John
Charlotte Easby-Grave, Clinic Teacher, University of Pennsylvania
John made his first appearance at the Psychological Clinic in January, 1922. He was a small, slightly built boy?on first glance, about six years old. His clothes were shabby, his blond air was drab and neglected, but his brown eyes told the most significant story. They were dull and apathetic like their owner, awakening only to the emotions of fear and distress.
John’s history was not a pleasant one to contemplate. His mother came from a family of bad reputation. Her marriage to John’s father was a forced one. She was reported to be both immoral and feebleminded, and had been diagnosed as a “constitutional psychopathic inferior.’’ She had had immoral relations with both colored and white men, and had syphilis at the time of John’s birth, according to the grandmother. Of the father, we had no history except that he was a laborer and that he had deserted his wife.
John came to the clinic as a ward of the Children’s Aid Society. He and his sister, aged ten, had been placed with a caretaker or guardian. The mental examination had to be carried on with tact and care. John shrank fearfully from contact with strangers, and from the new and incomprehensive tasks given to him. However, he did the Witmer Formboard well, and proved to have an auditory memory span of six digits. His mental age on the Binet-Simon scale was five years and six months, as opposed to his chronological age of seven years and five months. His Intelligent Quotient was 74?only four points above the score designated by Terman as indicative of feeblemindedness. But the clinician, from the wealth of his experience, could see further than mere test scores, and did not diagnose John as borderline or feebleminded. John’s record read “Normal mentality. Pedagogically retarded. Marked infantile stammer. Shows the results of serious deprivation in infancy.” Clinic teaching was recommended in order to confirm the diagnosis, and if possible, to start John on the right path scholastically. He attended the clinic for two hours of teaching per week from January until June, 1922. During this time, his improvement was especially marked. When he first came, he was unusually silent and repressed for a boy of his age. He was suspicious of all advances made toward him because earlier years of social contact without family protection, had brought him nothing but ill treatment. By June, he gave a normal display of physical energy, looked healthier and more alert, and was full of enthusiasm about his friends and his play. His foster mother is a good common-sense woman. She was willing to do anything for John’s improvement and cooperated with the clinic splendidly in the matter of careful diet and regimen, and follow-up work in speech correction at home.
From the standpoint of personality and social contact, John’s transformation was most interesting. He is naturally an affectionate and warm-hearted boy, and under the influence of a good home, good food, good clothes and sympathetic family protection, he expanded into an attractive, winning personality. His conduct was sufficiently conformed to make him an easy pupil to manage, and yet he was mischievous enough to be amusing and interesting. He was cheerful and happy during the hours of work at the clinic, and he seemed to be unusually free from childish egotism or vanity. If anything, John might have been said to have an inferiority sense, and certainly a lack of self-confidence in the matter of school work. He will never be a leader, but he is an excellent follower. He is cooperative and adaptable, the type who will always be liked by many people, but whose ardent champions ?or enemies will be few. In the first months of his attendance at the clinic, John’s reactions, emotional, social and intellectual, were infantile except for an unusually dogged persistence of effort. By June, much of this infantilism had disappeared and John was more like other seven-year-old boys. He met new people without shrinking, and was proud of his attainments in school and at home. In January, John had no school proficiency. He did not even [know how to count his fingers, nor to print any letters even though he had attended a first grade since September. At his first diagnostic teaching lesson, he was taught to draw horizontal and vertical lines. Then, at direction, he made the printed letters, T, L, and E. He was drilled over the naming and identification of these letters. We passed on then to other letters in the alphabet, but John was not enthusiastic until at the third lesson, he learned to print the letters of his name?J-O-H-N. Here was a real achievement. Letters began to take on some significance, but in spite of the fact that John began to see faintly that writing was a tool of expression, a curious thing was evident in the process of learn276 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC ‘ ing. The letters were always exercises requiring certain movements, rather than pictures with names or sounds associated. In other words, John proved to be noticeably kinesthetic. The motor method of teaching was used as far as possible with all the material presented to him. By June, John was able to write his name well, and could also write simple sentences at dictation. He could count to twenty, and do a few simple number combinations. His reading proficiency was tested, for he was spending considerable time on the subject in school. He could read from his own book so glibly that one would have given him credit for being a star pupil. An amusing incident took place, when John was given a reader he had never seen before. He picked out what he wanted to read. At the top of the page was a picture of Bo-peep and her sheep. John pointed painstakingly to each word in the printed lines beneath and read, with great savoir faire, “Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?”, etc. In his own reader was the story of Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, which John had memorized with no difficulty, while in the school room. He had no idea of phonics, and could not even recognize words he had already learned when they appeared in new combinations.
He was ill and away from the Clinic during nearly all of April, but in May, John was given a little systematic drill in the sounds of letters and simple letter combinations. His retention of this material was poor, and he seemed to have great difficulty in associating the sounds with actual word groups. By the end of the term, John’s school teacher, who had been kept in touch with the work of the clinic by the foster mother, reported that the boy was doing well in his class, and the original plan to have him attend the Summer Observation School was abandoned. In the course of the teaching, John’s speech had shown some improvement, but was still infantile. From January to June, he received weekly speech training and the defect practically disappeared. The teaching was now simplified by the fact that he was progressing satisfactorily in school, and had learned to read. In March, of the following year, John returned to the clinic because his school teacher reported that he was not doing well in arithmetic. The same difficulty in proper association was at the bottom of his trouble. He was given careful drill in the fundamentals of addition and subtraction, particularly, and was taught short cuts and proofs wherever possible. His marks in school began to be good, and in the fall, he entered the 2B Grade. During the next academic year we heard nothing of John. We were anxious to keep in touch with his progress. A telephone talk with his foster mother in April brought an encouraging report. John was then in the 3A and was getting 7’s and 8’s on his reports. Arithmetic is still his most troublesome subject, but even in that he is keeping up to grade. His speech defect has entirely disappeared. The valvular heart condition which had made him fatigue so easily during our first contacts with him, is clearing up satisfactorily. The physician says that there is no reason why John should not have all the activities of other boys. He is alert, energetic and full of mischief, and is displaying all a normal boy’s affection for a collie, which is his own pet, and constant companion.
The foster parents have not legally adopted either John or his sister. The Children’s Aid Society advises them to wait until they are sure of the entire normality of both children as evidenced by continued successful school progress. However, the family is moving to the country for their sakes, and the foster mother’s maternal pride in both of them is evident in all her conversation. The future of these children seems well assured. John will never be a brilliant student, and probably not phenomenally successful in any business, but he is fast making up his deprivation in infancy, and is confirming the diagnosis of normal mentality. He is on the way to become a good citizen and a respected member of r.ny community.
Coupled with his foster mother’s care, the course of diagnostic teaching brought John to a better social adjustment, started him on the right path scholastically, and through the success of its preliminary findings, helped to make John a permanent member of his adopted family group.
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