ayres in a volume entitled “Laggards in our Schools.”
The literature of retardation has grown to extensive proportions. In the annual reports of progressive city and state superintendents the problem of retardation begins to occupy a position of first importance. The working out of the problem will have consequences which will affect every type of child in the public schools. It is through the investigation and treatment of retardation that the child will obtain some measure of consideration, even in the schools, as an individual, and groupings more significant than the present grades will come into existence.
What is true of the public elementary schools is doubtless true of the secondary schools and colleges, public and private. The search for the causes of retardation naturally leads to a consideration of social conditions as well as of mental and physical causes. We are apt to believe that social conditions unfavorable to mental and physical development are a necessary sequela of poverty. As a matter of fact they exist among the rich to as great an extent as among tlie poor. If I had to choose whether the childhood of a boy of unusual brain capacity should be spent among the very rich, with the usual complement of nurses, governesses, tutors, fashionable fitting schools and colleges, or whether he should be born and live in a home which, while waging a continual fight against poverty, was yet able to send him to the public schools and to college, I should choose for him the latter fate in full confidence that he would reach maturity with greater force of character and a brain developed to a higher level of intellectual activity. While I believe that the conditions in private schools are analogous to those in the public schools, I have not yet succeeded in devising a satisfactory method for their investigation on a large scale, nor have I been able to take up this problem with reference to the college student, but undoubtedly the problem is there and awaits a solution. ISTo single investigator nor any one group of psychologists can solve this problem satisfactorily. Every instructor who comes in contact with students must contribute his quota to our knowledge of intellectual and moral development in individual cases. The legislatures of several states now require that every teacher shall examine the pupils in her grade at least once a year with respect to their sight and hearing. The day is approaching when the teacher will be the repository of the best information available concerning the physical and mental characteristics of children. Psychological insight will find its way into the schoolroom, for there is no doubt that some day we shall be able to educate the teacher to an understanding of the processes of individual development. ” -’
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