Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-10
PROBLEMS SOLVED
BY CHILD RESEARCH
Apparent Brain Defects Are
Traced to Source by
Center Physicians.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

apparently ne can DC taught W Ieau
He has been in school four years, but
hasn't made the progress that ordinary
children make in one year. His teach
ers have done their best and finally
given him up in despair. His parents
have worked with him at home, but
their efforts have been fruitless.
For some reason or other, the childS
brain can't make the necessary connec-
ton between the printed symbol and its
meaning. His mother is afraid he is
feeble minded. He shows, however,
none of the stigmata of feeble-minded
ness and does fairly we'll on intelligence
tests which have nothing to do with
reading or writing.
The child can write better than he
can read He has been taught to make
letters with painful effort. He can
even spell simple words, such as dog"
and cat" but he has difficulty reading
them after he has written them. He
forms his letters awkwardly and slowly
A few years ago such children had dis
NAL prospects.
When he was brought to the Wash
ington Child Research Center, DR.. Man
del Sherman, the director, held a stop
watch on him.
He wanted to get the boy excited and
told him that if be didn't write dog"
in a very brief specified interval he
would be punished. Excited by the
threat, the boy worked fast The task
was completed well under the specified
time
What the boy wrote was God" with
the letters reversed in position as well
as in order, just as dog" would APP
dog" the child insisted. He worked
with his right hand. This gave DR..
Sherman his clue. Was the boy ever
left-handed? he asked the mother.
She denied this. but under persistent
questioning finally remembered that his
father was left-handed and that the
child had shown some slight tendency
in this direction in infancy. Left
handedness is believed to be heredl-
tary character. The mother didn't want
the child left-handed. regarding the
that she was able to overcome the I'M
welcome tendency. This explained the
basis of the whole difficulty.
This is one of several similar cases
now before the staff of the research
center. The children can't learn in
school and appear 10 have some brain
defect. Sometimes the difficulty is con-
fined to reading. Sometimes 1t extends
to writing, speech and even movement.
For all practical purposes such chill
dren appear feeble-minded. They
represent hopeless problems for the
school until the difficulty is traced
to its source. The minds. however, are
not really defective. The communica-
ton wires are intact but badly tangled
and the task of untangling them IS
difficult. The balance has been upset |
between the right and left hemispheres |
of the brain. controlling transverSely |
the sensory impressions of the right |
and left sides of the body.
The cue for dealing with these cases
vas given for the first time in Wash
ington last Spring at the meeting OF
the American Congress OF Physicians |
and Surgeons, by DR.. Samuel 7. orion
of Cleveland, who described them as |
variants in the establishment OF the
physiologic leads in the henispheres.
Characters in Common.
Study of these children had shown |
certain characters in common-such as
exceptional difficulty in diferent1ating |
letters like % and q and and q, 10
confuse words like was" and saw,
and to reverse paired letters or even
whole syllables or words so that they /
were read from right to left instead OF |
left to right, as in normal reading. All
these children were found to have con-
siderable ability to read from mirror.
These children had no visual defect |
that could be demonstrated and made |
the proper brain associations with all |
visual objects except letters. They !
could cali out quickly the names of
objects and pictures. One 18-year-old
boy who could read only few simple
words was able to make superior grade
on an intelligence test based on pic
lures The children also had good
memory for spoken words, and can
interpret spoken language.
There are three levels of visual as
sociations. it is pointed out, each con-
trolled by different area of the brain.
THE first level" says DR.. Orton, serves
to give awareness that visual sensa-
ton comes from without and is not
recalled memory Of things seen. This
function, without much question, resides
In the calcarine corteX of the occipital
lobes. The second level, that of objec-
tive memories, serves as a StorehouSe
for visual impressions of objects which
have been seen. This function probably
resides in the second type of occlpital
cortex which surrounds the calcarine
area. Up to this point the two heml-
spheres of the brain apparently work In
unison to produce a single conscious
impression-that is the message relayed
from the eyes to the two sides of the
brain are fused so as to give only one
impression. Neither of these functions
is entirely lost as the result of the de-
struction of either hemisphere. At the
third. or associative level, however. de-
struction in one hemisphere may result
in complete loss of the associative func-
ton, resulting in inability to read, while
destruction of exactly the same area in
the opposite hemisphere will not give
rise to any symptoms whatever.
The hemisphere in which destruc-
ton produces loss of the associative
function is called the dominant hemi-
sphere, and may be either the right or
left according to the side which habitu-
ally initiates the motor responses OF the
individual. 1t is obvious that the visual
records of one side only are used in
symbolic association and those Of the
other are elided or inactive in this proc
ess"
That is, according to DR.. orion. a
person reads with only one side OF the
brain. The extremely complicated
process of associating printed symbol
with its meaning takes place in only
one hemisphere. But, he points out,
each of the hemispheres is equally de-
veloped in size and completely Of struc-
. ture. This would imply that both the
dominant and non-dominant hemi-
spheres have been subjected TO the same
processes.
If this is the case, he says, this as
ISOLATION process would leave some
record of its functioning in the cerebral
cells of the non-dominant hemisphere
But due to the structure of the nervous
system this record would be the OPP
posite Of that in the dominant hemi-
sphere. Dog" would be Cod with
the letters turned around In its de-
velopment, however the brain has
formed a habit Of disregarding the
records of the non-dominant area and
accepting only those Of the dominant
area
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