PHYSICAL DEFECTS AND SCHOOL PROGRESS 



to further study of the figures. The data were retabulated by 

 ages, and the findings showed a marked and consistent falling 

 off of children who had each sort of defect from the age of six 

 up to the age of fifteen. Defective vision alone increased slowly 

 but steadily with advancing age. 



Moreover, these decreases were not due to the falling out 

 or leaving school of children suffering from defects. This might 

 be put forward as an explanation if we had to do with children 

 above the age of compulsory attendance, or if the characteristic 

 decrease did not take place until the age of fourteen or fifteen; 

 but such was not the case. The children were from six to fifteen 

 years of age, and the marked decrease began with the seven, 

 eight, nine, and ten-year-old children and continued steadily. 



Were further data not available, it would be difficult to 

 explain the seeming anomaly that retarded children have fewer 

 defects than do children of normal age; but the data showing the 

 decrease of physical defects with increasing age are illuminating. 

 It is evident that here age is the important factor. The impor- 

 tance of this factor in all investigations into the influence of physical 

 defects on school progress is evident. 



Whether the term " retarded/' referring to over-age children, 

 is used to express a condition or an explanation, it will always 

 follow from the definition itself that retarded children will be 

 older than their fellow pupils in the same grades. In all cases it 

 will always be true that the "backward" pupils will be the older 

 pupils. Now, the older pupils are found to have fewer defects. 

 This is true whether they are behind their grades or well up in 

 their studies. Therefore, it is not surprising that we find 80 per 

 cent of all children of normal age have physical defects more or less 

 serious, while but 75 per cent of the retarded children are found to 

 be defective. This does not mean that pupils with more physical 

 defects are brighter mentally. It simply means that those who are 

 above normal age are older, and that older pupils have fewer defects. 



In order to ascertain what correlation may exist between 

 physical defects and school progress, the records of the children 

 were retabulated, using age instead of grade as a basis, so that the 

 findings should not be vitiated by the heterogeneous age composi- 

 tion of the grades. 



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