Mental aspects of delinquency / by Truman Lee Kelley.

  • Truman Lee Kelley
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mental aspects of delinquency / by Truman Lee Kelley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ments, excepting pubertal development. Also, that. the left hand is more nearly up to standard than the right hand, a fact also found by Smedley (115) and, finally, that the boys are not as deficient in strength as they are in tapping. All of these boys, young and old alike, work in the field or shop one-half of each day; and it is quite surprising, tho in harmony with the findings of Smedley (115) and Dawson (quoted by Whipple, 138), that they do not on that account surpass Chicago school boys in strength of grip. Tho the low tapping record is not as surprising, the greater retardation shown by it makes it more diagnostic. An examination of each boy for strength upon his amount of deficieney. It is impossible to give comparative data in ctiid to the findings with the sensory tests. The amount of serious eye defect is large, 37 per cent, and as practically all of it was both uncorrected and undetected, it represents a condition which could not have failed to seriously influence the early life of these children. There was only one boy in the institution who had glasses, and he was not wearing them. Eye strain, school failure, truancy, and delinquency represents the history of nearly all of this 37 per cent, and it may be in large part a causal sequence. Smedley (quoted by Whipple, 138) found that the eye de- fect in backward and troublesome children amounts to some 70 per cent more than for normal children. He suggests that the defectiveness may be a cause of the delinquency. Hye | by an extra amount of concentration or muscular and nervous tension in controlling the eyes. As revealed by the motor tests, delinquent boys, as a group, are deficient in muscular and nerv- ous control and, not possessing glasses, it follows as a direct consequence that school asignments involving reading are par- ticularly difficult and dissatisfying to them; whereas a child with a better organized nervous system seit be but little an- noyed by an equal demand for persistent eye control. Medical examination and glasses at public expense for children having
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