The Backward Child, A Study of the Psychology and Treatment of Backwardness
- Author:
Barbara Spofford Morgan. Introduction by Elizabeth E. Farrell,
Inspector of Ungraded Classes, New York Public Schools. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1914. Pp. vii+263.
Mrs. Morgan is not concerned with children who should be in institutions. The child considered by her “stands on the borderland between the normal and the feebleminded and the way in which his mental shortcomings are treated may determine whether he ultimately joins one class or the other.” In order to prevent a deterioration and the consequent status of feeblemindedness, this child must receive treatment different from that given the entirely normal individual. The mentality, both functional and structural, must be determined by an analysis which will reveal the phases where special training is required by the child. This analysis is made by the use of well defined and carefully administered tests. Its main purpose, however, differs from that of Binet, in that the effort is not to procure a classification of children but to reveal to the teacher the places in which special treatment is necessary. The exact conditions of the experimenter’s laboratory are unnecessary, since the difficulties in the working of the child’s mind are too slight to be noticed by the laboratory methodology,?”the examiner, sitting casually with the child as if playing with him, makes a comparative determination as to which faculties are weak, without attempting the misleading accuracy of a percentage.” On the basis of this comparative examination the necessary intensive training is prescribed.
The various faculties brought to light by such an analysis are classified as structural and expansive. To each faculty one chapter is devoted and the headings of the chapters are the following,?Attention; Memory; Sensation; Perception; Association; Abstraction; Imagination and Invention; Judgment and Reasoning; and Expression and Response. The majority of the captions are those of traditional psychology, except in the case of perception, which is defined as an “overworked word which we use to express our sense of intuitions, atmospheres, and all sorts of nebulous feelings.” The chapters under these different heads contain not only a definition and a differentiation of the mental processes or faculties from all the others, but also a test and an interpretation of its results for any defect that may exist. Such interpretations are not the least valuable part of the book; for the practical workers, for whom the treatise is written, they are undoubtedly the most valuable. It is here, however, that we would offer a criticism. In our opinion the author presupposes on the part of her readers a psychological ability and insight which only one with the training that she herself has had, could possibly possess. Such a statement as this,? As a matter of practical experiment, backward children can be brought up to a normal average in their lessons by half an hour’s daily individual training,” is rather misleading to the teacher who is likely to be responsible for these children. Had Mrs. Morgan been more specific in her statements as to the grade of those with whom she had to deal, i. e. as to the amount of difference between them and the normal child, one would be better able to appreciate the statement. As it is, one may be fairly sure that the child which the teacher is likely to regard as backward, cannot make the progress indicated.
Throughout the book it is the individual, not the tests or their interpretation that is important. Commendation is due Mrs. Morgan, for she has emphasized the value of the clinical or individual method of dealing with children and has presented it to the teacher in a way that makes one see that, for the exceptional child, for the one who departs even slightly from the average or type, a special training or treatment must be devised. David Mitchell.
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