The child's hearing for speech / by Mary D. Sheridan.

  • Sheridan, Mary D. (Mary Dorothy)
Date:
[1948]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The child's hearing for speech / by Mary D. Sheridan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/136 (page 1)
    THE RELATION BETWEEN SPEECH AND HEARING THE association between the child’s ability to acquire speech and his mental capacity has for so long been recognized, that, to a large ~extent, we judge what we call his intelligence by his accuracy in articulation and his fluency in language. Indeed, the commonest forms of intelligence tests now used by school medical officers and psychologists are based almost entirely on language, since, even when some performance tests are included, the instructions are given verbally. The child whose linguistic development is delayed is at a severe disadvantage when compared with his companions, and that this delay is not always due to mental backwardness was one of the objects of my research to show. In 1928 when I was first engaged in school medical work, I saw in Hoylake a girl of 10 who was referred by her teacher as a case of dumbness. The child was well grown, quick and graceful in movement and she had every appearance of being intelligent. When asked a question her whole attitude was so alert and responsive that she gave the impression of being about to reply at any moment ; but she had never been heard to speak a recognizable word in school. She could ‘make noises’, the teacher said, and she was certainly not deaf; She knew when doors banged and when the school bell sounded. I verified this by several rough tests such as clapping my hands, dropping books, and tapping an enamel bowl behind her back. Each time she turned immediately with a bright, eager, questioning smile. I watched her at play with her companions. _ They accepted her disability very naturally making only occasional signs to her which she was quick to interpret, and once, when a companion chased her, she ran wildly across the playground with her mouth open shouting loudly. There was obviously nothing wrong with her lungs or her larynx. Her mother, when interviewed, was rather truculent and said the child could speak if she wished, she just did not want to. She had been bathing with her sister a few days before and had said ‘ water cold’ quite distinctly. I came to the conclusion that the child was suffering from some unusual form of cerebral. lesion beyond my powers of diagnosis. I suggested that she saw a specialist at the Liverpool Children’s Hospital, but the mother refused. I left Cheshire soon afterwards and so lost sight of the case. In spite of every effort I have not been able to trace her since. During my first few years in Manchester I saw another girl, 1