Studies in Diagnostic Education Louis
- Author:
Arthur Phillips
Clinic Teacher, University of Pennsylvania Language ability, a musical talent, an intellectual structure that could and did function at a high level constituted the endowment of a Jewish maiden, who was brought to America, the land of opportunity, from Russia. She was in her tenth year. Soon the alien tongue of the new land was mastered, and the superior intellect asserted itself in such academic performance as made her the equal in grade and then the superior of many of her own age in the public schools. Her musical talent had been developed to a high degree of proficiency under competent instruction. But she was unhappy?
badly adjusted in and to the new environment. Hypersensitive, a bit unstable emotionally, she felt keenly the social ostracism accorded to members of her race. A more refined type of persecution took the place of the pogrom in the fear of which her ancestors had lived for generations and her own early years had been spent. She remembers with gratitude the school principal who first recognized her abilities and gave her that chance for self-expression and sense of achievement that every child craves and needs. Then she married and in time came the child. At one year, he was walking and talking. Before he had rounded out four years, he could undress and partly dress himself, sing in time and tune with a clear musical voice, write and spell correctly his own name and many common words. Surely here is an exceptional child. Once again we have the triple endowment?language ability, musical talent, intellectual superiority. Like his mother surely. Like her also in other respects, and in particular in that lack of adjustment to those of his own age which so often results when a child like Louis, a weird combination of infantilism and adultism, of social inferiority and intellectual superiority is thrown into the pele viele of public school life. Casually, an examiner in the Clinic remarked in conference with his mother, “Your boy is much like you.” “Yes, like me,’’ replied the mother half sobbing, ‘’ and he must suffer like me, go through what I had to experience.”?Which, of course, means that having an exceptional child to train has its own peculiar problems. More of this anon.
LOUIS 79
Louis made his first appearance at the Clinic in February, 1924, when he was three years and eleven months old. The public prints had carried a story of the work that Dr Witmer has been doing at the University of Pennsylvania since the founding of the Psychological Clinic in 1896, in orthogenic guidance. Hither, then, Louis’ mother brought the child. She was convinced that Louis was not J ike other children of his own age?that he was superior but in what respect and to what degree, she would have determined. Behind this there was another question more urgent, however she Phrased it, which amounted to this, “Could psychology point out the way in which this child might be guided so as to develop his intellectual life to the maximum, and, at the same time, lead to an adequate social adjustment?” This was and is the challenge which Louis presents to the science of Orthogenics. Normal development is not determined by some hypothetical norm. What is normal for one child may not be normal for another. Normal for Louis or any other child implies such a development on the scales of growth and culture as will enable him to function, not only without loss, but with maximum efficiency according to the measure of all his congenital abilities. The development of mind and body pari passu, growth in knowledge through education and experience, and adequate adjustment to one’s environment, and the people who constitute such a large element in it?all are involved. Confessedly, it is a large order.
When Dr Witmer made the initial examination, it was discovered that Louis possessed an Intelligence Quotient of 172 on the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon, which places him in a group 1 per cent superior to 99 per cent, possibly higher. His basal age Was five. Of the starred tests at the six year level, he failed only in ‘multilated pictures”; at the seven year level only in “copying the diamond.” His only success at the eight year level was in counting backward?20 to 0.” The ability to note differences which usually appears about the seventh year was functioning. His observation, another congenital ability, a complex of attention and memory, was good but his exploring attention was lacking in the finer discriminations necessary in finding the missing parts of the mutilated pictures. On the whole, his successes register the superiority of his home and informational background, in which the mother bulks so large. In the Performance Tests, his work was by no means exceptional. In the Witmer Formboard, which is standardized at four years, on the first and second trials his performance was that of a six year old child, who is superior to but 10 per cent of his age group. In the Cylinders, standardized at six years, he showed very little conception of the problem involved, failing on the first trial. After instruction he succeeded in doing the problem in 183 seconds. The ability involved in these tests is psycho-motor. On the Binet-Simon, he received a mental age of six years and nine months. Whatever may be included in the concept of “mental age,” it does not in the case of Louis carry along with it the psycho-motor competency of the age level of his Binet M.A. His competency rating here is not much above that of the average four year old child. Fifty per cent of six year olds solve the Cylinders on first trial, when for them it is a new problem, an intelligence test. Careful analysis compels us to say that the intelligence of Louis, as demonstrated in the field of form, does not correlate with his Binet mental age.
