Special talents and defects : $b Their significance for educationHollingworth, Leta Stetter
Science
Special talents and defects : $b Their significance for education
Hollingworth, Leta Stetter
Educational psychology; Educational tests and measurements; Exceptional children
Schmitt studied thirty-four pupils in the schools of Chicago, who were
not feeble-minded, but were extremely retarded in arithmetic. The
investigator states that tests of general intelligence were given, but
does not share with the reader the exact results of such tests, saying
only that the children “were not mentally defective.” The result of
tabulation of circumstances involved showed that ill-health and absence
were closely related to special disability in arithmetic. The inference
is drawn that achievement in arithmetic calls for a hierarchy of
_habits_, which depend on each other in a sequence. If a hiatus occurs
at any essential point, as through absence, inattention, or inadequate
teaching, confusion follows. (This inference seems very well justified,
also, from the psychological analysis of the mental functions involved
in arithmetic.) The problem of individual examination is to find out
what habits have not been formed. The problem of pedagogy is to teach
those habits, and to motivate the child.
Bronner’s conclusion that some children of good intelligence lack the
power to form number concepts is criticized by Schmitt. When the gaps in
habit formation have been located, and the child has been motivated to
form the missing habits, special deficiency in arithmetic disappears.
This is, on the whole, the conclusion to be drawn from the few studies
which have included experimental teaching. Uhl studied a boy who could
not subtract, according to standard tests. Analysis showed that he could
subtract only by multiplying. For example, to subtract 9 from 46, he
first set aside 1, to get a multiple of 9. Then he disintegrated 45 into
9’s and dropped one of them. After disposing of the 9 in this devious
fashion, he picked up his 1 again, and finally arrived at a correct
result. It was thus found why he was so _slow_, and where instruction
must be applied, in order to remedy the special deficiency which he
showed in arithmetical calculation.
In difficult combinations, pupils invent interesting evasions. “Breaking
up” larger numbers is common, so that 9 + 7 + 5 becomes 9 + 2 + 2 + 2 +
1 + 2 + 2 + 1, for instance.
Failure to form correct habits of interpreting symbols, or relations
between symbols, often explains deficiency. This may be illustrated by
the case of a girl who always read
______
40 ) 1728
as “40 divided by 1728.” Her results were thus fantastic. This error is
analogous to that of writing “three dollars” as 3$.
The remedy for these conditions is to show the child what he is doing,
and to give drill until the correct and rapid method is thoroughly
mastered. Special deficiency in the mechanics of arithmetic is to be
improved by drill, after it has been found out where the drill is
needed.
VI. METHODS OF DETECTING WRONG OR INCOMPLETE HABITS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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