41% efficiency, as compared with 67% efficiency in the immediate memory of the objects. Their efficiency in the remote memory of pairs of logically associated words was 34%, compared with 37% in the immediate reproduction of the words. This result confirms the observation frequently made by epileptologists respecting the lack of tenacity in the memory of epileptics, and by teachers of epileptics, who find that epileptic children, although they frequently are able to assimilate subject matter and reproduce it instanter, seldom retain it for any length of time. When epileptics are compared with normal children, it is thus found that their impressionability of memory is relatively higher than their tenacity of memory. It is probable that the defective retentiveness of epileptics is frequently due to the fact that the convulsions obliterate the cortical impressions left by past experiences. Comparative Improvement 5. That the epileptics improved from sitting to sitting in spite of their low degree of efficiency is clearly indicated by the comparative-improvement figures in all the tests in which these are available. In fact, in one test the epileptics actually improved more than the normal children. Strangely, this was in the scholastic test, the addition test. The superior gain of the epileptics in this test might be explicable on the assumption that adding is a purely mechanical operation dependent upon the ability to retain rote or memoriter associations, and yet we know that high powers of concentration and possibly of ideation are essential for rapid and accurate results in addition. It is interesting to note that neither the epileptics nor the normal children gained consistently in all the sittings of this test. Not only so, the normal children actu ally suffered a slight loss when the scores were based only on the columns correctly added. An analysis of the complete tables (not published here) indicates that the greater gain of the epileptics was at least partly due to the small scores which they made during the first two sittings. Since the epileptics functioned on a low plane in this test, there was of course room for considerable improvement. In one test also, the canceling of the A's, the epileptic and the normal made exactly the same amount of gain. Here both groups made a slight improvement in each successive sitting. As we have seen, the epileptics ranked relatively high in comparative efficiency in this test. In only two other tests did the epileptics' gain even approach the gain made by the normal pupils: immediate memory of memorized digits (83%) and immediate recollection of observed objects (87%). It is apparent, therefore, that the epileptics gained most in the tests of the simpler mental processes:perception, observation, reaction, and rote memory. In the more significant memory test, the immediate reproduction of logical word associates, the epileptics' comparative improvement amounted to only 21%, while in the spontaneous association test (rapidity of thought) it reached only 36% and in the antonym test 50% of normal efficiency. When all the improvement figures for all the eight tests are pooled, it is found that the epileptics gained 64% as much as the normal pupils. That is, the epileptics' efficiency in all the tests was somewhat less than one half of that of the normal children, while their improvement was somewhat less than two thirds of the normal gain. The reason that they ranked relatively higher in percentage of gain than in percentage of efficiency may be due to the low efficiency status itself: they were functioning far below the possible maximum in these tests. (We have only considered the comparative absolute improvement above. In The Measurement of Mental Traits in Normal and Epileptic School Children we shall also consider in detail the comparative relative improvement.) It is of interest here to cite the conclusion of Pearson and Jaederholm based on the B.-S. testing of normal and mentally defective children, that the mental defectives progress at a little more than half the rate of the normal. A class of 20 "dull" pupils in Philadelphia made an average advance of .35 of a grade per year in the regular grades, but .80 of a grade in a special school. Pedagogical Application 6. We have seen that on the average the epileptics had reached only the second school grade, although their average mentality by the Binet-Simon scale was almost ten years. We have seen that their comparative pedagogical status was distinctly lower than their comparative mental status when judged by the separate serial tests, and especially when judged by the Binet scale. We have seen that, comparatively, the average amount of monthly improvement made by the epileptics in the psychological tests was considerably greater than their efficiency status compared with the normal standards, but this large improvement was partly due to the low degree of efficiency itself and it occurred in the tests of the simpler mental processes. All these facts strongly suggest that the average epileptic child is peculiarly deficient in those mental traits which condition success in the literary branches of study; that, therefore, the attempt to educate deficient epileptics in accordance with normal curricular standards must prove futile; that the emphasis in the school training should be placed upon sensorimotor forms of work; and that the public schools, if they are to attempt the education of epileptic retardates, should segregate them in special schools or special classes. Segregation in special classes is certainly imperative in the case of all epileptics who are as pedagogically handicapped as those we have considered - and none of these intellectually would grade lower than high-grade feeble-minded, while some would grade merely backward or practically normal and in the case of all who are subject to distressing diurnal seizures. - NOTE: Since the above was written information has been received concerning the condition of each of the 22 epileptics who remained in the institution at the time of the report, July, 1915. The average pedagogical grade in the academic work of the 9 who were still in the school was 2.7 as against 2.1 at the time of the first report, an average pedagogical gain of only one half year after about four and a half years of training. 16 of the 22 patients were said to have retrograded pedagogically, only 2 were said to have improved (although 5 of the 9 in school were classified in a higher grade), while 4 were recorded as stationary. Mentally 17 were reported as having retrograded, 2 as having improved, and 3 as being stationary. Even with the advantages of the institutional regimen, treatment, and training, the vast majority of these epileptics not only failed to improve but retrogressed. CHAPTER SIX STATE PROVISIONS FOR DEFECTIVE CHILDREN Introduction IN 1911 Ohio appointed a “commission to revise, con solidate, and suggest amendments to the statute laws of the state of Ohio which pertain to children," with particular reference to the unification of "the present laws pertaining to illegitimate, defective, neglected, dependent, and delinquent children, and to their treatment, care, maintenance, custody, control, protection, and reformation." This commission, which apparently consisted of two members, made its report to the Ohio legislature in 1913. The report, aside from a brief introduction, consists of a draft of proposed amendments to the Ohio statutes.1 New Hampshire by an act of its legislature, approved April 15, 1913, appointed a Children's Commission to "investigate all matters relating to the welfare of the dependent, defective, and delinquent children of the state, especially the questions of orphanage, juvenile courts, detention homes, desertion, physical and mental degeneracy, infant mortality, accidents, and diseases, and make report with recommendations concerning the above matters." The report of the commission, consisting of three members, made in January, 1915, reviews the existing conditions in the state, particularly with respect to infant mortality, feeble-mindedness, and juvenile-court laws, and con 1 See The Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Correction, 1913, Vol. 19, No. 1, p. 64. |