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children who show definite symptoms of psychosis, as well as those who are known as defective delinquents, are likely to disrupt any curricular program. They need a highly specialized type of training, probably in a separate institution, or at least in a separate unit quite apart from the school for the mentally deficient. As long as they remain unclassified in a large institution for the mentally deficient, they complicate the school program by demanding much individual attention and even by demoralizing the general atmosphere of the schoolroom. Because the residential school is likely to receive these difficult cases, it must make the needed provision for careful diagnosis, treatment, and individual instruction of each one in accordance with the needs revealed.

Service to All Age Groups

The fact that persons of all ages are resident in many of the institutions for the feeble-minded makes imperative an arrangement which will give to the children enrolled the opportunity to work in groups of children, just as they would do in day schools. This places a responsibility upon residential schools for careful classification and assignment of each child to classroom work, as well as a prevention of undue contact with older feeble-minded inmates. The proper organization of a school within the larger institutional life which includes service to preschool children, bedridden patients, physically mature adults, and old people is not an easy matter. Each child's right must be safeguarded to live his life as a child with other children. Some residential schools limit their enrollment to children and young people of school age, and some even to those of higher level of intelligence comparable to that of pupils in special day schools classes for the mentally retarded. Under such a program of classification, the problem of educational planning loses much of its difficulty.

Differentiation of Curriculum

The problem which the day school faces in the adaptation of curriculum content and method to meet the needs of various age and ability levels is still further accentuated in the residential school. We find here many more children with a mental age below 6 years than in the day school, and at the same time there are all degrees of subnormal intelligence even up to high-moron level. Therefore the process of classification must be carried

on not only in separating children of school age from adults and from children of preschool age, but also in making extensive application of the principles of curriculum adaptation to the various groups of children

of school age.

No detailed consideration will be given here to the methods of adaptation, since these have been discussed in previous chapters. The groups that have been considered are: (1) Those educable children who are mentally below the level ordinarily prescribed for entrance into the regular first grade; (2) pre-adolescent children who are mentally 6 years old or older; (3) adolescents of a mental level lower than 9 years; (4) adolescents of a mental level of 9 years or more. The task of the residential school is to add to the educational service for these respective groups (which is in essence the same as in the day school) the continuous social supervision and training made necessary by complications of circumstances.

Research Function

The residential school is peculiarly suited to the use of experimental methods and research. Many of them are under the direction of medical men or other highly trained persons who are especially interested in the fields of pathology, biology, and eugenics, as applied to the mentally deficient. In some, there are clinical laboratories which have been the battleground of intensive research, designed to increase knowledge and to develop possibilities of training. The activities of the classroom may make a valuable contribution to this program of research through the use and evaluation of experimental methods of instruction. Only controlled experimentation will ultimately prove the value of desirable procedures, and it is to the scientific laboratories of residential schools that one must look for a large contribution in certain phases of needed investigation.

Summary

1. The education of mentally retarded children within the same general range of intelligence is governed by the same philosophy and objectives regardless of where they are educated. Curriculum content and methods in residential schools should in general be the same as those used in day schools, with whatever adjustment may be necessary to meet the peculiar problems of the institution.

2. There are certain conditions peculiar to residential schools which

need to be considered in formulating a curricular program in such schools. Chief among these are the continuous control of the school over the children enrolled; the selective nature of the group assigned to residential schools; complications arising from the presence of psychotics and defective delin quents; the residence in the institution of persons of all ages; and the special opportunities open for research and experimentation.

3. The fact that the residential school exercises 24-hour supervision through the year makes possible the realization of an integrated program of life experience through which classroom and extra-classroom activities can be coordinated in the form of experience units even more closely than in the day school.

4. The predominance of serious problems in the residential school that have proved incapable of adjustment in the community produces complications that make necessary the most careful diagnosis and treatment of each individual case.

5. The residence in many institutions of persons of all ages, from the preschool child to the elderly man or woman, necessitates a plan of classification of inmates which will give to each child of school age his right to learn along with other children of his approximate age and ability. 6. The residential school offers abundant opportunity for scientific research directed toward the improvement of curriculum practice.

