: Mentally Defective Children by Binet Alfred Simon Th Odore Drummond William Blackley Translator - Children with mental disabilities Education; Children with mental disabilities Psychological testing

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is practically the same as a normal child several years younger; or, in other words, he is a child who has been retarded in his development. A backward child of twelve years of age, who has not yet been able to learn to read, would thus be comparable to an ordinary child of six, who is just beginning to spell. It is evident that such a comparison must not be pushed too far. Many reservations must be made. On the one hand, the defective has not so much time in front of him for development as a normal and younger child. He is then not strictly comparable to the latter. On the other hand, the very fact of his age has given to the defective of twelve a bodily and even a mental development never attained at six. For example, he is nearer puberty; his vocabulary is more extensive; and he possesses greater general knowledge. But these reservations once made, the theory that the defective is the victim of a retardation of development has seemed reasonable to many competent people. As a rule one just accepts it without taking the trouble to formulate it in precise terms. Perhaps it is for this very reason that one accepts it so easily; it is the classic theory. To the cursory reader it may seem that we adopt this theory ourselves, for we shall frequently use such phrases as "defective of eleven who is at the level of a child of nine." But the sense in which we use such an expression must not be misunderstood, because it is only intended to imply that a certain standard has been attained. It has no bearing on the cause of the retardation, nor upon its particular nature, nor upon the means of rectifying it.

Now for the educational consequences of the preceding theory. If the backwardness is only a slowness of development, it will suffice to apply to the backward the same methods as to the normal. One will make them follow the same course of study and go just as far as possible. Every defective must work towards the primary school certificate. To attain that end, he ought to pass through seven regular stages, one each year. The teacher of defectives cannot hope that he will bring his pupils to the last stage. He will stop half-way. One day, at the agricultural colony of Vaucluse, when some foreign doctors were visiting the establishment, the teacher showing his class to the visitors remarked with na?ve pride: "Our pupils follow step by step the curriculum of the primary school."

A second and totally different theory is tenable, and this one appears to us to be much nearer the truth. It is that a defective child does not resemble in any way a normal one whose development has been retarded or arrested. He is inferior, not in degree, but in kind. The retardation of his development has not been uniform. Obstructed in one direction, his development has progressed in others. To some extent he has cultivated substitutes for what is lacking. Consequently such a child is not strictly comparable to a normal child younger than himself. So far as certain faculties are concerned, he remains at the level of a younger child; but in respect to others, he is on a level with normal children of his own age. An unequal and imperfect development is consequently his specific characteristic. These inequalities of development may vary to any degree in different subjects. They always produce a want of equilibrium, and this want is the differentiating attribute of the defective child. But to draw a faithful picture we must add yet other traits. According to general opinion, mental deficiency is a disease, and although the idea of disease is very vague, we are inclined to fall in with this general opinion. In the first place, we frequently find in such children defects of speech. Besides, in studying their mental condition more closely, one finds in some cases peculiarities of understanding, reasoning, imagining, difficult to define, but which do not appear to have their equivalent in younger normal children, and which therefore do not result from simple retardation of development. Here is a boy, twelve years of ago, who tries to answer our questions, and succeeds pretty well; but hardly has he finished his answer when he deserts the subject altogether and begins to talk a lot of nonsense. This want of coordination in thought constitutes a special defect, and not a retardation of development. Possibly one would not find analogous features in other backward children, who tend rather to be laconic; but it is also possible that a careful analysis of their mental state might reveal in them other mental symptoms, and, indeed, such are very obvious in the variety called "unstable" or "ill-balanced."

If this second theory is correct, there follows a very important practical consequence--namely, that the curriculum drawn up for normal children is very imperfectly suited to the defective. We cannot force the latter to fit the ordinary course. To attempt this would be quite as unreasonable as to make our teaching appeal to the ears of the deaf or the eyes of the blind.

The first duty of the teacher is to take account of the faculties already developed, the aptitudes which are already apparent. His work is thankless and difficult; he would be foolish not to take advantage of the indications of nature. If a pupil show a special taste for any subject, it is evidently towards such a line of study that he should be directed. Consequently, in conformity with these ideas, we would reject on principle any programme of special instruction which would rigorously include all the children in a common plan. On the contrary, we would prefer for the defective a scheme which would take the most account of their natural aptitudes.

Such considerations lead us to put the following question--What are the most common aptitudes in children of this class? We say "the most common," because we have not to do with a single well-defined type, for there are as many varieties as there are individuals; but in spite of the number of those varieties, which shows the need for individual teaching, it will always be possible to establish categories in which those most nearly alike may be grouped It is also possible that the aptitudes most frequently lacking are always, or almost always, of the same nature.

To solve the question which we have just raised, we shall employ two methods--

A printed questionnaire containing thirty-eight questions has been distributed through the agency of M. Belot, school inspector, to the heads of all the elementary schools in two districts of Paris--one central, the other suburban. Nothing would be gained by reproducing here the questionnaire, which has served its purpose. We shall simply lay down the conclusions we have reached, after studying the replies with the greatest care.

The replies confirm the division, which we have ourselves suggested, of all the abnormal into three groups: The mentally defective; the ill-balanced; a mixed type which includes those who are both mentally defective and ill-balanced. The simply defective do not present any well-defined anomaly of character, but they do not profit, or profit very little, from the ordinary school teaching. The ill-balanced, who might also be called the "undisciplined," are abnormal chiefly in character. They are distinguished by their unruliness, their talkativeness, their lack of attention, and sometimes their wickedness.

Let us be more precise with regard to two points--the age of the child and his school position. Some heads of schools, not all, have taken the trouble to satisfy our demands, and have fixed to almost a year the mental retardation of the child as compared with normal children of the same age. The following table summarises these replies, and shows that the majority of cases present a retardation of three years:

Mentally defective children with a retardation of--

According to a convention, of which we shall speak more fully later, we regard as defective in intelligence a child who shows a retardation of three years, when he himself is nine years of age or more. The results shown above agree with this convention. Moreover, one may draw the conclusion, which is of practical value, that one need not seek children of this group in the senior division of a primary school.

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