William
Diagnostic Teaching
I first saw William at the Saturday morning clinic when he came by appointment for a second examination. He is a commonplacelooking American boy with a pale freckled face, light tawny colored hair, dull blue eyes, and thick expressionless lips. His frontal regions are slightly depressed. Though he is thirteen years eight months of age, he looks about eleven, undersized and under weight. There were no other noticeable abnormalities. At that examination he passed the second grade reading test and the third grade spelling test. The examiner drilled him on the word “expedition,” which William wrote ” expetion,” omitting the syllable di. He was then compelled to spell it aloud three times, before making the second attempt to write it. This time he wrote “expedtion,” omitting i. His work in numbers indicated that he had a good memory span, a normal ability for mathematics, but a lack of efficiency training. The final diagnosis was postponed until after the attempt to teach had been made.
From the case record I gleaned some of the following information: William’s first examination at the University clinic was March 22, 1920. He had been brought by his mother and his teacher because of backwardness. He is in the fourth grade A when he should be in the seventh grade at least.
Family History: William’s birth was normal, but his mother, while pregnant, used to worry about him and prayed that he would not be like her husband’s feeble-minded brother who was living with them at the time. She herself has been in Kirkbride’s asylum twice; the first time was following the birth of the first child. William’s father has been drinking since he was fifteen, but not to excess. He goes on sprees there or four times a year. He is not interested in the educational or physical welfare of the children. His father was a heavy drinker and died of Bright’s disease when sixty years of age. His mother could not read, because she had never gone to school, but was “bright in managing the family.” She supported her children and her drinking husband by taking boarders. She had been married before, and had had thirteen children, all but four of whom died. Only one of the four remaining was really good, and that one was William’s father.
William’s maternal grandmother was a Swede. She was accidentally killed. His maternal grandfather was an American Indian. (116) DIAGNOSTIC TEACHING. 117 His brother Paul (eight years old) was examined at the clinic the same day for backwardness. William is not very good at home. He lies and takes things. He is also troublesome in school. After school hours he sells newspapers, making three dollars per week. He enjoys this work and likes to make money with which to buy things for himself. William has now had eight lessons of one hour each. As his school report emphasized his backwardness in reading and spelling, I first tested his reading ability. We began with Coe and Christie’s “Story Hours” for second grade. As this proved too easy, I tried him on Jones’ fourth grade reader. Some of these stories proved too difficult. The first story selected showed that William has a very limited vocabulary, for he did not know the meaning of words such as solemn, steady, ponderous, professor, flaxen. “A Boy’s Diving Trip ” by Robert Louis Stevenson had a vocabulary which was as unknown to him as a foreign language would be. A simplified version of Browning’s “Pied Piper,” arranged alternately in verse and prose, was a happier selection, though he stumbled over nearly all the words of three and more syllables and even on some words of one and two syllables such as nests, laugh, huge, quiet, journey, speaking, heavy, chamber. He reads in jerks, pausing after every three or four words, and never changes the expression of his voice, and regardless of all punctuation marks. Sometimes by spelling the word to himself he was able to pronounce it correctly. Thinking that he couldn’t possibly take in the sense of what he was reading when read in such a manner, I asked him to tell me what the story was all about. With the book closed he was able to give a fair outline of parts of the “Pied Piper,” and his responses to my questions and suggestions showed that he understood the story quite well and was even amused at parts of it.
We then tried the third grade “Riverside” reader, which seemed to be nearer to his ability. My procedure was to have William read two or three pages while I took note of all words mispronounced and syllables skipped. I soon found that words of more than two syllables with which he was not familiar were either skipped altogether or were called by something else which they resembled slightly, whether it made good sense or not. Mischief was called handkerchief, effort was called offer, see : he, now : how, rough : rush, Sir Ronad : Sir Walter Raleigh. But generally he left out the syllables which seemed uncomfortably abundant, those on the end getting the least attention; ed, ing, and final s seemed to be his pet aversions. Was this just slovenly carelessness, or poor visual and auditory imagery, or the result of bad training and poor environment? The fact that a small part of a word would suggest another that he had had in his past experience showed that his visual associational area was adequate, but it also indicated that he either lacked or was not using other abilities. Either his apperception was stronger than his present sensations, or that he relies upon an old memory rather than use energy in acquiring new memories.
