The Spotless Child
- Author:
Beatrice Green,
University of Pennsylvania.
Marie might have stood for “the spotless child.” I wanted to look behind her back and see if she carried a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. It almost seemed a shame not to have her pose for an advertisement of starch or an electric iron, so stiffly did her skirts stand out. The petticoat pushed out the dress, and I think if you had taken that dress off and put it on the floor, it would have stood up and walked off by itself. One could hardly expect the wearer of these clothes to be a “regular fellow,” and in truth she was not. If Marie ever threw anything it was because she was told to do so. If Marie ever raced or romped, it was in a half-hearted way. And if Marie ever screamed it would have been recorded foi a precedent.”
So you may imagine nine-year old Marie a quiet and gentle maiden. Maybe she is not even a maiden, but more like a timid Flopsy, or Mopsv, without the tail. Only her eyes were blue, and the red was in her cheeks that shone like apples in the window at Childs’. At least she was soft and delightful to cuddle or play with. She was not like our boisterous children of to-day, who respect no one, and wipe off all efforts of affection with t he backs of their hands. It was pleasant to meet one who would sit quietly where she was put, who would not interrupt a conversation, who spoke only when spoken to, and sometimes not then, for Marie preferred to answer in a whisper, and it is not always heard. One could imagine Marie s great-grandmother sitting in just the same fashion, and rustling down to step primly across the room. But here Marie does not follow in her ancestor’s footsteps. It seemed as if Marie were bent on having at least one masculine trait. No boy ever walked more determinedly. She took immense steps and her arms swung at a great rate. Swinging also, but in different rhythm, was her bobbed hair, yellow and straight like ripe straw. One would think she had exactly half a minute to reach the most important place in the world, and did not care if all her appendages flew off on the way. So there was Marie, loving as a child could be, dainty as a fairy tale princess, but handicapped in the game of life. For her parents would gladly have had her rude and unaffectionate. They would have rejoiced to see her clothcs soiled and torn, if only Marie’s min< had responded to (lie stimuli of the world and people as other children’s minds do. You could almost guess Marie’s character from her appearance. She was abnormally shy, because her mother told me that she behaved much better at home. Here she retired into a shell ot starch, and I could hardly open it widely enough for Marie to get her tongue out. If the starch stood for reserve, and the cleanliness for sweetness, there were two other traits represented by her determined stride and thin hair. These were a strong will and a narrow mind. Marie was spoiled. No one could doubt that. She knew what she was not going to do, and it was so much wasted time to fry and move her. This was due probably to the fact that she had been sick a great deal, and also to her mental state. If normal discipline had been possible, and she had grown as she should, Marie would probably have been a lively and interesting child. As it is, she is just a spoiled baby. She plays with children five years old, and she is very like a child of this age, were it not for her lack of language and unresponsiveness. Poor little Marie! What will she do when her chums are eight, but she is still five? However, Marie was more than fortunate in her mother. She had the most charming of mothers, so interested in her backward child! She looked like Marie. Marie was a little blonde with big blue eyes which looked still larger because of the thick glasses she always wore. But where Marie’s hair was limp, her mother’s gleamed, and where Marie’s eyes were dull and pleading, her Mother’s danced with life. Her manner was delightful, kind and protecting to Marie, gracious and grateful to me. She hid ull the pain and doubts that anxiety about her child must have caused her and tried to help her in every way. She was most appreciative of everything I did for Marie. The care she took of the child was obvious, and in view of her history of illnesses, Marie must have needed devoted care.
Just to look at her medical history in the clinic report is distressing. Boils and intestinal trouble at five months, then whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and a very bad case of measles. arouses more pity to think of one frail little body suffering so much. Her fate was scaled in those first few months, and the rest of the list only intensified the tragedy. For it is a tragedy. She did not walk until over two years, and started to talk about five. She teethed late. Here we see why she was so quiet. All her vitality had gone to combat sickness. And there was none left for growing, so she is undeveloped. Years have been cut from her life. Arc we surprise’ that no extra strength was left to nourish the brain? She had eye defect that was noticed at the age of one year and corrected. 1 hen this year her mother brought her to the clinic because of mental status and retardation.
