Brain Damage, Reading Disability and the Bender Gestalt TestKoppitz, Elizabeth Munsterberg
doi: 10.1177/002221947000300901pmid: N/A
The Bender Gestalt Test should be used in the diagnosis of brain damage in children only in combination with other test data and information. By itself, the Bender Test can reveal neurological malfunctioning which may be due to many different causes; brain injury is only one of them. The Bender Test is an effective screening instrument for school beginners. Reading problems can be diagnosed with the Bender Test only if they derive in part from difficulties in visual-motor perception, but not if they are caused primarily by language disabilities or specific memory deficits.
Is Special Education Necessary? Can This Program Possibly be Reduced?Jansen, Mogens; Ahm, Jette; Jensen, Poul Erik; Leerskov, Anders
doi: 10.1177/002221947000300902pmid: N/A
In Denmark special education was introduced many years ago. In the instruction of the Danish language, in particular, special education has become a well established institution, and in recent years this program has developed to the extent where about 15 percent of all Danish school children at some time or other during their course of schooling will have received some form of remedial instruction.The introduction of different preventive measures has in no way seemed to reduce the apparently rather heavy need for instruction of this nature.In view of the fact that special education is often tantamount to a segregation of the pupils concerned from the rest of their class, it is in conflict with the general philosophy which tends to let the largest possible number of the pupils in a class stay together throughout the entire compulsory education period.With the above as background, we shall now present our views on the question of whether it will be possible to reduce the need for special education by means of an overall expansion of the general educational facilities, to a sufficient extent so as to also take care of the educational needs of the pupils in question.
One to One process analysis of Learning Disability Tutorial SessionsBanatyne, Alex
doi: 10.1177/002221947000300904pmid: N/A
The major aim of this project was to develop a research technique in order to observe, study, and process analyze the behavior of children with learning disabilities in one-to-one teacher-child tutorial situations. The purpose was to isolate those effective elements (and the non-effective elements) in the teaching process which help (or hinder) learning of the presented subject matter. These objectives were achieved by devising or adopting an array of observational procedures, team judgment categories and standards, single person statistical techniques, and pretesting and posttesting. For brevity, the overall research technique is called the “One-to-One Process Analysis System.” This is Part I of the final report o f the research project. Part II will appear in October; Part III will appear in the November issue of this publication.
Seriation Actions in Preschool ChildrenHolowinsky, Ivan Z.
doi: 10.1177/002221947000300905pmid: N/A
This is a review of the study on “The Role of Teaching in the Formation of Seriation Actions in Preschool Children,” which appeared in the official publication of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the U.S.S.R. The study suggests future research concerning cross-cultural applicability of Piaget's developmental sequence.
Building Ego Factors through the CurriculumDubnoff, Belle
doi: 10.1177/002221947000300906pmid: N/A
Children in the Dubnoff School for Educational Therapy have problems ranging from neurological dysfunction and learning disabilities to mental retardation and overt psychoses. One common denominator for all of them, regardless of whether the insult to the organism is organic or psychogenic, is a deficiency in ego strength. This paper deals first with the psychological rationale operative throughout the Dubnoff School which is based on the work of ego psychologists, Erik Erikson in particular. Erikson's framework sets for us the task of a step-by-step development of ego identity. This has pointed our work in the direction of building ego strength through mastery. Multi-dimensional programs which have evolved over many years to help overcome ego deficiency are described.
Training Non-Readers in “Listening Achievement”Goolsby, Thomas M.; Lasco, Richard A.
doi: 10.1177/002221947000300908pmid: N/A
The major purpose of this study was to determine whether listening experience for children resulted in improved ability to recognize information heard. Subjects were five-year-old children randomly selected from five kindergartens of an average population and randomly assigned to three groups.Between pretests and posttests different amounts and kinds of training in listening were applied for each of the three groups. Resulting data indicated that different treatments did not make for a difference in performance.Comparison with data of another study by the author, in which the subjects were culturally deprived children, indicated that immediate feedback seemed to produce comparable levels of listening achievement regardless of whether the subjects are culturally deprived or of the general population. No feedback to culturally deprived Head Start subjects resulted in their significantly lower listening achievement level.
IQ and the ITPA Classification versus DiagnosisRice, James A.; Doughtie, Eugene B.
doi: 10.1177/002221947000300909pmid: N/A
There has been confusion in the field of learning disabilities regarding the invocation of low intelligence as an explanation for a reading deficiency. While there is certainly moderate correlation between measured intelligence and various measures of reading achievement, it is ill-advised to accept such a sweeping generalization. The case study described here points up this issue and supports the utilization of an educationally diagnostic instrument in addition to the usual IQ test.