Table Of ContentThe Pennsylvania State College
The Graduate School
Department of Education and Psychology
A Survey of Exceptional Children in Huntingdon County*
Their Incidence
and the Distribution of
Multiple Handicaps
A Thesis
Rutherford B. Porter
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education.
August, 1942
^
yfys.
Approved^^^*^-#^
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I appreciate the assistance of the following
persons in carrying out this survey and in preparing
the manuscript, and I wish to thank them: J. H. Neff,
County Superintendent of Huntingdon County Schools;
Frank Magill, Assistant County Superintendent of
Huntingdon County Schools; Dr. T. Ernest Newland,
Chief, Division of Special Education, Department of
Public Instruction, Harrisburg; Dr. Harold Westlake,
Advisor, Division of Special Education, Department
of Public Instruction, Harrisburg; I. Newton Taylor,
District Attorney of Huntingdon County; Grace Porter,
my wife; the Teachers of Huntingdon County; and
my advisory committee.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I Statement and Analysis of the Problem 3
IX The Data and Their Treatment 10
III The Mentally Exceptional 17
IV The Deaf and Hard of Hearing 25
V The Visually Handicapped 32
VI The Speech Defective 38
VII The Crippled and Physically Delicate 42
VIII The Behavior Problem 48
IX Summary and Conclusions 53
Bibliography 60
Appendix 68
TABLES
Number Page
I Distribution of IQs for 3694 Children in Grades 3-8 19
II Mental Ages by Grades with Medians and Range 20
III Incidence of Mental Retardation among School Children of
Grades 3-8 and the Severity of the Handicap 21
IV Incidence of Mental Superiority among School Children of
Grades 3-8 and the Degree of the Exceptionality 22
V Mentally Retarded Children Who Presented Multiple
Handicaps, Grades 3-8 23
VI Mentally Superior Children Who Presented Multiple
Handicaps, Grades 3-8 23
VII Percentages of Children with Impaired Hearing as
Reported by Several Investigators 26
VIII Incidence of Defective Hearing among School Children
Distributed by Grade Groups and Severity of the Handicap 28
IX Distribution by Mental Ages of the Passing or Failure of
276 Children on First and Second Hearing Tests 30
X Children ivith Defective Hearing Who Presented Multiple
Handicaps 31
XI Percentages of Children with Defective Vision as
Reported by Several Investigators 33
XII Incidence of Defective Vision among School Children
Distributed by Grade Groups and Severity of the Handicap. 35
XIII Visually Defective Children Who Presented Multiple Handicaps36
XIV Percentages of Children with Defective Speech as Reported
by Several Investigators 38
XV Incidence of Defective Speech among School Children
Distributed by Grade Groups and Severity of the Handicap 40
XVI Children with Speech Defects Who Presented Multiple
Handicaps ' 41
XVII Percentages of Physically Handicapped Children as
Reported by Several Investigators 43
XVIII Incidence of Crippled and Physically Delicate Children
Distributed by Grade Groups 45
TABLES
Number Page
XIX Crippled or Physically Delicate Children "Who Presented
Multiple Handicaps 46
XX Percentages of Children with Behavior Problems as
Reported by Several Investigators 49
XXI Incidence of Behavior Problems Distributed by Grade Groups 50
XXII Children with Behavior Problems YYho Presented Multiple
Handicaps 51
XXIII Incidence of Handicaps, Single and Multiple, Grades 3-8,
4177 Children, Huntingdon County Rural Schools, 1941-42 54
XXIV Distribution of Children According to the Number of
Handicaps Each Child Presented 56
XXV An Estimate of the Reliability of the Incidence of
Handicapped Children Reported for Huntingdon County • 57
XXVI Statistical Comparison of Huntingdon County with
Pennsylvania 68
XXVII Percentages of Different Types of Atypical Children in
School Population for Whom Special Remedial or Educational
Provision Should be Made in Regular Classes, Full Time
Special Classes, and Part Time Special Classes 70
XXVIII Age-Grade-Progress Table, Huntingdon County 71
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Chapter I
STATEMENT AND ANALYSIS OP TES PROBLEM
Special education is regular education for exceptional children.
It endeavors to make provisions for hoys and girls -who are mentally,
physically, or socially handicapped to such an extent that they cannot
receive adequate educational training through ordinary school procedures.
The aims of special education are specifically:
1. To identify e/very exceptional child.
2. To determine the type of exceptionality.
3. To help the teacher to understand the exceptional
child and plan her program to include him.
4.' To help the exceptional child make more satisfactory
adjustment to school and community.
5. To help the parent understand his child in terms of
individual performance and abilities.
This survey relates directly to the first two aims: to~ identify
the exceptional children and to determine the type of exceptionality.
Specifically, it is set up to attempt to satisfy the following state
ments:
1. To make available more accurate figures on the number of
handicapped children, both those who are in school and
those who are out of sohool, in a representative rural area.
2. To make available more accurate figures on the degree of
the handioapping condition of children, both in school and
out of school, in this representative rural area.
3. To obtain figures on the multiple handicaps of exceptional
children for this rural area.
4. To enable others to more accurately estimate the number of
exceptional children in a specific area of similar nature.
