The mental health of the school child : the psycho-educational clinic in relation to child welfare; contributions to a new science of orthophrenics and orthosomatics / by J.E. Wallace Wallin.

  • Wallin, J. E. Wallace (James Edward Wallace), 1876-
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mental health of the school child : the psycho-educational clinic in relation to child welfare; contributions to a new science of orthophrenics and orthosomatics / by J.E. Wallace Wallin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    He did not return to school this year and his present whereabouts are unknown to the clinic. The school record indicates that he has learned to write fairly well, to spell a few words, and to add and subtract simple combinations. He cannot read or measure, but has a fairly good memory, and ‘knows all the slang phrases and uses them constantly.’ The boy was brought to me by one of the students in the clinic who is teaching in the aforesaid industrial school and who suspected that all was not right. He was found to suffer from three carious teeth and enlarged tonsils, to secure treatment for which he was referred to dispen- saries. In physical exterior, he appeared absolutely like a normal child. Measurements, indeed, showed that he was equal to the boy of somewhat over fifteen in standing height, of seventeen in sitting height, of sixteen in hand grip, of about fourteen and a half in weight but of only thirteen in vital capacity. His weight is too light for his height, and, in spite of his limited lung capacity, he is quite long-busted or brachyscelous (ponderal index equals 22, normal equals 23.1; statural index equals 55.7, normal equals 52). On the other hand, in intellectual development this boy has grown to only about eight and one-half years, while in motor development he ranks somewhat over ten years, as determined by the form-board test, and eight years and between ten and eleven years for the right and left hand, respectively, as determined by the tapping test. He fails on both of the Healy-Fernald construction puzzles (A and B) after trying for nearly two and one- half minutes. His memory was limited to less than five digits, he was unable to count backwards, to write six syllables from dictation, to perform the weight test, to give descriptive definitions, to draw the two designs pre- sented for ten seconds or to point out the absurdities in