V. EDUCATION 



The mentality of crippled children is in the greatest per- 

 centage of cases normal, and yet they are deprived of their 

 rightful heritage of a public school education because of their 

 physical disability to attend school. Before giving the re- 

 sult of this survey, it seems worth while to mention the re- 

 sults of a mental examination given to 80 crippled children 

 at the Phalen Park Hospital for Crippled Children in St. Paul^ 

 The intelligence of the children ''was expressed as Dr. Kuhl- 

 mann suggested, by his rate of mental development as com- 

 pared with the average normal rate".- The following classi- 

 fication was made : 



17 cases above normal 



38 cases normal 



15 cases slightly below average 



3 cases borderline 



7 cases feeble-minded 



This rating resulted in 871.4 per cent of the children proving 

 to have satisfactory mental development. "It is significant 

 that in 40 out of 62 cases the Binet scale classified the child 

 according to his mental age in the regular grade prescribed 

 for an average child of that age."^ Considering the handicap 

 that a crippled child has to struggle against, this rating would 

 seem extraordinarily high. 



It was impossible to obtain scientific mental tests of the 

 150 children in this study, so that the mental proficiency has 

 been estimated only relatively. Out of the 150 cases, 7 cases, 

 or 4 2/3 per cent, have a diagnosis of mental deficiency at- 

 tached to them; and of these 7 cases, 4 are cases of spastic 

 paralysis, which again illustrates the brain affection in these 

 cases. The total 150 cases include 101 cases of school age, 

 that is, over six years of age. Of these 101 cases, 78, or 77 

 per cent, have records of school attendance, with the number 

 of children in each grade as follows : 



^ American Journal of Care for Cripples, Vol. Ill, No, 4. p. 190. 

 Ubid. 



Ubid., p. 194. 



(43) 



