Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental TestingMiner, James Burt
Science
Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental Testing
Miner, James Burt
Children with mental disabilities; Juvenile delinquents; Mentally ill offenders; Psychological tests
An Arabic numeral after a Roman numeral indicates the number of
cases, when more than one case occurs at any position in the table.
Parentheses indicate cases testing presumable deficient or doubtful.
S is a satisfactory school grade.
The summary of the Binet scale testing of this group according to the
valuation which we have adopted, shows two clear cases of tested
deficiency. One boy who was 13 years of age tested VIII and was the only
case sent to the State School for Feeble-Minded from this group. The
other was 16 years of age and tested IX. Besides the two presumable
deficients, seven other boys were uncertain according to our
interpretation, as judged by the Binet tests alone. One of them was 13
and tested IX, the others were 14, 15 and 16 and tested X. This would
make a total of 7% possibly socially deficient, since they were all
delinquent. This seems to be the largest estimation of deficiency which
would be justified on the basis of these test results. To show, however,
how important is the interpretation of the results obtained with Binet
examinations when treated in gross, it need only be stated that a few
years ago, when this study began, it was not uncommon to count all who
were retarded three or more years and testing XII or under as
feeble-minded. On that absurd basis, there would be 45 such cases (37%).
As we have considered at length the reasons for not counting a person as
even of doubtful intellect who tests XI or above or is less than three
or four years retarded, we do not need to rehearse them here.
B. COMPARISON OF TESTED DEFICIENCY AMONG TYPICAL GROUPS OF DELINQUENTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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