Report of the Mental Deficiency Committee : being a joint committee of the Board of Education and Board of Contro.

  • Great Britain. Mental Deficiency Committee.
Date:
1929
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Mental Deficiency Committee : being a joint committee of the Board of Education and Board of Contro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    158/554 (page 142)
    There remains to be discussed the borderline that should be drawn in the largest towns between the two sections of retarded children. For all ages we would suggest for this borderline a mental ratio of about 70 per cent. In the case of a child of 7 a mental ratio of 70 would correspond with a mental age of nearly 5, while at the age of 11 it would correspond with a mental age of rather less than 8. The educational attainments of such a child at the age of 7 would be practically negligible, though he would show some promise of capacity for educational progress. He might be able, for instance, to copy and even recognise a few letters or to count 3 or 4 objects. At the age of 11 his educational attainments would be below those of a normal child of 7. III. The Committee’s conception of that section of Retarded children which is generally known as “ dull or backward.’’ 164. The Chapter in our Investigator’s Report which describes the Standards adopted in his inquiry indicates clearly the types of child whom he classified respectively as imbeciles and as feeble- minded, and the account that he gives of the borderlines followed by him in distinguishing between these two groups, when read in conjunction with the description in the preceding Section of this Chapter of the lower borderlines to be observed in future, should afford a fairly clear conception both of the type of child to be trained in an occupation centre, namely that which we have defined as the “mentally defective’’ child, and also of the lower grade members | of the group of “ retarded ”’ children who could be retained within the elementary education system. This latter group, as already stated corresponds broadly with the type of children now attending — Day Special Schools.* The retarded group as we have seen however contains a still larger proportion of children who could not be certified as mentally defective under the Education Act, but who can certainly be described as dull or backward. These children did not come within the scope of our Investigator’s inquiry and his Report consequently contains no description of them. It is of this group therefore that we now propose to give some definition and description. This definition must for present purposes be based upon practical needs. Recent educational surveys have shown that the mental differences between individual children are far wider than had previously been suspected. No longer do we expect all children to progress at the same average speed—one standard per annum; the cleverest child will progress nearly twice as fast, and the dullest twice as slowly. Other things being equal, the class that is most easy to teach is the class that is most homogeneous. Hence, in the * i.e., feeble-minded children. There are of course at present a number of lower grade children also at these schools, but they do not belong to the type of child for whom the day Special Schools are intended and should be excluded from them