Rudolf Pintner

A Psychological Basis for the Diagnosis of Feeble-Mindedness

A real study of the feeble-minded and a clear differentiation of this group from the demented, the psychopathic and other allied groups is of comparatively recent date. In the growth of this study we may note a gradual change in viewpoint from the more strictly medical aspect, which regarded idiocy and imbecility rather in the light of a disease entity, to the psychological aspect, in which the lack of intelligence is the main difference between the feeble-minded and the normal. So that at the present time feeble-mindedness is looked upon almost entirely as representing merely a difference in the amount of intelligence possessed by the feeble-minded individual as contrasted with the normal individual, and the medical point of view, though by no means subordinate, is relegated to those cases where a specific disease may be the cause of the lack of development of intelligence. These cases are much less common than was previously supposed, since it is now recognized that the vast majority of feeble-minded individuals are those that have not developed normally from birth. This change in viewpoint is due to the great progress made by psychology in the measurement of intelligence. The psychology of individual differences, and the psychology of tests is enabling us more and more accurately to measure differences in intelligence among individuals, and we are now for the most part basing our diagnosis of feeble-mindedness upon the results of tests. If this is so, it seems well to discuss the basis upon which our tests of differences in intelligence rest. What right have we to call an individual feeble-minded as a result of intelligence tests? The usual answer to this is that if the individual tests two, three or four years backward, as the case may be, on some intelligence scale, or if he fails to reach a certain age level or degree of intellectual development, he is to be regarded as feeble-minded. This is taken to be a sufficient diagnosis by many investigators. Others, desiring to assume a more cautious and conservative stand, will always qualify the above by insisting that other tests in addition to the usual scales must be taken into account, and hinting that there are other criteria besides tests. Characteristic of this position is the following