Associability, according to Dr Witmer, is the “congenital characteristic?which makes the development of the intellect possible.” The best index of this ability is the memory span. Louis’ auditory span was six, which put him in the highest decile of children of six years. His visual?he could read numbers well?was five. This pointed to superiority in the fundamental intellectual operations, comparison and discrimination. Language ability is a talent which the child of less than four demonstrated. Up to the date of his examination, he was the youngest child to display a knowledge of phonics in the Clinic. By phonic analysis, without teaching, he spelled and wrote on the board hors and cow. He added an e to hors and said, ” Now it is horsey.’’ Asked to make it plural, he said “It needs a Z.”
Throughout the examination, he was cooperative, showed good endurance and superior educational facilities, including early training in music and a foreign language. In November, 1925, Louis was brought by his mother to the Clinic to make arrangements for clinic teaching in the pre-school class. He was taken before a class by Dr Witmer to demonstrate a superior child. He was given the Witmer Cylinders?a problem he failed to solve at three years and eleven months?and succeeded on the first trial in 215 seconds, which gave him a rating of 10 per cent superior to 50 per cent and inferior to 40 per cent at the six-year level. On the second trial, he reduced his time to 92 seconds, and raised his rating two deciles, showing excellent trainability. He reLOUIS 81 versed four digits easily and five digits once out of three trials. As the reverse span has been demonstrated to be a good index of complexity of intellectual structure, and of especial value in prognosis ?f school proficiency, the earlier diagnosis of the boy was confirmed. He is distinctly of the intellectual type.
In January, 1926, his Intelligence Quotient was found to be 192. He is now five years and ten months old. His mental age is six years and nine months. In two years less one month, his I.Q. had advanced approximately twenty points. His basal age was six; his upper limit nine. At the seven-year level he failed ‘’ differences ‘ in which he succeeded at three years and eleven months. He succeeded in giving the difference between a “fly and butterfly,” but failed on the succeeding differences, thus reversing his performance on the earlier examination.
At the eight-year level, he failed of a vocabulary of 20, his score being 12. At first flush, this appears amazing in a child with such evident language ability. He was, even at this age, a great conversationalist. He talked incessantly during the Formboard examination, showed “excellent language ability, good reasoning powers and a great deal of imagination.” His talk, though excessive, was intelligent and interesting. He printed several words on the board. He spelled “mouse,” an unfamiliar word, thus showing good analysis and synthesis of sound. The relative meagerness of his vocabulary ttiay be traced to the home. Vocabulary grows with reading, or being read to. When Louis began to receive clinic teaching, it was discovered that he was totally lacking in that historical background that every American child has before he goes to school. He knew nothing about our heroes. George Washington cut down a cherry tree. Benjamin Franklin built the University of Pennsylvania. Thanksgiving Day was a day when you ate turkey.
More than this, it took a whole week to read the story of Columbus in Rowland’s “Heroes of Early History.” He had no interest in the subject matter, and soon became tired and restless. In the story of William Penn, the thing that interested him most was the derivation of the words’’Philadelphia’’ and’’Pennsylvania.’’ When his teacher read to him, he had difficulty in paying attention and seemed bored. It was manifestly a great effort for him to read and keep at it. The problem here was one of motivation rather than ability to read. It was an affair of interest and that concentration of attention which grows out of it. His congenital ability had not been harnessed to a task. It was not producing. This would change under proper guidance and it did. Under the skillful tutelage of his teacher, interest was quickened and increased until one day the lad blurts out, ” I’m glad you picked out history for me to read. I am beginning to learn a lot of interesting things.’’ He had been introduced into a new world. Vocabulary will take care of itself from this time on.
The I.Q., it is fairly presumed, depends much on schooling whether in the home or in the school. It correlates highly with vocabulary. General information the boy possessed. His vocabulary was not so good. How then is this advance in I.Q. to be accounted for? The answer is the appearance and functioning of an ability that is congenital, and that develops with education and experience only within certain circumscribed limits, congenitally set?the memory span. He is credited with four months at the twelve year level, with seven and a half months at the sixteen year level, with nine months at the eighteen year level?all for the reverse memory span, scored according to the Stanford plan. Add to this, three months at the nine year level for the same ability, and you have a total of twenty-four and a half months, more than two years, increase in Binet mental age, or an increase of nearly fifty points in I.Q. What had happened to Louis in the interval between approximately his fourth and sixth year was this. He had learned how to reverse digits, and the primal associability that lies at the basis of intellectual progress was found to be superior as tested by performance in competition with other children at his own age. In other respects, his development was what might be expected of a normal child.
