explanations pass him by, because these
unconscious, involuntary faculties do not
work normally. Set him at a job, however,
and his homogeneous attention and volun-
tary memory, conscious faculties, serve him
fairly well. For the sake of improving his
classroom work, therefore, the first point
is the training indicated for simultaneous
attention and automatic memory.

Coming to the more elaborated faculties,
it is evident that his invention can be
quickened, and his imagination greatly de-
veloped by utilising his disposition to draw.



192 The Backward Child

There is no sign that he has an overmastering
talent which demands technical instruction,
but his fondness for expressing himself in that
form can be made the means of unfolding
his dormant possibilities. In particular, his
associations, which are now difficult and
objective, will tend to become more free and
elastic if he has training in illustrative and
imaginative drawing. The very act of
thinking out details to the point of putting
them into a drawing will enrich his whole
idea of a house, for instance, and ever after-
ward "house" will stand for more possibili-
ties than it did when it was merely a place
to go in and out of.

This imaginative drawing, too, will tend
to quicken his perceptions. He already
has a predisposition to analysis, which the
thinking out of details for an idea will
sharpen and clarify. And on the other hand,
the very expression of his ideas will tend
to strengthen his synthetic perceptions, be-
cause in any kind of creative work one gets
the habit of foreseeing what this or that will



Test Interpretation 193

lead to, and whether it leads where one wants
it to.

One can only outline the infinite possibili-
ties which open up before a teacher if once
she can discover or persuade some aptitude
in some direction of self-expression.

Condensing, therefore, the diagnosis and
suggestions for George Cascio we find that
for reference we can make this kind of a
record;

Complaint:

Cannot learn at school.
Result of Examination :

Poor simultaneous attention is his
only defective faculty; the others
are sluggish probably on this ac-
count.
Has marked fondness and facility for
drawing.
Suggested Training:

For simultaneous attention: Hunt-
ing for small objects in plain
sight.



194 TKe BacKward Child

Describing pictures looked at for a
few seconds.

Let the teacher write words, then sen-
tences, showing them to him for
three seconds; then taking them
away, ask him what was written.

For stimulating other faculties, using
drawing facility: Have him draw
scenes and then stories in successive
scenes, either out of his own head,
or from bare facts suggested by the
teacher. He must furnish the de-
tails himself.

The materials needed for the examination
are these:

1. Simple picture puzzles. Can be
bought three for ten cents.

2. Two pasteboard cards, 1 1 x 9, on which
are pasted pictures cut from magazines, for
instance on one a watch, a bed, a typewriter,
a pen, a bicycle, a teapot, a man with a mando-
lin, a cat; and on the other, an automobile,
a chicken, a man on horseback jumping a



Test Interpretation 195

gate, a shoe, a table. These cards are used
either separately or together for tests of
simultaneous attention.

3. Silhouettes or pictures of eight animals
pasted on separate cards — a rabbit, cat, cow,
pig, bear, camel, elephant, horse.

4. A 3-inch square of paper. Also a
3-inch square cut into triangles.

5. A book of large print used in crossing
out letters.

6. As large an assortment of Coloured
worsteds as possible.

7. A box of letters for anagrams.

8. Outhnes of a chick, a pear, a bunch of
grapes, to be used for copying.

9. Three picttires of heads of normal
people, and three caricatures.

10. White paper and pencils.



196



TKe BacK^ward CHild



The following tabular form is suggested
for the detailed record of the examination :



< m






^



b




'S


^


t


W)


ttl


c


<


U.


<






I






i .1



I I

O 0)

> W



ill



I



i i «>

2 S ex
o



w ffi Q



Co



^ .tJ -S :=! i^
> < H c/3 H



CHAPTER XIV

METHODS OF TRAINING

TT is evident that when one goes about
* making a diagnosis, one cannot hold a
brief for any single kind of training as a
cure-all. One must be as impartial in choos-
ing the remedy as in looking for the disease.
The individual difficulty is the thing, and
any device, fantastic or obvious, which tends
to remove that difficvdty is the only cure
worth considering.

