Sometime Later. A Follow-Up of Two Clinic Cases
- Author:
Gladys G. Ide, Ph.D.,
University of Pcnsylvania. Alan
The dapper young officer had just arrived on leave from an aviation camp. His lieutenant’s bars and aviator’s wings, together with the wonderful slenderness of his figure drew the attention and eyes of every woman in sight as he left the station in the wake of relatives and friends, after having, with suitable military bearing and with exact military courtesy bestowed a greeting on those meeting him. His mother gazed on him with glowing eye, his father, lazily tipsy, admitted him into the inner circle of manhood with a wink, and his elderly friend, a social worker and former counselor of the family, met him with a steady pressure on the palm, rejoicing that her wee lamb had grown to such lofty proportions and had come out so well.
At home, with a story to be told, the family learned by degrees of the wonders which had come to the boy. Of scarcely twenty summers, he had enlisted at the first call?that of a marine officer with the word “slacker” on his lips. With five thousand others he was herded to a Texas camp, where he was chosen one among ninety to form a crack squadron to train for aviation. The second training camp in Ohio was the scene of triumph after triumph to the boy as he rose first to corporal, then to sergeant and finally after some months to the bars of the sub-lieutenant. He had been trained also in actual flying with Captain Vernon. Castle as instructor. In trying to establish a high altitude record, lie had remained aloft some hours at a height of eight thousand feet. The tail-spin, the loop-theloop and the falling-leaf had no terrors for him, and he laughed at the foolish fears of the women when he described the sensations which had been his in several trying experiences. The youthful aviators vied with each other in their attempts at daredevil flying, and it was the proud boast of our hero that he had been able to “nick” the roof of the airdrome with is machine in descending, thereby calling down on his head the encomiums of his young friends. A short time after the visit of the spick-and-span officer had been concluded, the middle-aged friend of the family had opportunity to request a captain, who was ordered to inspect aviation fields, to call upon her young friend. The captain made his visit, and like the good officer that he was he returned to make a report of what he had discovered. Instead of a lieutenant he found a private, instead of an aviator he found a very poor mechanics’ helper, so poor that his sergeant had completely lost his vocabulary in trying to teach him to be useful in some way to the camp, instead of cleanliness and order so dear to the lad at home, he found a boy who committed all the crimes on the military calendar in the way of being disorderly and disrespectful. In short, he found a private of whom no good in the way of report from either officers or men could be said and for whom an exchange was desired. At about the same time a letter came from the boy deploring his lack of education and stating that he was the only man in the outfit who had never been to college. He spoke of the expense necessary to keep up the position of lieutenant and ended his plaint with the request for fifty dollars.
The wee lamb had grown into a sheep, but the color of the coat still remained, if not of sable hue, at least a somewhat dull and dingy gray. This might have been predicted when, five years before, the boy had been brought to the Psychological Clinic for mental diagnosis because of backwardness in school and a general ability to get into trouble and a subsequent inability to get out of it. On examination he did very well in mechanical tests where the skill required was largely manual and the mental elements involved were those whose development come early in life. He possessed a limited vocabulary and a narrow memory span, but his retentive memory was good, and material which could be learned by rote he secured easily. He was not able to work out problems for himself either at the laboratory or at school where he was able to keep up with his class in the seventh grade in every subject except arithmetic. He had only fair imageability, and his imagination was not that of the normal adolescent boy but more like that to be expected from a nine or ten-year old. In short, his performances indicated that he was equipped with the sort of ability which is needed in routine work, an ability which is ample to provide a livelihood in factory or shop, but which is never able to clearly imagine processes or results. His behavior indicated this also, for he was always caught in any misdemeanor, however small. He never could manage to cover his tracks or arrange for an alibi as most children do. More serious difficulties in the city easily involved him with the police, for no matter how many of his gang escaped, he never did. The present instance of impersonation of an officer was a case in kind, for he made no effort to avoid discovery and apparently had never thought of the possibility of any one’s finding him out. That he was not reported was due to the kindness of friends and not to any cleverness of his own. The diagnosis in his case was that of normal mentality with the reservation that his environment would need to remain simple or his lack of ability to foresee consequences would sooner or later result in entanglements with the law.
