Problems of subnormality / by J.E. Wallace Wallin ... with an introduction by John W. Withers.

  • Wallin, J. E. Wallace (James Edward Wallace), 1876-
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Problems of subnormality / by J.E. Wallace Wallin ... with an introduction by John W. Withers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the feeble-minded child would not be the best type of train- ing to give to a backward child, or a normal child with specific pedagogical handicaps, or a speech defective who is not feeble-minded. And it is evident that if all types of misfit pupils are placed in the same class it will be diffi- cult to do justice to any one type. It is therefore neces- sary in the interest of the individual child who cannot be reached by the ordinary curriculum, and in the interest of the economic administration of the schools, that the dif- ferentiations must be drawn as finely and accurately as possible, so that pupils subject to the same type of dis- ability or degree of subnormality may be grouped to- gether. The attempt to supply this need has brought the pyscho-educational examiner, or clinical psychologist, into the service of the public schools; and to the solution of this task Dr. Wallin devotes a considerable portion of this book. Dr. Wallin has for many years enjoyed unparal- leled opportunities in the first-hand study of a great vari- ety of types of mentally and educationally abnormal chil- dren, not only in residential institutions, but also in large public-school systems, and he has had a wide experience in the training of teachers for normal and subnormal chil- dren and in the administration of public-school classes for subnormal children. In this book he has outlined more clearly and adequately than has hitherto been done a plan for the organization of various types of special and ungraded classes to meet the needs of different types of exceptional children, and has had an opportunity to subject the plan to a practical test in the St. Louis pub- lic schools, where it has been possible gradually to adopt many of the recommendations of the book. One of the significant results of the examinations conducted by Dr. Wallin in the St. Louis schools during the past three