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During the year, sixteen visits were paid to casual wards. The total number
of cases inspected was 387. Of these 46 were examined in detail, and the number
deemed to be feeble-minded was 4.
Casual wards.
The children of the mentally defective.
At the request of the Board of Control, an inquiry into the mentahty of children,
one or both of whose parents had been certified as mentally defective, was carried
out in the early part of 1933. The officers concerned, Dr. A. C. Williams, Dr. J. G.
Duncan and Miss M. A. Thomas, M.A., have, in this report, considered some data
disclosed by the inquiry which are supplementary to the figures furnished to the
Board of Control.
There were considered 398 families, in 394 of which one parent had been certified under the
Mental Deficiency Acts, or the Education Act, and in four of which both parents had been certified.
The grade of defect in the parents was in 395 cases feeble-minded and in 7 imbecile. The type of
defect in 392 cases was primary amentia ; in 15 there was also a superadded condition such as
psychosis, shell-shock or epilepsy in later life, and 10 were regarded as cases of secondary amentia
(paralysis, epilepsy, meningitis or encephalitis lethargica). In many of these it is probable,
however, that the original condition was primary amentia, thus nearly all the parents really belong
to the sub-cultural group.
The total number of births to these parents was 944, but of the children 145 had died, 75
were under 1 year of age, 36 could not be traced, and 71 were over 16 years of age, and not
available for examination. The number examined was thus reduced to 617, representing 336
families. The examinations were as complete as possible, the intelligence quotient (mental age
multiplied by a hundred divided by actual age or 14) being accurately determined in 423
cases. The remaining 194 children, too young for school, were seen in their homes and an
approximate mental age assigned to each. The groups were then classified according to the
limits of intelligence quotient agreed upon with the committee of the Board as follows—mentally
defective, below 70 ; retarded, 70 to 85 ; normal, 85 to 115 ; super-normal, above 115.
Children who showed peculiar behaviour, etc., were noted as unstable, but this group overlapped
the others. The percentage distribution of the 617 children was—super-normal, 2.3;
normal, 61.3; retarded, 25.9; and mentally defective, 10.5. The percentage noted as unstable
was 4.5.
The percentage recorded as normal is perhaps rather high on account of the difficulty of
exactly determining the mental grade of very young children. If these are omitted and those
between the ages of 7 and 14 who were examined in detail and those already in special M.D.
schools or institutions only considered, the distribution would be as follows—super-normal,
2.1 ; normal, 51.0; retarded, 31.0; and mentally defective, 15.9.