As a matter of practical experiment, back-
ward children can be brought up to a normal
average in their lessons by half an hour's
daily individual training. The person in
charge of the training may even be inexperi-
enced, provided only the diagnosis has been
made by a competent examiner and the
directions given by her for training are clear-
197



198 The BacKward CKild

cut and specific. By way of outline, there-
fore, for teachers who are able to give or to
procure training outside of the regular class-
room routine, the following suggestions are
made. They do not require elaborate ma-
terial, nor involve unusual methods. They
are intended to utilise the things that a child
does every day and to make them serve the
purpose of building up the mental faculties
in which he is weak. The devices given
below have been tried and found to be
successful, but the writer realises that they
only suggest a thousand other resources al-
ready at the command of any good teacher.
They are offered as a key to the manner in
which those resources may be used most
effectively.

Sensation: Visualising: Write a short
word, like "ball" or "man," show it to the
child for a moment, and ask him to write
what he saw. The length of the word can
be increased, but if sentences are used it
becomes a matter of simultaneous attention.

Sound Reproduction: Have plainly written



MetHods of Training 199

on slips of cardboard 20 or 30 words, either
of one syllable or else rhyming, and tell the
child to pick out all those, for instance, that
have the sound of at. This can be made
harder by increasing the ntmiber of words
and by having the child look for two sounds
at once, like a and tion in ^* consternation."
These two devices develop mental sensitivity
for purely, schoolroom purposes, and are used
especially when there is trouble with spelling.
Perception: The analytic or synthetic
turn of mind being a matter of how one looks
at things and consequently a matter of daily
environment, it is not possible to foster one
or the other very strongly in the schoolroom.
Broadly speaking, anything that stimulates
invention encourages the synthetic turn of
mind; or if the teacher especially wishes
to develop the habit of analysis she can do it
best by asking "why" questions in history
and wherever the child can be expected to
make a reasonable answer. But in most cases
the teacher will be wise if she takes ad-
vantage of the tendency toward analysis or



200 The Backward Child

synthesis which she is supposed to have de-
termined, and bases her explanations upon it.
For instance, if a synthetically minded child
cannot do grammar, try writing out the parts
of the sentence, as, for instance. Subject y Verhy
Object, on separate slips of paper. Write also
the parts of a given sentence on slips of paper,
like: A book — ^fell — off the table. Give the
child these six slips mixed up, and tell him to
make the sentence and then to match up
its parts with the other three slips. Assum-
ing that he is familiar with the terms but
does not understand their use, this device, by
calling for synthetic activity, tends to clear
up confusion, and has been used with a
good deal of success.

Abstraction: Measuring objects about the
room with a foot-rule and, as a next step,
estimating the measurements before making
them, is good training for a child whose
trouble in abstraction is not pronounced
enough for feeble-mindedness. An instance
appears on pp. 224-226.

Association: A set of 35 or 40 pictures



MetHods of Training 201

as varied as possible, each pasted on a
separate card, and a list of 35 or 40 com-
mon words, also on separate cards, are a
necessary part of any training equip-
ment, and are good materials for training
association.

The child is to sort the words according to
their use or according to their action, in
order to increase his associations and make
them more elastic. For instance, if a child
with the verbal type of associations is set to
picking out all the words that have to do
with summer or with cooking, he is obliged
to consider their meanings instead of relying
on the less intelligent association by sound.
The pictures may be used for the same
purpose. Ask the child to sort out all those
that have growing things in them, and
gradually increase the complexity of the
exercise until he is drawing inferences; as,
for instance, in sorting the pictures in which
somebody is angry.

This device not only multiplies associ-
ations, but it makes for the forming of



C02 XKe BacK-ward CKild

clearer abstract ideas, and it sharpens obser-
vation. In order to realise that a picture
which shows two men with their shirt sleeves
rolled up eating their lunch under a tree in
full leaf has anything to do with summer,
the child must first notice the various details
of the picture, must have a clear idea of what
they mean, and must be able to accept or
reject — that is, to associate these details in
relation to the idea of summer which he is
at the moment pursuing.

