The Archives of Diagnosis (Volume 10); A Quarterly Journal Devoted to the Study and the Progress of Diagnosis and Prognosis (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918. Excerpt: ... Articles which she picked up would fly out of her hand as though catapulted from her fingers. She walked best with a wide base; even then she could hardly enter an ordinary doorway without striking herself on either or both sides of the door jam. In spite of the fact that she had the repellant leer of a low-grade mental defective and could not talk, by ordinary performance tests she showed no diminution in native ability so far as it was possible to judge. At the present time, eighteen months since the first examination, it is obvious that the ataxy, incoordination, dysmetria and hypotonia are steadily diminishing. The child is able to speak a fair number of sentences, although the speech appears to be without conscious direction. She is only learning slowly "how" she speaks. She is surprised to hear the sound of her own voice, and only after a great deal of practice is she able to produce this larger group of formerly spontaneously produced sentences. With a little assistance she feeds, dresses and undresses herself, and engages in all the ordinary everyday activities. Her general intelligence is that of her years. Her interests are far beyond her general appearance. There is even more discrepancy in her general appearance, and her performance ability than that often noted in cerebral diplegics--one is often surprised at the degree of general intelligence such children really possess. In brief, we have here a case of cerebro-cerebellar diplegia in which the more prominent defect is cerebellar in character. Aside from the delay in ability to speak and a slight retardation in the development of the mental processes, the cerebral defect bids fair to be overcome within the next few years of training. It is in such cases one may expect the training-out of cer...