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
Goddard still adhered to this borderline of the American Association in
1914 in his work on Feeble-Mindedness. He says: “We have practically
agreed to call all persons feeble-minded who do not arrive at an
intelligence higher than that of the twelve year old normal child” (p.
573). In the same year Schwegler's “Teachers' Manual” for the use of the
Binet scale says that a person who tests XII is a moron if mature
(_180_). Since the evidence of Table IV indicates that 75% of the
twelve-year-olds do not test above XI, even those who adhere to the high
limit of the intelligence of a 12-year-old should have required an adult
to test XI on the Binet scale in order to show deficiency.
In 1911 we find Wallin writing, regarding the 1908 tests, “it is a
question whether the line of feeble-mindedness should not be drawn
between eleven and twelve instead of between twelve and thirteen.... A
number of our twelve-year-olds are certainly very slightly, if at all,
feeble-minded” (_210_). Jennings and Hallock (_31_) and Morrow and
Bridgman (_39_) in testing delinquents reported in 1911 and 1912 that
they regarded those passing the tests for twelve years as socially fit.
Chotzen (_31_) thinks that the two children in his group of pupils from
a _Hilfsschule_ who test ten and are three years or more retarded are
not feeble-minded. Davis thinks that those “showing mentality from ten
to twelve years” may possibly not be called mentally defective (_133_,
p. 187).
In 1915 the editors of the magazine “Ungraded” in their recommendations
regarding the use of the Binet scale say “a mental age of 10 or above is
not necessarily indicative of feeble-mindedness, regardless of how old
the examinee may be” (_66_, p. 7). In the same year Kohs, in reporting
the examinations of 335 consecutive cases at the Chicago House of
Correction, says: “We find normality to range within the limits 12^2 and
10^4 and feeble-mindedness not to extend above the limit 11^2. In other
words, none of our cases testing 11^3 or over was found, with the aid of
other confirmatory data, to be mentally defective. None of our cases
testing 10^3 or below was found to be normal. Of those testing between
10^4 and 11^2, our borderline cases, a little less than half were found
normal, and somewhat more than half were found feeble-minded” (_33_).
His exponents here refer to number of tests and not to tenths of a
test-year. Hinckley (_182_) reports examinations with the Binet 1911
scale on 200 consecutive cases at the New York Clearing House for Mental
Defectives which show that with these suspected cases, which were from
13 to 43 years of age, seven-eighths tested X or below. Referring to
adults, Wallin states that he has “provisionally placed the limen
somewhere between the ages of IX and X” (_215_). Dr. Mabel Fernald at
the Bedford Reformatory laboratory said in 1917, “many of us for some
time have been using a standard that only those who rank below ten years
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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