To find out whether there was a real specific defect and if so, its relation to other performances, I gave him a series of performance tests. I first used the design blocks to test his visual imagery. He copied a simple, four-block, two-color design very quickly, so I then gave him a complicated design of thirty-six four-color cubes. He copied this carefully and slowly, showing planfulness and good method. He first did the outer border consisting of twenty blocks, then the central set design of four, all correctly; then he filled in with the remaining ten. The colors were correct, but he had four of these in the wrong position, and did not notice the mistakes. When asked if they were all right, he looked at the model, and changed the position of four correct ones to correspond with the four incorrect ones; when asked again, he looked more carefully at the model and corrected them. These results confirmed his method of reading. He has fair discrimination, and adequate visual imagery when he exerts himself to use it. He fails on the small details because it takes too much effort to analyze. I then tested his visual retentiveness by showing him the four-block chevron design for two seconds. He was unable to copy it from the first glance, but succeeded on the second glance. A double design of eight cubes arranged in two rows of four gave him no trouble, only one glance was necessary. This confirmed his good imageability and the visual memory span of seven given in the clinical report.
The Healy puzzles showed his good visual and motor imagery, and his trainability with concrete material. On the second trials he remembered how he had placed the blocks, and reduced his time considerably. The Knox triangle and cross were easily solved. William showed discrimination and intelligent method, he was interested and enjoyed doing them. I then gave him some simple problems in mental arithmetic, such as: “If you can get 12 pencils for 20 cents, how many for 60 cents?” 36. A quick and correct answer. “If you can get 10 pencils for 25 cents, how many for 75 cents?” 30. A quick and correct answer. “If you can get 3 oranges for 10 cents, how many for 80 cents?” After much thought he said 30, 26. “Now think.” After a pause he said 24, but could not tell me how he got it. “If you get 3 apples for 5 cents, how much would a dozen cost?” He gave the correct answer 20, but could not tell the process. He said that he “divided 5 into 20.”
Though he said he had never had fractions in school, he made only one mistake in the following examples: ? of 12, of 24, ^ of 25, | of 24. He remembers his multiplication tables and applies them well enough for fourth grade work, but he cannot visualize the process. However, I feel confident that ability could be developed with training. These tests showed me some of his abilities, and that his special defects were neither visual nor motor imageability; he has enough intelligence to solve new problems if they are not too complex; his trainability is adequate for manual and simple “intellectual arts.” His associability (memory span) is good. His attention is good enough when he is interested, though it could never be called “alert, persistent, and analytic.” There was slowness, a lack of energy, of animation, of keenness, a general impression of laziness, a disinclination to make an effort, of not developing according to his maximum ability for improvement.
Feeling that I must get at something more specific, and knowing that his reading and spelling showed greatest lack of training, I devoted the remaining lessons to these school subjects. We continued with the third grade reader. When he stumbled over a word, I made him spell it aloud, reread the passage where it was contained, and after he had finished the story, I would point to these words at random and make him read them again. Then to my slow dictation, being careful to pronounce each syllable distinctly, he wrote them on the blackboard. His spelling was a feat of originality, syllables were omitted and other letters were substituted. He wrote these words as follows:
fortunate fortiante particularly particlary surprised surpiced magnificent magnicent cavern carven beautiful beauful advanced advince three there nation nishon . came come automobile autobull (always reads come for came) This showed that he either had very bad training, or that there was a decided defect in the association of auditory and written language, probably both. William is not deaf, though it might indicate a lack of keen discrimination for sound. He says his eyeglasses suit him perfectly. When he hears a word he can repeat it accurately, showing that his auditory kinesthetic complex is adequate, but he cannot associate the sound of that word with its written and printed symbols. He probably has never been taught to distribute his attention over the whole word, or to give attention to the syllabification of words. He gets a part of the word, and that satisfies him, so he either skips a syllable or relies upon past memories of certain letter combinations and gives out a different word containing that particular combination. When he writes the word, the old careless habit supervenes, and he writes it as he would probably read it, not as he just heard it. He always pronounces “automobile” correctly, but after many drills he wrote it “auto-bull” or “autobill.”
