The Grading and Analytic Diagnosis of a Feebleminded Boy
DIAGNOSTIC TEACHING. :Author: L. Doris Wilcox, Senior, School of Education, U. of P.
When Edward was examined at the Psychological Clinic this spring he was pronounced qualitatively feebleminded. The examiner noted particularly these defects: poor distribution of attention, distractability of attention, a limited imagination and a poor memory. But the boy had good motor coordination, good judgment, excellent persistence and a fair amount of general information; and these facts led the examiner to wonder just how teachable Edward was. Was he trainable in manual and intellectual arts, or in manual arts and the simplest mental acquirements, or was he only trainable in the simplest manual and industrial occupations? The best way of solving the question was by an attempt to teach. Accordingly, Edward has come for clinical instruction three times, remaining about an hour each time.
The boy is ten years old, well grown and well developed, but he is not very well. Has very poor vision, lacks energy, has adenoids and enlarged tonsils and bad teeth and has had a cold for about three weeks.
One of the first things I found out about Edward was that he knew no words or letters, printed or written. He could not even spell his own name. He counted to twenty-three but knew practically no arithmetic. He said that five less three are four. It is interesting to note that Edward is in the 2B grade in school. His principal was not aware of the fact that he could not read or write anything nor even recognize letters. She said he was dull but was “not a bad boy.” She remarked that he was in the second grade because the superintendent had required that if too many pupils in a grade failed to make a passing mark, some of them should be promoted on condition.
At the first lesson I attempted to teach Edward to print one word. I taught him to move his arm vertically and horizontally and to obey the commands: “Raise your right arm vertically up. Move your right arm horizontally to the right.” As he knew left and right and had a memory span of five, this was comparatively easy. Next, I gave him chalk and had him make horizontal and vertical strokes on the board. When he could do that, I said, “Make a vertical stroke.” He did so.
“Make a horizontal stroke, at the bottom of that and to the right.” He carried out the command easify. “That letter is L.” He repeated “L” and made four new L’s. “Now make a circle.” He did so. “That is the letter O.” “What is it?” “0.” We drilled on 0 and reviewed L. “Now make a vertical stroke. At the top draw a horizontal stroke, going both ways.”
“That is the letter T.” Apparently he learned T. Then I put the letters together and told him he knew how to spell a word: LOT. He seemed delighted and wrote L 0 T all over the board. He said “L-O-T, lot,” frequently as if he liked the sound. Then I asked him to point to T. He pointed to L. When I pointed to L he called it 0. He did not even attempt to name T. I took a box of anagrams and selected L, 0, and T and placed them before Edward, drilling until he seemed to know them. Ten minutes later he was able to spell and write LOT, but did not know the three letters.
In number work, I began by teaching him to count backward from six. When he could say, “1 ? 2?3?4?5 ? 6, 6?5?4?3 ? 2 ? 1,” I reviewed 1 + 1=2, 2+1=3, 3+1=4, 4+1=5, 5+1=6. All of these he knew fairly well before. Then 6 ? 1=5, 5 ? 1=4, 4?1=3, 3 ? 1=2, 2?1 = 1. He had difficulty in figuring that out, but when I gave him six blocks to work with and guided him by taking away one at a time, he finally saw the plan, and was able, after thinking a moment, to give the correct answer to any of these problems. With the Witmer Formboard he did well. He had seen it once before while he was being examined. .His first performance took twenty-six seconds. He made no errors. The second time he brought his record down to seventeen seconds, and on the third trial he put away every block correctly in fifteen seconds, which compares well with the records of the majority of normal children. The following week Edward could write LOT, but did not know any of the letters contained in the word. He remembered none of the arithmetic I had taught him except the addition by one. I reviewed the entire lesson, and the boy seemed to learn it a little more easily than before.
In addition I tried some of the Binet material. With the pictures he gave an excellent enumeration and passed the Vlll-year “similarity test,” but failed on the VH-year “dissimilarity test.” The third week, when Edward came to the clinic, I gave him a sliced animal puzzle to put together. He manipulated the pieces futilely and finally gave up without any success.
He wrote LOT on the board and spelled it aloud, but did not know the letters. He could count backward from six, but could not subtract by one without blocks. The poor performance may have been partially due to the fact that Edward was suffering from a bad cold and a headache. He has been discharged from the clinic temporarily until his adenoids and tonsils have been removed and his physical condition has improved.
What has the clinical teaching accomplished? Principally it made possible a slight particularization of diagnosis. It has shown conclusively that Edward is trainable in manual and industrial work, and also that he is somewhat teachable in mental acquirements. We are justified in placing him above the grade of a low-grade imbecile. Now the question is: Will he be able to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, or is he only capable of the very simplest mental acquisitions? Up to the present time it is impossible to say. The results are not conclusive, for the lessons have been too far apart, and Edward has not been in good physical condition.
In this case it will be seen that further clinical instruction is necessary both for the .child’s sake and for the sake of the diagnosis. As soon as Edward is in good physical condition, he will return to the clinic every day until a satisfactory answer to the question is found.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.