We are prepared now to tell the story of Louis’ schooling and are reasonably assured that the high expectation aroused by this discovery of a superior intellectual structure will result in rapid strides along the highway of education. From September, 1924, to June, 1925, we find him in the pre-school class in the Clinic. He is receiving individual instruction in American History and French. To his experience with history, reference has been made. It is sufficient to add that by the end of the term, the problem of motivation had been solved. History was turned into a game that interested the boy. His comprehension was good; his retention excellent. In French, his interest and attention was keen from the first. His grasp pf a French vocabulary was remarkable. On the average, four lessons a week in Herding’s “Petit a Petit on Premiers Lecons de Francais” twenty new words and some grammar were mastered. The teaching periods were one hour long, twice a week, divided between history and French. His teacher remarks, apropos of the difficulty in getting him to read history, “I think that Louis is afraid of defeat, and, therefore, ls afraid to try anything new.’’
His work here continues during the next college year. Arithmetic is added to his curriculum. In reading, writing and arithmetic, he is soon advanced far beyond his years. His teacher wisely determines to enrich his curriculum with nature study, mythological stories, Indian legends. The boy, almost seven now, is incuiably rational. He wants a reason for everything. His great question is not Who? or What? but How? His imagination needs stimulating. Nursery rhymes and fairy tales never caught his fancy at the age when they mean so much to other children. “The cow jumping over the moon?with the added comment, “It is foolishness.” A little later, he is more interested in his physiology book than in Robin Hood. The same tendency is shown again. An Indian Legend about the Sun and Moon is stripped of its poetry and the lesson becomes one in elementary astronomy. So there has to be more of this, and the Book of Knowledge is subsidized to help in answering his inquiries, ‘’ Why does the moon change its shape ?’’ etc. A Maxwell Parrish picture, hanging on the wall of one of the rooms in the Clinic, representing a young lady in meditative mood, with clouds overhead in which castles were suggested, was the subject of conversation. With scientific accuracy, the young man remarked, “There are no houses in the clouds.’’
Sidelights on his character and temperament appear. He announces one day that he has changed since coming to school at the University. He is going to be a ” regular fellow’’ now. And a regular fellow is ‘’ one that likes to play and is not particular.’’ And behind this lies the fact that Louis does not play well with other children how could he?this seven year old adult. His interests are not theirs. And when it comes to holding his own in a fight, he simply is not there. Like a philosopher, he gives himself to deep thought. He would solve this riddle. ‘’ Why did that boy want to hit me?” Adult yet infantile. Mother is late in coming for him. She finds him crying. He has no shame for this exhibition of feminity. Most boys have this trait spanked out of them before school age or should. Why did he cry ? “Iam afraid to be alone.’’ Henceforth, mother must stay with him during his whole period of two hours of clinic teaching. He gets what he wants when he is home. But some day the king will lose his crown?and that day is not far distant, for Louis must enter public school as the family exchequer will not permit of sending him to a private school where he might receive the individual treatment he needs, and no scholarships are available.
So to school he goes. Three semesters pass. At eight years and six months he is in 5A. In November, 1928, his mother brings him back to the Clinic. Socially he is not well adjusted. The boys in his grade are so much bigger than he. They do not like him. They push him. The mother is anxious to have him play normally like other children. She brought a little girl into her home, adopted her that Louis might have a sister to play with. It was of no use. She sent him to the Y.M.C.A. gymnasium classes but it did not last. What to do she did not know. Could he return to the Clinic for teaching ?
Here is Louis himself?about the median in height for a boy of his years, a bit underweight, though physically in good condition. He is wearing an “airplane suit.” The recorder wonders whether he wears that suit at school in Grade 5A. If he did, it would certainly account for many a push and shove. It is bad enough to be an eight year old in Grade 5 in public school. It would be hard enough without wearing a Lindy uniform. It is “just not being done” in 5A. He would like to play with the boys, he says, but they ‘’ won’t play with me.’’ There is the problem,
Psychological tests at this time give him an auditory span of nine digits and a reverse of nine. He read an article from the Psychological Clinic before a class of students of psychology. There was nothing left to be desired. In the Formboard work, Cylinders and Dearborn, he is relatively in the same position as on previous trials. His rate of discharge of energy is slow. He possesses good coordination and control, and has excellent distribution and persistence of attention. His form discrimination is fair. He is not ‘’ motor-minded.’’
