Knox: Tests for Mental Defects 



123 



THE "IJVIBECILE" TEST. 



normal six-year-old child can fit all the cut-out blocks into their places inside of five 

 minutes, with not more than six false moves. All immigrants suspected of feeble- 

 mindedness are asked to perform this and other similar tests; their exact degree of 

 mental deficiency can thus be rated. For instance, if a ten-year-old boy requires five 

 minutes to fit the pieces in this block, and makes half a dozen false moves, it indicates 

 that he has only the mentality of a six-year-old. (Figure 12.) 



family history, this woman produced a 

 typical Mongolian imbecile child. This 

 observation is so frequent that it is 

 worthy of note. Temperamental pe- 

 culiarities have been observed in the 

 parents of defectives so frequently that 

 these eccentricities are now regarded as 

 the precursors of actual deficiency in the 

 immediate or future descendants. 



These peculiarities are cyclothymia 

 (alternate periods of hilarious joy and 

 deep depression), nerve storms, poorly 

 controlled grief, temper yielding to 

 minor excitations, untimely mirth, sen- 

 sual morbidity and perversion, sullen- 



ness, facial tic and other minor neuroses, 

 sick headaches, hypochondriasis (fear of 

 bodily ills), signs of genius in certain 

 lines, the use of bywords, the formation 

 of strong habits, mannerisms, speech 

 defects and other noticeable qualities 

 that brand the possessor as "queer" in 

 not only the eyes of the examiner but 

 also in the minds of associates who may 

 have known the individual all his life. 



It has been suggested that these ill- 

 defined entities come in one generation, 

 while in the next two or three, definite 

 psychoses and mental deficiency appear 

 and in the generations succeeding the 



