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
The next higher group in intellectual ability is so high as not to
require social assistance outside of school. When we ask how large a per
cent. we should be justified in placing in this group and separating
merely for special instruction in school, we reach a condition which is
at present so ill-defined even in the minds of educators that it seems
best to fall back on the general advice that our school systems should
provide just as nearly individual instruction as the public purse and
managing genius can devise. Mannheim, Germany, for example, takes care
of 18 per cent. outside of its regular school classes. The ideal is
individual instruction for all. School authorities would be justified in
providing special instruction for every degree of mental ability, if the
cost would not restrict other more important social undertakings. This
less degree of retardation in the group needing only school assistance
should not, however, be classed as feeble-minded. We shall see later the
percentages for which some authorities have considered it already
advisable to provide special school instruction. We need not attempt to
estimate the size of this group, as it is beyond the limit of
feeble-mindedness.
The purely conative cases are not taken care of in the above estimates,
which are intended for tested deficients. If the conative cases
unaccompanied by intellectual deficiency should be regarded as frequent
enough to replace those in the social assistance group who ultimately
care for themselves, plus those subtracted by the excessive death rate,
we would have a total of 1.5% of the general population feeble-minded
enough to warrant social care of some sort. About 0.5% might justly be
isolated. The reasonableness of this program can be judged by comparison
with authoritative estimates now to be reviewed. The problem here is
whether this is an unreasonable program for the diagnostician to assume
as scientifically justified, remembering that these estimates are for
tested deficients at 15 years of age and do not include purely conative
cases which might occur above these intellectual borderlines.
E. COMPARISON WITH IMPORTANT ESTIMATES
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