Attention: Simultaneous attention is
trained by a game like **hide the thimble."
A small object is put in plain sight, and the
child hunts for it. Jackstraws is another
device; or the child may look out of the
window while the teacher counts three and
then tell everything he saw. The object
in training simultaneous attention is to
eliminate all possibility of mechanical action
and make the child depend on what faculties
he can summon at the moment.

Homogeneous attention is trained by
having the child hammer nails, for instance,



MetHods of Training 203

in the upper left-hand corners of all the
squares marked out on a board; or by the
device known as magic dots or by a peg-
board, where he must make a given simple
pattern over and over again; or by tracing
pictures; or by stringing beads in a given
order, like 2 red, i white, 3 blue, 2 yellow,
and so on. The object is to make the child
pursue a single idea which he must hold
clearly before him in order to keep doing his
work accurately. One must avoid fatigue
in training homogeneous attention, so that
several different devices may be used in the
same half -hour, all having the same object in
view. The teacher will see the effect of this
training in improved concentration.

Memory: Automatic memory may be
trained in this way: Have the child make
lists of common things, like the furniture in
the kitchen at home, or all the things one
cooks with, or all the things he has in his
desk at school, or, if he goes to a carpentry
class, all the tools he uses. The principle in
training automatic memory is to call for a



204 The Backward Child

recollection of things which the child habitu-
ally sees, but in a more or less mechani-
cal fashion. The teacher must not confuse
this method with the reproduction of
new or immediate impressions, which is
the training for simultaneous attention.
Another way to train automatic memory is
to have the child repeat a series of words,
numbers, or nonsense syllables which the
teacher says to him, gradually increasing the
number.

The training for voluntary memory has
been described already in some detail. The
foundation must be laid by stimulating the
child's associations, and the method found
most effective is to have him write original
rhymes. At the same time he is learning
his own rhymes by heart, he is to learn some
on similar subjects, and gradually the com-
mitting to memory can supplant the verse
writing. The teacher must keep in mind
that association is the rock-bottom fact in
voluntary memory, and for this reason
memorising prose is advisable because the



MetHods of Training 205

association process is not helped out by-
rhyme and rhythm.

Retentive memory is too largely a pre-
determined quality to be much affected by
any training the teacher can give. It is
merely retentive memory alone that is at
fault, and when voluntary memory or homo-
geneous attention is improved, the sieve-like
habit usually disappears.

Imagination: Re-telling stories, illustrat-
ing stories by freehand drawing and making
up stories to go with colored pictures are
all devices previously described which stimu-
late and also train the imagination.

Invention: Invention, which may be re-
garded as applied imagination, is trained for
school purposes in the following ways:

(a) By picture puzzles, which call for
consideration of the shapes of the pieces, their
colour, and their meaning; and, for small
children, by pieced animals which are on the
same general principle.

(6) By supplying the missing words and
letters in such a story as the following:



2o6 TKe BacK-ward CHild

Where the Dandelions Went.

Wh Willy two old he

red farm th yard front The

dan were th k there, so that the

y d look yellow instead of One

day his m went into the and

found that many were gone. Look into
the well, could no water at all,

on d For Willy been

busy try fill

The teacher will vary the difficulty of this
specimen as seems to her best.

Judgment and Reasoning: These are facul-
ties that do not directly affect the child's
school work. Together with expression and
response, they are part of the workings of
environment and all the subtle influences of
life outside the schoolroom. To attempt
training them, therefore, is something like
putting the cart before the horse. For,
while the test will guide the teacher in mak-
ing her estimate of the child, she had best
concentrate her training on the more primary



MetKods of Training 207

faculties and the more glaring faults, trust-
ing the finer points to an harmonious co-
ordination.

Hysteria: When the teacher suspects a
child of mild hysteria, of the tense, repressive
kind described in this book, she will find the
following methods useful:

1. Throwing and catching with a hard
ball both against the wall and with the
teacher.

2. Swinging Indian clubs in sufficiently
complicated figures to call for both limber-
ness and presence of mind. Following the
teacher*s lead through a maze of revolutions
is especially good training.

