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
In the accompanying Table V Goddard's results are arranged so as to show
the percentages at each life-age retarded two or more, three or more,
four or more, and five or more years according to the Binet 1908 scale.
The heavy black line indicates the upper borderline of the doubtful
group according to our interpretation. In spite of irregularities, due
mainly to insufficient numbers, the trend of the table is fairly plain.
The column of percentages two or more years retarded and to the left of
the heavy line suggests that the break comes at ten years of age. Using
our tentative criterion of 0.5% presumably deficient and the next 1.0%
uncertain intellectually, the outcome of this analysis is a rather
striking demonstration of the feasibility of the percentage procedure
even when the groups examined at each age are only composed of about 200
cases. I have preferred to take the empirical data at the lower extreme
of each age distribution instead of projecting the tail of a smoothed
distribution curve for each age.
Until better data are available we have adopted in practise, as a result
of the study of this table, the procedure of considering any child who
is ten years of age or over as testing of doubtful capacity if he is
four or more years retarded below his chronological age, three or more
years retarded if he is under ten years of age. If he shows one
additional year of retardation we consider, in the absence of some other
explanation of his retardation, that he is presumably intellectually
deficient enough to justify a recommendation of isolation. Of course no
such recommendation should be made without a complete medical
examination, a full knowledge of the history of the case and a checking
of the record by further tests at different times when there is any
suspicion that the child has not done as well as he might under other
conditions.
The fact that we have no data on random groups 12, 13 and 14 years of
age leaves a gap which may mean that our criterion of 5 years
retardation for presumable deficiency at these ages is too small. It is
possible that the shift to 6 years retardation should be made before 15
years, which is the position where our criterion for the borderline for
the mature automatically makes the shift. We say a 15-year-old testing X
is above the group presumably deficient as he has entered the “doubtful”
adult class.
It is also to be remembered that the standard error expected from the
results of samples as small as these is 0.5% when the sample is 200 and
0.7% when it is 100. The limits thus might easily shift a year. The
suggested borderlines for the immature can at best be regarded only as
the most likely under the meager evidence available.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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