As he had never been taught the phonic method, I first taught him the vowels and consonants as a basis for syllabic division. He soon learned the vowels, and could underscore them in each word, but he was not always successful in dividing the words into the correct number of syllables. After each reading lesson, I drilled him in this way on the words which gave him difficulty, and also gave him phonetic drills on words ending in ion, ian, ough, ing, ed. We began each lesson with a review of the words he had learned the day before. The first review showed that he had retained 10 out of 16. The four errors were:
quiet quieet effort aford journey jarney conquered conkered The second review he failed on 8 out of 25, and another time 12 out of 24. Once I gave him a list of 20 words to take home to study. The next day he knew all but one. He said that his mother had helped him to learn them, by making him write them several times. After a few days I found he was beginning to apply “phonics” to his reading but not to his spelling and writing, so I kept up the drills every day.
On the fifth day I reviewed him in the spelling of 32 words that he had been drilled on at previous lessons. He failed on 9. Later in the lesson, when he was writing from dictation, I inserted these nine words at random and he made only six errors, showing that motor and visual memory plus a little more time reduced his failures one-third.
The reading lesson that day showed that he was improving slowly. When he came to a long difficult word, before attempting to pronounce it, he spelled it to himself, and integrated the syllables without my assistance. This resulted in a loss of time but a gain in accuracy. He did not skip the final s, ed, ing, as formerly, but he still read come for came, was for were, and other grammatical errors* showing that acquired habits due to environment still persisted. On the sixth day I gave him an intensive drill on the following eight review words:
conquered automobile magnificent enormous echoes caution beautiful conversation After an interval of thirty minutes, he wrote them all correctly. He can learn when he applies himself to the task, but it takes more repetitions and more time than with the average boy. I also discovered that a great deal depends on his mood. On the seventh day he failed on 12 words out of 25 on which he had been drilled at least four different times. That day he appeared sulky and unwilling to make an effort. He showed plainly by his facial expression and general manner that he enjoyed the stories but was bored by the spelling.
At the end of his eight lessons, I felt there had been some progress made. His reading had improved, and he had acquired a new method for simplifying spelling, but whether he will use it or not is a question, for one of his defects is a lack of ambition to improve, and to exercise what abilities he has. He shows plainly that he has not had the proper training at home nor in school. He needs discipline as well as special training in school subjects, if he is to acquire sixth grade proficiency before he is sixteen. Above all he needs proper incentives to apply himself. However, he cannot be blamed altogether for his lack of interest in acquiring school proficiency, because due to our present abnormal labor conditions, William can make a good wage without physical strength, manual skill, and sixth grade efficiency. He is now making S3 per week after school hours selling newspapers, and is to make from $15 to $18 per week this summer as a messenger boy. When comparing all his abilities with his defects, my conclusion is that from the social point of view he is normal. He will be able to support himself even if labor conditions are not so favorable as at present, for he has enough intelligence and trainability to be useful in industrial and manual arts, and to conform to socio-legal requirements. From an analytical viewpoint, I should rate some of his abilities from 3.1 to 3.4, others at 2.4 and 2.5. From the Barr classification I should say, “His mental processes are normal but slow, and requiring special training and environment to prevent deterioration.”
My summary of diagnostic teaching reads as follows: William is retarded psychologically, because his mental processes, though normal, are slow. He is retarded pedagogically, because of poor training and lack of ambition. He could get along better in school if he would apply himself and use a little more energy in that direction.
His visual and motor imageability are good, 3.5 on the five point scale. Trainability in manual and intellectual arts, 3.4 Attention (persistent and analytic) 2.4 Energy and rate of discharge 2.4 Educability in school subjects 2.5
The predominant defect found as the result of eight hours’ teaching was in the association between auditory and written language. M. Alice Weir, University of Pennsylvania.
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