3. Jackstraws, which calls for a continual
readjustment of the energy to be used in
picking up the straws.

4. Various caHsthenic exercises to reduce
the stiffness which usually goes with con-
genital hysteria; to be followed by

5. Complete relaxation, lying flat on the
back.

Symbols: The difficulty of many children



2oS The Backward CKild

in connecting the sound and look and mean-
ing of a symbol will be discussed and the
training described.

The following, therefore, is only a summary
of some of the successful devices:

Cutting out letters — to impress their shape
by bringing in the associations of the large
muscular movements used in cutting.

Lotto — to connect the look and sound of
numbers by having to search for them.

Writing letters and saying them at the
same time.

Doing steps to the alphabet.

Learning tunes with the alphabet printed
on the piano keys.



CHAPTER XV



TYPICAL BACKWARD CHILDREN



WHEN children are on the border-line of
mental defect without actually over-
stepping it, the teacher usually describes
them as backward because they are dull
and inert, or backward because they are
hard to discipline, or backward because they
have some physical ailment.

To make a more detailed classification,
children who give trouble in the schoolroom
show one or more of the following character-
istics :

1. Inherent fimctional brain
disturbance.

2. Sense defect.

3. Under-nourishment, anaemia,
adenoids, etc.

14 309



2IO



TKe BacK-ward CKild



:. Slow rate of development,
i. e.j retardation, shown in
general sluggishness.

5. Intractability, either (a) nerv-
II < ous and fitful, or (b) sullen

and obstinate.

J. Listlessness, lack of applica-
tion, irregularity in lessons.

[, Hysteria.

The first group is outside the scope of
this book; the second, however, permits of
psychological analysis and training. And
in this chapter it is proposed to describe
children of these frequent types, to show how
their failings were diagnosed, and what
methods were used in training them.

I. Concetta Ferrito, ten years old, was a
case of slow development. Her teacher said
she had no concentration, and although she
was docile, nothing seemed to make any im-
pression on her. On examination she showed
an ingenuity amounting to a talent for
avoiding mental action. In every faculty



Typical BacKiward CKildren 211

her response was as automatic as possible.
Her simultaneous attention and automatic
memory were good, and her associations,
made verbally, were easy, and drawn from
objects in the room. For instance, to
*' house" she would answer "fireplace,'*
which she was facing, her whole tendency
being to avoid mental exertion. Her homo-
geneous attention was poor. She saw three
t's in the first line, and mechanically crossed
out three t's in a line all through the rest of
the page. Her voluntary memory was very
poor. Perception tests were quite impossi-
ble, and in every other test she went just as
far as she could by using her mechanical
faculties; in other words, without thinking.

The training for Concetta, then, demanded
a positive reaction. A picture was given her
of a little girl in a nightgown with a candle in
her hand standing at a window and looking out.

"What time of day is it in that picture?**
asked the teacher.

"Morning,** said Concetta, with an en-
chanting smile.



212 TKe BacKward CKild

And so the picture was discussed, and the
significance of the candle and the nightgown
was observed until it dawned upon Concetta
that it was night-time in the picture. Every-
day she looked at pictures for half an hour
and answered questions about them, and
when she had answered, the teacher would
say, "How do you know?" obliging her
thereby to scrutinise her own ideas, and
getting mental activity out of her without
stupefying her with too difficult material.
It is useless to expect a child of this type to
tackle the new subject-matter that is pre-
sented in class. The automatism which is at
once the cause and the result of her back-
wardness will keep her for ever resisting,
and to break the vicious circle she must be
coaxed into mental action by giving familiar
things in a new way. Then, when the habit
is started, the teacher can successfully begin
on new subjects.

2 (a) Celia Warkominsky, ten years old,
was complained of for her "attitude." She
was nervous and hard to manage in class,



Typical BacK'ward CKildren 213

and although she seemed to understand the
teacher's explanation, her work was poor,
accounted for on the ground of "attitude."
Her examination showed normal faculties in
general, but a good deal of inaccuracy,
which was a matter of carelessness because
it disappeared when she was pulled up. But
she had to be pulled up continually. Her
associations were at random, verbal, and
quickly formed. She seemed unable to per-
ceive any idea synthetically ; that is, although
she could spell quite well, she had no re-
sources in finding out the word "mother"
when the letters were given her. This
confirmed the fact which her whole examin-
ation brought out: that her faculties were
normal enough, but that she did not know
how to use them.