SOME of the most helpful materials on curriculum adjust

3

ments for the mentally retarded are found in current periodicals. The Journal of Exceptional Children,1 American Journal of Mental Deficiency,2 Occupational Education, and Special Education Review1 deal exclusively with problems of special education and related matters, and these are the periodicals most likely to include articles on curriculum for the mentally retarded. Other periodicals dealing with more general fields of education and child welfare also publish such articles from time to time. Current issues of all these are found on the shelves of many public and professional libraries.

This list of suggestions for reading does not attempt to include the many such periodical articles that have appeared. It is limited to a few of the books and parts of books that relate to the major topics of this bulletin. With only a few exceptions, these books have been published not earlier than 1940. They all reflect current philosophy and practice. Several may be found to be out of circulation, but copies should be available through library service. Many other good references will no doubt be found in local professional libraries."

General References

ABEL, THEODORA M., and KINDER, ELAINE F. The Subnormal Adolescent Girl. New York, Columbia University Press, 1942. 215 p.

BAKER, HARRY J. Introduction to Exceptional Children. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1944, 496 p.

Chapter XV. The Slow-Learning: Chapter XVI. The Mentally Subnormal and the Feeble-Minded. BENDA, CLEMENS E. Mongolism and Cretinism. New York, Grune and Stratton, 1946.

310 p.

1 Official organ of the International Council for Exceptional Children, with publication office at Saranac, Mich.

2 Official organ of the American Association on Mental Deficiency, with business office: P. O. Box 96, Willimantic, Conn.

* Published by The Association for New York City Teachers of Special Education, with editorial office at 224 East 38th Street, New York 16, N. Y.

* Published under the auspices of Newark Chapter of the International Council for Exceptional Children, with editorial office at the Board of Education, Newark, N. J.

Additional reference lists on the education of mentally retarded children are available from the Office of Education upon request.

DOLCH, EDWARD WILLIAM. Helping Handicapped Children in School. Champaign, Ill., The Garrard Press, 1948. 349 p.

Chapter VII. The Slow Learning Child; Chapter VIII. The Mentally Handicapped.

GARRISON, KARL C. The Psychology of Exceptional Children. New York, The Ronald Press Co., 1940. 351 p.

Chapter 11. The Problem of Retardation; Chapter 12. Characteristics of the Mentally Retarde!

Child.

HILDRETH, GERTRUDE. Child Growth Through Education. New York, The Ronald Press Co., 1948. 437 p.

HOCKETT, JOHN A., and JACOBSEN, E. W. Modern Practices in the Elementary School. Boston, Ginn and Co., 1943. 346 p.

INGRAM, CHRISTINE P. Education of the Slow-Learning Child. Yonkers-on-Hudson, N. Y., World Book Co., 1935. 419 p.

LEE, J. MURRAY, and LEE, DORRIS MAY. The Child and His Curriculum. New York, D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc., 1940. 652 p. (Second edition in press.) Magazines for Children. Madison, Wisc., The Madison Public Schools, 1949. Revised edition. 46 p.

SARASON, SEYMOUR B. Psychological Problems in Mental Deficiency. New York, Harper & Bros., 1949. 366 p.

STRAUSS, ALFRED A., and LEHTINEN, LAURA E. Psychopathology and Education of the Brain-Injured Child. New York, Grune and Stratton, 1947. 206 p.

Teach Me. St. Paul, Minn., Mental Health Unit, Division of Public Institutions,

Department of Social Security, 1945. 31 p.

WALLIN, J. E. WALLACE. Children with Mental and Physical Handicaps. New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1949. 549 p.

WEBER, JULIA. My Country School Diary. New York, Harper & Bros. 1946. 270 p.

The Unit of Experience

DALE, EDGAR. Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching. New York, The Dryden Press, 1946.

546 p.

Part One, Chapter 3. Making Experience Usable; Chapter 4. The "Cone of Experience.”
Part Two, Chapter 1. Direct, Turposeful Experience.

MACOMBER, FREEMAN GLENN. Guiding Child Development in the Elementary School.

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Unit of Work:

Chapters II, III. The Experience Unit; Chapter IV. Selecting and Planning a Chapter V. Guiding Unit Activities in the Classroom. STRICKLAND, RUTH G. How To Build a Unit of Work. Washington, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1946. 48 p. (U. S. Office of Education Bulletin 1946, No. 5.) See also, under "General References," appropriate chapters in books by Hildreth, Hocket. Ingram, and Lee and Lee.

Physical and Mental Health

GROUT, RUTH. Health Teaching in Schools. Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders Co., 1948.

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