Mary.
A rosy-cheeked, snub-nosed little girl sat at the kindergarten table ready to show the” psychologist what she could do. Giggling excitedly, she reached for the blocks in the formboard almost before it had left the examiner’s hands. Hurriedly she tried a four-sided figure in a three-sided space, paused a moment, and then pushing valiantly, attempted to force it into place, meantime glancing inattentively around the room. Gasping and struggling, she finally placed the blocks, a foolish little giggle finishing the performance. A second trial called forth as great effort. The third trial was successful. Mary was just six?a brown-haired, blue-eyed little maiden with regular teeth and velvety skin. Perhaps the head was a bit small, but the sturdy body gave no hint that all was not as it should be. With hurried movements, Mary continued the business of the day. She tried other mechanical tests to her discomforture. She could not match the colors shown on the faces of four blocks placed together to form a square. With breath restrained and deep gurgling noises, she made her squares, but failed to notice the position of the colors in her copy.
Unheedingly, she followed the words of the examiner with immediate responses, too impatient to listen to directions. Only by the utmost effort did she restrain herself when four digits were said to her for her to repeat. Her age was a matter foreign to her, color names were meaningless and counting an impossiblilty. The day of the week, the number of her sisters and details of family life were as unknown to her as to the heathen Chinese.
Mary’s family found her hard to live with. While she possessed cleanly habits and could be useful around the home, her methods of play were difficult for other children to endure. The ways of the far-famed “wild man” are effeminate compared with those of Mary when she played with other children.
As an infant, Mary was different from other children, as her food did not agree with her and she developed a bad case of marasmus. Before Mary’s arrival, her mother still suffered the afterSOMETIME LATER. 213 ffeects of typhoid-pneumonia. Nevertheless, at one and a half years, Mary was walking and talking.
Mary’s manner, attitude and slow response suggested the mental defective. She showed marked retardation both in the way she did things and in the kind of things she could do. Other children feared her and she was not able to take her place with them as a peer. In every respect, she was distinctly younger in mental development than her years led the examiner to expect. He returned a diagnosis of Low Grade Imbecile based on Barr’s Classification, because of the marked retardation, and of moral imbecility because of the social incompetence.
Eighteen months later the same examiner had presented to him another little girl. Truly another little girl although the name borne by the two was the same. The same well-built little body, well-nourished and strong, the same eyes and teeth and the same creamy skin, all changed in appearance by the absence of the silly, babyish giggle, the quick indrawn breath, the nervous movement. Mary had been to school. She had learned to get along with others well enough to stay there. She had been no star in her studies, and belonged, like Emmy Lou, at the bottom of the class, but she had passed. She still had tantrums, when she bit and kicked and struck the other children, but she had been possible to live with and her “spells” occurred at longer and longer intervals.
Clinic tasks were performed easily and as quickly as was to be expected from a child of her years. She matched her colors and made designs in record time and counted correctly to 1G. Many of the questions in the Binet tests were quite outside the realm of her training, but, even so, she succeeded in scoring a mental age twentytwo months less than her chronological age, the failures occurring on such questions as the days of the week, the names of the months, the names of coins, or on attention span which still remained low. She appeared retarded, but of normal mentality notwithstanding the earlier diagnosis.
Six months later the attention span had become five digits and marked improvement was noted in the speed with which she attacked mechanical tests. She worked well in the home, but failed to enjoy school. A possible reason for this may have been the frequent headaches which suggested eye strain. Otherwise her physical condition continued excellent. She could and did do passing work in school subjects and there seemed no reason for expecting her to do other than make the usual promotions.
Why this gain from seeming imbecility to dull normality? Who can say? Beyond the care usual to children of middle class parents, she had nothing in the way of mental or physical stimulation which would account for the greater mental activity. Her home was neither better nor worse and other environment remained the same. Nature seemed to be taking a hand in the game, providing in some way for the increased activity which manifested itself so prominently in the improved behavior.
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