Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses of Endogenous and Exogenous Boys on Arithmetic Achievement

Abstract

The literature of the past 15 years in the area of mental retardation indicates a strong interest in the effects of brain injury upon the behavior of children. This interest has been characterized by multitudinous researches on the identification of brain injured cases and follow-up studies on the characteristic psychological deviations accompanying these injuries, but by very little research concerned with the impact of brain injury (or the psychological deviations accompanying them) upon school achievement. In spite of the mass of literature concerned with the discovery of neurological defects in the brain injured and subsequent research on the psychological deviations purportedly resulting from these injuries, direct research on the educational consequences of such injuries is sorely lacking. The special techniques established for the training and education of the mentally handicapped, brain injured child are geared specifically to the alleviation or control of the psychological behaviors resulting from the neurological defects rather than to any known educational disabilities characteristic of the brain injured child. Since the interest in the brain injured child has extended to the point of developing special schools, classes, and techniques geared to the unique defects exhibited by these children, it appears necessary to examine more 1 A report on some of the findings of the following study conducted under the supervision of Samuel A. Kirk, Director, Institute for Research on Exceptional Children: Rudolph J. Capobianco, A comparative study of endogenous and exogenous mentally handicapped boys on arithmetic achievement. Unpublished doctor's dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1954. (University Microfilm Publication, No. 7836, 313 North First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan). 2 Now Director of Research in Special Education and Rehabilitation, Syracuse Uni