He returns to his grade in the public school, becomes sick, loses time. He could afford to lose a bit. Fearful lest he drop a grade, the mother returns him to the Clinic. Arrangements are made to have him instructed in the work of 5A and 5B so that he might reLOUIS 85 turn to the sixth grade in September, 1929. The instruction period was two hours long, twice a week for a single semester. The work of an entire year in public school was to be covered. Miss Anne M. Kneedler was chosen as his teacher. Her story of the work of the semester follows:
‘’ Louis is an attractive nine year old boy of Russian Jewish parentage. He has very delicate features, large soft, brown eyes, an almost transparent complexion. His expression is very intelligent and pleasing, yet withal childish. His bearing is full of poise and self confidence which sometimes amounts almost to arrogance. He was very winning and friendly from the start and we got on well together. Occasionally, I had to speak to him severely when he was more interested in a singing top or some colored chalk than he was m the immediate task.
“The best way to summarize the work of the term is to discuss it by subjects.
“Arithmetic. Arithmetic is Louis’long suit. He is at his best when working at it. We started work on fractions following the Philadelphia Public School course. He had no trouble with addition, subtraction and multiplication of fractions and mixed numbers. Often he would figure out little short-cuts and helpful tricks to shorten his work. In fact, at times he became so interested in applying these devices that obvious results escaped. “All arithmetic concepts are clear to him and his explanations of methods and the theories he would work out “in bed” were often quite breath-taking in their ingenuity. His work on reading problems was especially remarkable for it combines his reading and comprehension powers with his mathematical ability. In almost every case he saw the point at first reading and was never caught by a ‘trick’ problem.
‘’ When we reached decimals, Louis was on a rampage of learning. Addition and subtraction were learned in one day, and multiplication and division in one day each. His future work should certainly make use of this mathematical ability. He is exceedingly impatient of drill and often when I would give him a review problem, he would say,’’ Oh, you know that I know how to do that.
“English. Louis needed no drill on the elements of composition ?r punctuation, in which he was well-nigh perfect. In an endeavor to develop his imaginative powers, I assigned a daily journal, to serve not as a catalog of activities but rather as a notebook of interesting impressions. He failed entirely to catch this idea, except that one day he was moved to write a charming little verse on ‘ Spring.’ “He was familiar with grammatical terms beyond his class. Our reading comprised ‘King of the Golden River,’ which he practically memorized, and ‘Just So Stories,’ which he considered childish. The only one he took seriously was of a scientific nature, ‘ How the alphabet was made.’
11 Geography. It was most difficult to keep him interested in geography. He applied himself conscientiously at home and went over his map studies and questions with his mother until he knew them perfectly, but his work was more or less mechanical. His visual memory for locations was excellent but the memorization of physical features and products caused him real effort.
11 History. History was studied according to famous characters. He learned to know the heroes of American history, could give their lives in detail and never confused one with another.
“Hygiene. The last weeks, we spent some time on Hygiene and covered the book easily. He was much interested in the structure and care of the body and recited his lessons like an embryo scientist. “Proficiency. In spelling, Louis has a score of 104. The norm for eighth grade, Philadelphia standards, is 94. In Arithmetic, he has 6A proficiency. History, and Geography and Hygiene were also 6A, the ground having been covered satisfactorily.
‘’ Intellectually, Louis is far beyond his age, but his play orientation is undoubtedly that of a child. His mother’s devotion to him is beautiful. She is his constant companion. Yet he needs something different. He has problems enough ahead of him with his social heritage in an alien land as one may well see portrayed in Lewisohn’s ‘Island Within.’ It would be better for him to awake to it gradually, through school and play associations, than to have it thrust upon him suddenly. At present, he is like some hot-house flower unable to withstand the storm and stress of every day life. At a conference with his mother at the end of the semester, it was decided that Louis should return to the Clinic in the fall of 1929, to continue his academic training with an enriched curriculum. An attempt will be made to remedy his social maladjustment by giving him some responsibility in connection with his pre-school class as an assistant to the student-teacher, and by supplying such further orthogenic guidance and treatment as his status praesens seems to require.
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