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Relation of Physical Defects to Retardation in Elmira, N. Y. Under the auspices of the Social Service League, the Academy of Medicine in Elmira, N. Y., recently gave its services in an examination of all the second grade children in the city, with the purpose of showing the relation between physical defects and school retardation. The complete record of each child, both physical and mental, was entered on a card like the accompanying illustration, and all cards were then returned to the central office for tabulation by one person. It was found that certain defects were more or less persistent throughout the city.
Number examined 449 Anaemic 1G per cent Enlarged Glands 23 Nervous 2.7 Pulmonary Trouble .6 Skin Diseases 2.2 Orthopaedic Defects 2 Rachitic 13.5 Defective Vision 22 Defective Hearing 4 Hyperthropied Tonsils 38 Adenoids 21 An examination of the school record of the same children shows that as the number of repeaters increases so does the percentage of defects:
Number retarded (104) 23 per cent Repeaters with one defect 21 ” Repeaters with two defects 30 ” Repeaters with three or more defects …. 38 The table on page 98 shows that in the number taking three and four years to complete the work of the second grade there is an increasing Percentage of defective children. Those taking five, six and seven years are too few to warrant drawing any conclusion. The increasing per cent?19 per cent for the two year, 21 per cent for the three year, and 40 per cent for the four year children?of those having adenoids, is significant.
One unusual result, in direct opposition to that found by most investigators of the relation between physical defects and mental retardation, is that concerning defective vision. It has been found in Elmira that with these children there is a definite increase of percentage of those ^ith eye-trouble as the number of years required to complete the gra e increases. D. C. Bliss, Supt. (97) 98 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. Effect of Physical Defects on Promotion Years spent Total Number 1st grade Pupils 345 8G 15 Adenoids Hypertrophied J Anaemic No. 67 Per XT Per cent ^1?- | cent j 19 141 40 52 1 8 : 21 25 29 i 15 17 Per cent 15 Enlarged Glands No. 77 Per cent Defective Vision No. 22 19 40 8 53 100 100 Totals for Retarded 104 Pupil3 23 Pe.-cent 100 26 34 100 32 20 27 72 21 40 0 0 100 0 ‘ 19 24 26 Per cent 21 24 26 100 No. 17 0 0 0 Per XT Per cent J^0, cent 4.9 38 11 3.5 19 22 20 0 0 0 1 100 23 22
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