Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental Testing — John Shaqi
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
If the diagnosis of conative cases could be determined objectively, it
is possible that most forms of social unfitness would be found highly
correlated with intellectual deficiency. On the other hand, when the
diagnosis of unfitness for school or social life depends merely upon the
opinion of experts or teachers, the inaccuracy of the diagnosis may show
a wide discrepancy between the so-called conative and intellectual types
of deficiency. Binet, on the basis of his acquaintance with the pupils
in special classes, suggested that the number of unstable children is
probably equal to the number of those who are intellectually unsuited
for the ordinary schools or institutions (_77_). Since he then places
the total number of the two classes at four or five per cent., it is
apparent that he is discussing a higher type of ability than is usually
included under the term feeble-minded. We can get somewhat better
evidence on this question by studying the results of Binet tests applied
to children cared for in special classes or in institutions for the
feeble-minded. Chotzen (90) presents a table of 280 children in the
_Hilfsschule_ in Breslau, only 201 of whom, however, he himself
diagnosed as feeble-minded, _i. e._, _debile_ or lower. Of these only 51
were intellectually deficient as indicated by the Binet tests when we
include the doubtful cases according to the criteria we have adopted in
this study. If we suppose that, in addition to those in the special
classes, there would be one intellectually deficient child in an
institution for feeble-minded for every child testing deficient, we
would then guess that only 40% of the feeble-minded children in Breslau
were intellectually deficient. This sort of estimate seems to agree with
Binet's belief that half of the children requiring special care, at
least during school ages, are cases which are primarily conative.
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