STUDY OF CHILDREN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 153, 16 July 1937, Page 18

STUDY OF CHILDREN

Emotion and Arithmetic— Right or Wrong PSYCHOLOGISTS VIEWS

A new view on the discussion as io Whether the judgment of psychologists was suf5.cien.tly advanced to be infal- - lible in tegard to the treatment of difficult children was given in au interview "by Dr. Susan Isaacs, head of the Department of CMld Development, Institute of Education, London University, and chairman of the education section «f the Britifli Psychological Society, who is attending the educational conference in Auckland. "The maia problem with these so$alled difficult children," she explained, * ' eonsists in the definition of the source ef the trouble." There were, said Dr. Ta>^ many different typea of problem children, eome whosa nervous state was tfce dixect reiult oi environment, some, lr^esa trouble was merely neurotic and' •tJxenr.'who ypere •nffering f rom lack of mttention either in tbeir work, in their p!«y or in tbeir affection. It wss the duty of the psychologist or the -psychmtrist — & term applied to tbe . eombinod m&iical officer and psy•bologist employed in London clinics — he maka yinquiries into the home life and •nidroniien^ of . tha.,child in question and'fetxough discovering the. natural causea of its m'ental state to pre■cribs the most effect&e eure. A« in. the case of the medical profession, the psychologisfer, she saidt could not hope for a 100 P0r c^nt. eure of those urMor their observati^n, 'but in 5fcgland at the preserit " amnute ^ ,thc axwrage Tesults showed that at least/EO per cent. of the children were completely cu^ed, while the number improvcd ewonted to at least 80 per ceat. Wby Sums Are Hard, 1 c Isaacs disputed the facjfc thafcithe fceafcnbent of Such children sKou^I" be regardea merely as a,.matter of common - *fmfW Taashetsc in "ihe \EnglisJb. kchools, she said, eent fb^them children wfio f or some reason or other were finding difficulties in their school life, and through m scientific study of the mental processes of the child in question they were sble in most eases to advise both the parents and teachers in the ihatter of its education. "It is an interesting fact,'- she addsd, 1 1 that those who are backward in arithmetic are invariably snffering f rom some emotional disturbanee. The trouble here probably lies in the fact that erithmetic is too definite a subject. By that I mean that the child realises that in this particular work he is either right or wrong and the fear caused through this definite decision is the source of much trouble." Psychology and common sense, Dr. Isaacs went on to say, were very closely allied, for psychology in its-true form xepresented scientific common sense, a jnethod by which they were endeavouring to assist in the development of these difficult children. Dr. Isaacs explained also the prineiple of activity in general education. 4Wo have discovered," she said, * f that the child learns best by solving the problema that are xeal to him. Things outside his ora ephere of life are of no real interest to him and theretore cannot easily be xetained in his memory. It is better to instruct him in those problems that arise out of his own life and environment than to force biTn to study subjects that a^ entirely foreign to his nature. "The lack of diseipline caused by " this eystem," saia Dr. Isaacs, "is no stumbling block. ' ' Diseipline, she afiirmed, should come from within, and the child should be trained from its earliest days to appreciate the value of individual diseipline. If, in training. external methods of diseipline were io be used, they should be of type suitable to the child 's age and temperamcnt, but, better still, the child should be taughfc to imxtate the standards- held up lo him by thoso with whom he catnc iti eontact