The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-05-17
Young DuUards
By H. ADDINorON BRUCR

Steadily evidence accumulates to hear out tne view that much alleged feeble -mindedness IS more seeming than real. and that if reme- dlal action is taken soon enough it is possi- pie 10 save for happy and useful lives many children thought to be hopelessIy dull. A recent report by two Pennsylvania special lsts Tn mental troubles, Drs J. Alien Jack son and H. " Pike, is particularly s,,grestive in this connection.
 Dr. Jackson is superintendent of the Dan vile State Hospital Dr. Pike director of clinical psychiatry in the same institution. which IS rural hospital situated in inc heart of Pennsylvania's mining district. To make the hospital more serviceable to the people of the territory in which it operates. territory of more than nine thousand square miles, mental health clinics were some time ago established in various places.
 To these are brought persons with symn. toms thought indicative of mental disease ar mental defect. All told, some seven hundred patients have been examined in the clinics. nearly four hundred being boys and girls under sixteen years of age. Most of these young folk presented behavior problems var rantlng suspicion of feeble-mindednes M
 No fewer than two hundred and fifty.fiye were sent to the clinic specifically because df baekwardness in school Medical and
 
 most seventy per cent. were backward. not because of any incurable weakness of the mentality but because of environmental con dltlons, remediable physical defects, etc. tending to interfere with study ability.
 This was the situation with respect even to some children who appeared to be ab- solutely unteachable. Drs., Jackson and Pike for example, report the caAe of a nine year old girl strangely eccentric in conduct and of such seeming mental density that she had been referred to the clinic for examination with view to commitment to an institute for feeble-minded children.
 Psychological and psychiatric testing more than cast doubt on the validity of the diag- nosis of feeble-mindedness. Physical exam ination showed that the little girl was bur dened with diseased tonsils and adenoitls, anemia and malnutrition, and other bodily defects curable by medicine and slight sur gical operation.
 '"Ths child" Drs. Jackson and Pike irepoyt. twas admitted to q general hospital for bp- eration." The family was advised as to her subsequent supervision. The school teacher, was informed as to the, nature of her troti! ble, and her assistance was obtained in the matter of special instruction
 "An immediate change for the better took place, until at present, one year after ex- animation, the child is doing fourth grade work and has developed q special aptitude for drawing"
 So frequently was it. found possible by. means such as these to redeem the seemingly Predetermined that, in summarizing their con. .clusions Drs: Jackson and Pike feel justified in saying:
 .'In our public schools are many children whose failure to keep abreast of their studies and progress with their fellows is attributed to feeble -mindedness, and in whom mental aex- animation reveals the fact that they pos. sess degree of intelligence sufficient to per- init their doing good work, often in advance of the grades in which they are placed
 Fully one-half of the children whose ad. justment in the school-room is faulty. owe their failure to adaptation to physical and ensironmental factors. the correction of which will be followed promptly by defi- mite change for the better, and in many instances bring about a perfectly normal .environmental adjustment" &
 Bearing in mind that really Scientific re- search into the the causes of mental Slulling is comparatively recent development. it seems safe to predict that with time there will be found increasing reason for affirming that the percentage ,-of true and incurabIe eeble-mindedness is small indeed.
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