Evening star., 1938-07-31

his right hand. 1t is significant. DR..
Orton feels, that as princeling he
learned to write between the ages of
six and eight. 1t was at this time that
his suffering began. He also feels that
simple psychiatric treatment plus
training which would make him use
his left hand in writing would end the
speech defect that makes life miserable
for England's king.
The two critical ages for children
are two and six At two child begins
to learn to talk and at the same time
chooses the hand which from that time
forward will serve as his master hand.
If, due to parental urging or to other
circumstances, the child selects the
wrong hand, he is apt to become a
stutterer. At the next critical age the
child learns to write - with results
already noted with George vi.
Such handicaps impose great diff
fculties on the sufferer. DR.. Orton has
encountered numberless examples of
people shielding their failings from the
world One child, for example, led her
class in spelling IN Texas public
school. When her family moved to
Iowa she failed. The difference was
that in Texas oral examinations were
used, whereas the Iowa school required
written examinations and the child
was unable to put her knowledge into
written words. Other youngsters, un-
able to read, have hidden this diff
fculty by listening to the recitations
of other students and memorizing
whole pages. For years they have been
able to hide their mental quirks Sue
cessfully.
Strange cases can likewise crop UP
when dominant half of the brain fails
to assert itself. Such one appeared in
Chicago a few weeks ago when the
press discovered l1-year-old Frank
Balek. The left-handed youngster
could neither read nor write by the
time he reached the third grade. Then
he began to solve things for himself
after the teachers methods had failed.
He learned to read holding his texts
upside down. In writing, he elected to
start his compositions in the lower
right hand corner of the page. He
wrote upside down and right-to-left
instead of left -to-right Wisely, teachers
allowed him to proceed with his own
methods instead of risking the emo
tional upset that might follow if he
were forced into alien channels.
The tragedy of these cases is evident
when one realizes that personality
problem usually accompanies any
deviation from the normal pattern of
human development Children with
speech defects retire within them
selves or become unruly and violent.
In this connection it is worth noting
that speech defects among prison
inmates are always several times as
prevalent as on the outside.
Charting new paths through this
scientific no-man s-land has taken up
the better part of DR.. Orton's fifty
eight years. He has indicated to
parents that the best thing to do is let
baby alone in the selection of which
hand he will use. and has demon
strated a means of detecting which is
the master hand if there is any doubt.
The dominant hand. eye and foot al
ways go together. Thus naturally
eft-handed youngster will kick foot
ball with his left foot and squint
through a knothole in the baseball
park fence with his left eye.
DR. Orton's job is by no means COM
pleted, but he has at least managed
to open up whole new vistas; to travel
long way from those sleepless nights
in 1905. He has cleared the fog from
befuddled minds and indicated the
course by which others might achieve
the same thing. The undertaking has
been enormous but the results have