The results of the tests show how great this retardation is. Marie had never been to grade school, although she had attended Kindergarten for a while. Pier teacher there thought that she lacked the ability to grasp things. From the results seen here, I would say that it was not an untrue criticism. Marie, although nine years old, had a basal age on the Binet Tests of three years, and her I. Q. was 37. 1 feel sure that her inability to get a better score was primarily due to the fact that the Binet examination tests required knowledge in the first place, and also that it required language ability. Then too. Marie, being very shy, was nervous during the test and did not do her best. Marie has acquired very little through observation and attention to the world around her. Her language, which developed late, has increased very slowly. I also think she would have had a basal age of four years if it had not been that her memory span is only 3. Here indeed is a stumbling block. This is as an iron bar to learning. It keeps her from associating more than three distinct elements and sets a limit beyond which it is useless to try and force a path. This indicates the cramped condition of her mind very clearly, and gives us a key to all her difficulties. Marie fell down on the question concerning money. She did not yet know the names, and could count only to four. She did not even know her left and right hand. She did much better on the performance tests. She was much more interested in these. Words and abstract questions were a struggle to her. But toys, and things you put together meant something. She started with the Witmer Formboard, and failed it the ‘!rst trial. This was a bad start, because most six year old children can pass it. However, after much practice, and doing it two weeks, she was able to complete it in 30 seconds. Her progress was not steady. She would do well twice, then take much longer the third time. With the Witmer cylinders the results were about the same. She was very slow in grasping the problem. I had to help her the first two times. Then she did it twice by herself. When she returned three days later, she asked for the cylinders as soon as she saw them, and did them in 2 minutes, which was a minute faster than her best the time before. But even after a great deal of practice, she still used the trial and error method, as she had at first. She was never able to do it faster than 1 minute 30 seconds and this score occurred only once. After this I went back to more simple tests, and Marie did the three-disc formboard in 4 seconds the first trial. She did the buttonhole rack in 55 seconds and improved to 3(5 seconds the second t ime. This was evidently material with which she was quite familiar. She delighted in stringing beads, and knew her colors by name. I tried the Youg Maze A, and found she had no understanding of the problem. She took longer each successive time, and seemed to become more puzzled the oftener she did it. In the meantime I had attempted to teach her some numbers. She had in all probability heard some numbers at home, but she could not count 1, 2, 3, nor associate them. If I asked her to hand me six blocks, I received three. In the month that I had her I was never able to teach her more than 1, 2, 3, 4. It seemed that everything past 3 was beyond her. She stretched her retention to 4, but she could associate no more.
I had much better success with spelling. Here there could be numerous groups of three. I was able to teach her “hot” and “boy”. She knew the letters, at least as they appeared in the words. But if I showed her “t” anywhere else, she would call it “h” or “hot”. However, she could write them on the board and associate them. She also knew the big wooden letters. The big difficulty here lay in the fact that she did not yet know how to pronounce her letters. “S” was pronounced “yes”. I worked over that every time. I tried every resource possible, and at the end of the teaching, she said “yes” foil’s” as confidently as she had the first time. Marie fatigued so quickly. It was impossible to drill her for any length of time. As a matter of fact, if you asked her the same question twice in succession, she invariably answered it wrongly the second time. She showed a profound lack of discrimination and distribution of attention. This was to be expected from the memory span. Her best quality was her retentivity, which was very enduring after she had once grasped the idea.
As was before mentioned, her language was poor. She could answer you in disconnected sentences, but most of the time she just shook her head “yes” or “no”. For the first few daj^s she answered “yes” to everything. No conditioned reflex to a questioning tone of voice could have been more accurate. Part of this may have been due to slyness, because I discovered later that she had more language than I had suspected. It was her habit to whisper. Even when I tried to teach her things, everything was repeated in a whisper. This was rather odd, because her mother said she had trouble keeping her quiet at home.
However, I did not find this statement to be true when I went to visit Marie. They lived in the suburbs in a typical Philadelphia house, not at all attractive from the outside, but very comfortable within. It was not so spotless as Marie, and it was just an ordinary substantial home.
Marie is a very unfortunate little girl. She was diagnosed as Middle Grade Imbecile (Barr Classification), which means the parents can be given little hope for her. This is an especially sad case, because she is so different from her sister, who is exceptionally smart, and is just two years older. The mother seems to be a woman of intelligence. She was a school teacher before she was married. Luckily for Marie, she has a home and parents who are greatly interested in her. She will not be at the mere}’ of society. Neither will she be a drain upon it, although she will never be able < o fill her place as a normal individual.
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