The Educational Significance of Certain Specific Mental Defects
- Author:
Lucy G. Fildes, B.A.
The use of the term specific as opposed to general when speaking of mental defect is one which calls at once for definition. For the purposes of this article it is proposed to use specific to indicate a disability which directly affects some one particular mental process or some closely allied group of such processes without at the same time influencing in any marked degree other mental powers.
The effect which such a disability will have on the behaviour and educability of the individual suffering from it will depend very largely on its kind. To fail in discrimination of pitch will not matter so much for living as will a serious failure in rote memory, yet both result from specific defects.
From the point of view of the school those specific defects which most affect educability are of the gravest importance. Often where they exist the condition of general deficiency, even of inbecility, is simulated and the child becomes at once a candidate for the Special School. Indeed, even it the specialised nature of his disability is recognised the ordinary school has no place for him.
Individual study and instruction only can aim at supplying his special needs.
Two specific defects will be considered here. Both are defects of language, limited in extent when viewed from one aspect, yet far-reaching in their influence on the power to live effectively, if they are not properly understood and dealt with during school life. The first is concerned with the ability to understand and to use spoken language normally. It is possible for a child, not deaf (if that woid is used with its ordinary meaning as indicating failure to have auditory sensations from an adequate external stimulus), nor mentally defective in the usual meaning of that term, to be unable to learn to understand spoken language at all adequately. The defect may be so great that it extends to sounds other than that of the voice and produces behaviour of the type normally associated with complete deafness. Neither words nor other sounds in the environment are responded to. Gesture language only is used. For the failure to comprehend is accompanied by the failure to employ spoken words. Some words, more commonly, however, generally names learnt through constant repetition, are understood, especially if spoken slowly and with care. Some words, too, are used : an attempt may be made at voluntary speech in sentences. But always the speech is poor, usually !t is almost impossible to understand.
Such signs as these may indicate a typical specific mental defect. ic important question is what best to do for the children. Some of them, diagnoscc as deaf, are drafted to schools for deaf or for partially deaf children. And probably that is their right place; especially if the fact that they can be taught to understand language by hearing it is recognised. Others, because they can obviously hear, are diagnosed as mentally defective and often through lack of understanding are not helped to overcome their particular trouble ; which is a failure, not in hearing, but in the discrimination of spoken sounds. The voice is heard, but it is heard as a blur: words sound alike; they are confused: they gain no meaning and cannot easily be repeated. The child’s intelligence is caged in and cannot without reasonable help learn to express itself. But, if that help is given, the trouble may be largely overcome and the child helped towards a useful life.
This defect, it is true, often accompanies slight general deficiency or slight deafness. It is to be suspected whenever the failure in language, either in comprehension or in use, does not appear warranted by the degree of general deficiency or by the amount of actual inability to hear.
The second disability to be considered is that which is involved in the failure to learn to read. No teacher of mentally defective children can fail to appreciate the problem which the mechanics of reading presents to them. But, although mental deficiency is a common cause of difficulty in learning to read, it is not the only cause. Some children, normal or even supernormal in other powers, find in the mechanics of reading an almost insuperable obstacle to educational progress.
As in the disability affecting spoken language we find here too all degrees of defect: from a mere slowness in learning to read it ranges to a complete failure to learn to recognise even the written symbols of numbers or the letters of the alphabet, apart from words, which may present an even greater problem. Always the trouble is accompanied by the absence of power to spell: it may finally show itself only in the absence of that power if once the mechanics of reading have been mastered. The point is that inability to read is not necessarily a sign of general defect.
With regard to its cause?two factors seem mostly operative. Sometimes they act alone; sometimes together. One is an abnormal difficulty in discriminating between forms of the letter type, especially if these closely resemble each other and have to be remembered. The common tendency of children to reverse or invert forms without considering the change of position as a difference is important in this connection. Letters and figures alike except for their direction are the most difficult to learn. It would be interesting to know if the type of imagery used has any bearing on this point. The second important cause appears to lie in the failure to establish direct associations between a sound and a form. “A” cannot be remembered by its name or sound unless it is regarded as a (h)aystack. ‘ ‘T’’ is learnt as two tables placed for tea, and so on.
The cause of the trouble indicates the lines of treatment. Whole words or sentences, as unlike each other as possible, should be taught first in cases where discrimination is at fault. So the child will gain in confidence and in power of attack. The use of a motor method of teaching the alphabet is a help to visual discrimination. Phonics should be introduced gradually after much preliminary work. Oral spelling is often a help, especially if the auditory memory is good. In cases of serious memory failure, much varied repetition of the words to be learnt, together with suggestions whichjwill give meaning to the letter sound or form will be best at first. Here, when once the phonic values of the letters are known the trouble is over?but too often that time is unduly long.
The point mainly to bear in mind is that children with specific defects such as those just considered are apt to be of more potential value as citizens than are the more generally defective, and are especially responsive to’instructed help. The use of Scales for Measuring Intelligence which emphasise flanguage in particular is apt to penalise such children unfairly, and should not be too much relied on. Cases in which special defect is suspected should be tested rather on graded performance tests to get some estimate of their ability apart from language. Only in that way can some idea be gained as to how far individual instruction is justified and what lines such instruction should follow.
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