Maurice
Diagnostic Teaching :Author: Catharine Riggs, University of Pennsylvania.
Maurice, a pathetic looking Jewish chap, came to the Clinic in October for the third year. On this appearance, he gave a far different picture from the first time he had come in 1920. He had grown very much, in fact was now very large for his age and was much less nervous and frail looking than he had been a few years before.
Maurice was first referred to the Clinic from the Nervous Dispensary of the University Hospital because of suspected mental deficiency. He could not get along in school and his mother was compelled to take him out entirely, because of peculiar motions he constantly made with his hands before his face. Moreover, he was very queer and hyper-suggestible. If he were walking along the street and saw a worm crawling on the ground, he would squirm and ask whether the worms were crawling over him. He would insist that some one remove his coat, no matter where he might be, and take off the worms.
In the first examination, three years ago, Maurice scored an Intelligence Quotient of 84 on the Termain Revision of the BinetSimon Scale. He showed a lack of coordination and control throughout the tests. He was diagnosed as not feebleminded, but placement in a special class and also clinic teaching was recommended. For this reason, he was brought to the Clinic to try to discover the specific cause for his retardation. His mother claimed that the child was normal up to the time he entered school. He was, however, sightly retarded in his early accomplishments, in that he made no attempt at walking until sixteen months and did not talk until two years of age.
Some of his condition may be accounted for by the fact that a neurotic strain runs through the family. The father was a police sergeant who, five months prior to the birth of Maurice, developed a kind of epileptic seizure as the result of a fight with twenty colored men. This condition, of course, made the mother very nervous. The father continued these fits every three weeks for five years. Before the convulsions developed, however, he had many bad falls, consequently it is a question whether or not these seizures can be traced to the fight or whether they would have appeared eventually under normal conditions. There is no further history of epilepsy in the family, although one of the paternal brothers is in an insane institution in a neighboring state and the child of another is feebleminded. Maurice was subject to violent fits of temper, but these can probably be accounted for in terms of environment rather than heredity, because he was always protected by an over-indulgent mother. He soon learned that by developing a display of temper he could accomplish almost anything. He has become very clever in avoiding duties and responsibilities unpleasant to him and he never does anything he does not care to.
Maurice’s brothers and sister do not seem to be affected mentally by their environment and heredity. Winfield, thirteen, is in the first year of high school; Benjamin, twelve, is in the eighth A grade. Miriam, supposedly the child of one of their relatives, seems normal for her three years. The boys, although apparently normal mentally, are not healthy and are very neurotic looking.
The second time Maurice came for a clinical examination, nine months after the first, he made an I. Q. of 103 and finally, when he was examined one year later, he scored one of 116. This showed a steady and persistent gain on his part. Hence he showed considerable trainability and it was considered worth while to try to educate him. With an I. Q. of 116 and a certain amount of trainability, Maurice should have been able to get along fairly well provided he had not specific defects that would hinder him. Therefore, to discover just why he could not get along at school, he was recommended to come to the Clinic again this fall for diagnostic teaching. In October of this year, when Maurice was brought to the Clinic, he was apparently almost cured of the curious movements that suggested mental deficiency. During the entire period of diagnostic treatment, he failed to display any of these antics. The diagnosis made by a medical doctor (February 10, 1922) was to the effect that these were habit spasms that would probably disappear if entirely disregarded. He did not seem to think these were due to a hereditary condition. The doctor believed that, because of his responsiveness and sensitiveness, Maurice was a worth while case for observation and study. This, of course, made his case more hopeful.
In his clinic teaching, I found (just as his teacher had said) that he had very poor concentration and retention. This showed up more in his reading than in anything else. He did not seem to be able to remember a single word from one time to the next. In the case of spelling, for example, he invariably spelled the word “who “hoo.” Each lesson I had him write it many times and spell it orally, but it seemed to make no impression. He would remember it for that lesson but two days later he would have absolutely forgotten it. This was not true of just one word, but merely an example of many. Maurice was given some words to study each week at home. He always assured me that he did them, but he never knew them any better than he did the last time. He was very clever in making excuses for why he did not know the work and always had some queer alibi. His stories really showed a vivid imagination. I am inclined to think that in the case of Maurice, perhaps this poor memory was not a question purely of retentivity but was more directly due to his concentration or rather lack of concentration. In his reading, he did not even seem to try to concentrate; he plainly was not interested. If I told him a word he would repeat it parrot like, but really never gave it a thought. While he was reading he would squirm continually and hold the book at every possible angle from his eyes. This is about the only time there was any evidence of his nervous behavior. The fact that he could not seem to get the book at the proper focus may have been due to his vision. He did have a specific eye defect and wore glasses last year, but he broke them while playing baseball and has never had them repaired. This may have been partly the cause for his fidgeting, but I believe it was more of an excuse than anything else.
Maurice’s reading was a very slow process, indeed one simply had to drag the words from him, and he never seemed to recognize the same word twice. It always seemed new to him, and each time he would have to stop and spell it out before he realized what it was. This may have been due to defective imagery which was again suggested in the Healy A test in the clinical examination. He seemed to have great trouble in obtaining an image and had to solve it each time as a new problem. Thus, perhaps, he is defective both in retentivity and imageability. On the other hand, he passed the problem of the enclosed boxes which undoubtedly tests one’s power of mental imageability.
In addition to poor concentration in his reading, there was another factor that entered in, that of either poor teaching or lack of teaching. During the period of diagnostic teaching he had not grasped the most elementary factors in reading. He had a rather good idea of phonetics and how he should sound out words, but this was difficult to do in words like “who, there,” etc. In the 0. B. class that Maurice attended he had practically no practice in reading, so of course this helped to set him back. In an 0. B. class most of the children are not capable of learning to read much, so it is not given very often.
I feel that Maurice was very definitely trainable, and educable to a certain extent. In arithmetic he did very well and learned the work quickly. He knew all his tables and learned very easily how to use them in simple problems. The interesting fact about him is that he would remember from week to week how to do these problems. Certainly he showed no defective retentivity here. Perhaps one of the facts that would help explain this is that Maurice was interested more or less in arithmetic and liked to do it. He had absolutely no interest in readng. The books and stories he had to read, due to the level of his school proficiency, were entirely too elementary for him. He would read through a whole story without showing a spark of interest in it. It was just as if reading so many words.
This lack of ambition and interest may have been due to the boy’s low vitality. He seemed to tire very easily and his output of energy was very low. I explained to him that if he did not try harder with his work and take more interest in it, he could not possibly go into a regular second grade. His answer was that he did not want to, he liked the grade he was in well enough. He seemed to need constant urging and pushing to get him to go on with his work. At the present time, Maurice certainly could not go into a second grade class. His reading proficiency is not even first grade. However, his proficiency in arithmetic is perhaps a little above the normal for second grade.
Since Maurice does not really have first grade proficiency, he is not normal, he could not conform to the general run of children. Thence, if he cannot conform to the standards set up by society he is feebleminded. The final diagnosis was “quantitatively but not qualitatively feebleminded. Type: hysteric, hyper-suggestible, undeveloped control due to neglect of home training.”
It was recommended that Maurice be taken from his home environment and placed. Elwyn was suggested as perhaps the best possible place for him. It was also suggested that his educational treatment be continued.
It seems extremely urgent that he be placed away from home. His mother has decidedly spoiled and petted him and has no idea of discipline, but she fortunately is able to see the need of placing him in another environment. At the present time the social agency is hunting a suitable place for him.
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.