Her inaccuracy probably had its beginning
in physical nervousness and anaemia, which
made her restless and then careless. But
by the age of ten, it had become a mental
habit which could only be ciired mentally,
and all that physical improvement could do



214 The BacKward Child

would be to check the aggravating cause.
In training CeHa to a more precise use of her
mind, the device must not be too abstract.
It must be something in which her own
mistakes pull her up of themselves, and make
her correct herself. In such cases it is a good
thing to make one of the child's own senses
do the training. Celia was fond of tunes,
it appeared, although she was not especially
sensitive, and on that basis the following
experiment was made. She was taught
*'The Wearing of the Green'* — which she
chose — on the piano with one finger. It was
immensely difficult for her, but it did two
things : she could not pass over her mistakes,
and when she finally got a phrase right, she
had a sense of triumphant satisfaction that
showed her for the first time the sharpness
of the difference between right and wrong.
She learned a number of tunes with one
finger, and then simple basses.

The effect was first noticed in her more
accurate arithmetic, and if the training could
have been followed up with physical improve-



Typical BacK-ward CKildren 215

ment, the difficulty of Celiacs "attitude"
would have been solved. As it was, the
teacher said that she was still hard to man-
age, because of her nervousness, although
her work had improved.

2 (b) Tony Ferrari was unmanageable,
sullen and obstinate, partly said the teacher,
as a result of home conditions. But he was
dull too, and harder to teach because he was
hard to discipline. So he was examined to
find out the intellectual parallel to his bad
behaviour. Tony was ten, and small, but
wiry and seemingly well enough nourished.
He could not read, and no one had been able
to teach him even the alphabet. Modem
methods like phonograms and play systems
fell flat.

Tony showed reasonably good mental
faculties. His attention, memory, abstrac-
tion, and imagination were all far from defec-
tive. The examiner wondered where the
trouble was, and how, in the face of his
inability to read, she was going to make a
complete enough examination to find out.



2i6 The BacKward Child

Then some questions bearing on general
orientation, such as what time of day it was,
what time of year, what kind of clothes girls
wore that were different from boys', and so
on, which Tony couldn't answer, showed an
interesting discrepancy in his development.
Pursuing the questions further, it appeared
that Tony was quite at home with money
and that he knew just how he had been
brought from Greenwich Village to East
Sixty-fifth Street, although it was the first
time. Here then was a boy with no special
brain defect, who yet was markedly dull
in school and showed an almost imbecile
ignorance of his surroundings save in one or
two directions where he was acute. His
aptitude apparently, had been developed
under pressure; that is to say, the familiarity
with money which becomes a matter of self-
preservation when a boy runs errands and
also goes with a "gang," and alertness in
remembering the way, which his night roam-
ings would also make a matter of self-pre-
servation.



Typical BacK^ward CKildren 217

The examiner inferred, therefore, that
Tony's association paths were not of the
most impressionable kind. She could not
test his associations directly, because he could
not write; but it was evident, in spite of a
fairly good memory, attention, and power
of abstraction, that simple ideas or mental
images happening together were not violent
enough to create association paths in Tony's
brain; that the idea had to be reinforced
with some practical bearing. It was natural
enough then, that letters — pure ideational
symbols — should pass Tony completely by.

Acting on this explanation, an experiment
was made to teach Tony the alphabet. The
first point to be made was to create associ-
ations so vivid, so material, as it were, that
each letter should take on an existence of its
own in his mind. When mental associations
are too subtle to impress, one tries muscular
associations. Tony accordingly learned a
kind of little dance, for each movement of
which he said a letter. Each movement is
distinct and well-defined. For instance, step



ei8 The BacKward CKild

forward with the right foot saying A ; step for-
ward with the left foot saying B ; step back-
ward with the right foot saying C; step
backward with the left foot saying D, and
then sideways, and with arm movements,
each one being sharply made at the instant