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The Relation Of Speech Or Language To Idiocy
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| 49 | Of course I do not mean to say that we ask all these questions in this order; but we start in with our somewhat routine inquiries wherever necessary, guided by the general aspect of the case or the conduct of the friends toward the proposed pupil. In the higher grade of pupils we may address our questions directly to them, learning from their answers what command of language they may have. | |
| 50 | The drift of all these inquiries is to determine the mental status of the proposed pupil; in other words, the degree of idiocy. | |
| 51 | When such questions are fairly answered about any child, we can have a tolerable idea of his mental condition, including observation, memory, and reasoning power. | |
| 52 | There are other questions relating to hereditary history, the underlying or associated disease, peculiarities of form or face, habits, causation, etc., that are interesting in various ways, and help in our prognosis of the probable results of our system of training and education, and of the treatment. But these are, in a sense, mere incidents of the idiocy. The vital aim of our inquiries, i.e., the mental condition, can only be reached by a knowledge of the extent to which language is understood and used. | |
| 53 | Mental power and mental activity must have an exponent in some form of language or speech, and in its higher exercise, as well as in the course of its development, needs it as a means of thought, and so we find it inextricably interwoven with all but the lowest stages of human development. | |
| 54 | In thus making language the test of the degree of idiocy, I am aware that it is strictly a mental test, and in further suggesting it as the basis of classification, the same objection might be offered, for it is not in accord with recent classifications of mental aberration or mental weakness. The authors of these regard the mental manifestations as mere symptoms of abnormal and pathological physical condition, underlying or associated. | |
| 55 | Nevertheless, if this shall be found to be an imperfect test of degree and an unsound basis of classification, still we have no other resource till it shall have been clearly established: First, that there is a measurably constant relation (of cause and effect) between certain physiological and pathological conditions and corresponding manifestations of defective intelligence, sensibility, and will, as seen in idiocy. And, secondly, that these associated physiological or other conditions can be detected, located, measured, and clearly defined. | |
| 56 | We certainly have not yet reached that stage of knowledge of the underlying or associated abnormal physical conditions, in connection with the varying degrees of defective intelligence, to base a scheme of classification upon the former that will help us in our knowledge of the latter. (1) (1) A German author, Kussmaul, describes speech as an "acquired reflex." But when one considers the extent and complication of the intermediate apparatus between the ingoing impression through eye or ear that gives rise to or calls out the returning utterance, the impulse to speech it awakens, and the subject, mode, and process of the outcome of expression, it seems like a misapplication of the term reflex. Take a simple question addressed to a child, say of three years old, thus, "Will you have cream on your berries?" And the child replies, "As long as my mother has cream on her berries, I think I will have some on mine." It is only necessary to study a form of expression as simple as the above, -- taken literally from the mouth of a child at the age mentioned, -- to study, it in comparison, on the one hand, with the first brief simple utterances of infantile speech, and, on the other hand, with the complicated sentences in the higher fields of thoughtful human speech, to be impressed with the inadequacy of the term reflex in such connection. Furthermore, this same comparison will clearly show that in selecting this single faculty of language as the test of relative intelligence in the individual or the race, there is no ground for objection in the compass or definiteness of the register. | |
| 57 | There is an obstacle in the way of well-defined classification here as in any other case where there are no specific distinctions to stand as metes and bounds between the different categories. The difference in the grades of idiocy is the same as seen in the growth of intelligence from infancy to manhood. Still, there are general classes, the types of which may be appreciated, though the classes themselves shade into each other. Let me illustrate this by an examination into the condition, in respect to language and speech, of the two hundred and eighty pupils now in this institution. I refer, of course, to their condition when admitted, for training will modify the relation of speech to the different grades of idiocy, depending upon the relative prominence given to exercises designed to develop language and speech, and exercises of another character and purpose. From my experience, however, I should say that language and speech will ordinarily come with developing intelligence, even if special efforts are not made to call them out. That is to say, with a certain degree of intelligence and observation, the idea of language and a comprehension of its use will come as in the case of a normal child, only relatively to the intelligence a little more backward. So, too, with a certain degree of control over the physical organization, coupled with the desire of expressing desires and wants, speech will generally follow. | |