5. To serve as a first step in a more accurate state-wide
enumeration of exceptional children.
The term "exceptional children" as used in this study includes the
4
mentally retarded, mentally superior, deaf and hard of hearing, blind
and partially-sighted, speech defective, behavior problem, and crippled
or physically delicate.
The problem of finding the exceptional children is a difficult one
anywhere and is doubly difficult in rural areas. Very few exhaustive
studies have been made that include all types of exceptional children.
Newland^ thus expressed the need for further study:
"The school system or state that knows accurately the frequen
cies with which the different types of exceptional children
exist is rare indeed,...We are failing to locate our excep
tional children early enough or accurately enough. As a result
we are not fully aware of the size of the problem of educating
these children and are, therefore, not doing the job as well
as it should be done."
Too often a survey of the incidence of exceptional children goes
only as far as obtaining the number of children enrolled in special
classes, special schools, hospitals, and those receiving home instruc
tion. The Office of Education, Yfashington, D. C.,2 reported the number
of children of each type of exceptionality in each state and indicated
which had classroom instruction, which home instruction, which hospital
instruction, et cetera. This is important information and quite useful,
but it does not tell how many children were in the same population and
not receiving any kind of organized instruction, nor does it cover all
children in special schools and classes, since some questionnaires are
not returned. Also, a common characteristic of these studies is that
the data reported were from city rather than rural areas.
1. Newland, T. Ernest, "Editorial Comment", Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 23,
Ho. 2 (October, 1940) p. 33.
2. Advance Statistics of Special Schools and Classes for Exceptional
Children 1939-40, Federal Seourity Agency (U. S. Office of Eduoation,
January, 1942)
5
The State of Virginia^ has attempted a survey of exceptional
children and the usual weakness of suoh a study was noted in the report:
“In the spring of 1937 teachers co-operated with the State
Department of Education in an effort to identify the children
whose handicaps were so severe that they required services not
then available in public schools. This survey was made in a
limited time without adequate preparation on the part of the
teachers for recognizing and identifying the handicaps of
children. Consequently, many children who should have been
reported were overlooked when the study was made and it is
possible that some were erroneously classified."
Moss^ reported that in the Province of Ontario certain rural areas
have been rather completely surveyed:
"Twenty-one of the ninety-eight rural inspectorates in Ontario
have been completely surveyed and provision made for all the
handicapped children in each area. Four more have been partially
surveyed and twelve rural surveys are being undertaken in 1938."
If this survey was as complete as the statement implies, valuable
data have been collected. However, Stothers^ wrote that the results
have not been carefully analyzed; and although he had recently summarized
some of the findings, he questioned their reliability due to the failure
of teachers to make reports on such children.
The complexity of the problem was described by Ade6 who has sanc
tioned this statement:
"To deal intelligently with exceptional children it is necessary
to be able to identify and diagnose them scientifically. For
the most part, this responsibility has been met by such public
servants as the teachers, school medical inspectors, and school
nurses. Such attempts were distinct improvements over a
3. Virginia, "A Description of Services Available to Local School
Divisions Through the Division of Rehabilitation, Special, and Adult
Education", Reprint from Bulletin, State Board of Education, Vol. 24
No. 2 (August, 1941) p. 99.
4. Amoss, Harry, "Special Education in Rural Communities", Journal of
Exceptional Children, Vol. 5 (January, 1939) p. 93.
5. St others, Charles E.~, Personal Letter (June, 1942)
6. Ade, Lester K., "The Place of Special Education in Our Modern Program"
(mimeographed, Harrisburg, Pa., Department of Public Instruction,
1938) p. 18.
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laissez-faire polioy. There were, however, numerous oases
that were, from a mental standpoint, either overlooked or
incorrectly diagnosed. On the one hand, teachers reported
children as having low mentality who were really solely emo
tional problems, and on the other hand, overlooked instanoes
of low mentality where the children were not getting along
satisfactorily but were so pleasant about it that they failed
to receive necessary attention. Moreover, some physicians
diagnosed sensory-handioapped cases as mentally backward, and
failed also to recognize less obvious cases of intellectual
inferiority."
Legislative provision for a periodic census of all children of
school age is an accepted state practice, even though few states have
made legal provision for enumerating all types of handicapped children
needing special eduoational facilities. Pennsylvania's law7 is repre
sentative of one of the more inclusive ones:
"It shall be the duty of the secretary of the school board,
teachers, school enumerators, home and school visitors, and
attendance officers, in every school district in this Com
monwealth, in accordance with rules of procedure prescribed
by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, to secure infor
mation and report to the county superintendent of schools, on
or before the fifteenth day of October each year, and there
after as cases arise, every child of compulsory school age
(6 to 17) within said district who, because of apparent
exceptional physical or mental condition, is not being
properly educated and trained, and as soon thereafter as
possible the child shall be examined by a person certified
by the Department of Public Instruction as a public sohool
psychologist or psychological examiner, and also by any
other expert which the type of class and child’s condition
may necessitate and a report shall be made concerning his
fitness for special education."
In most cases the actual number of children thus reported would seem to
be quite inacourate. A count over a period of five years in Huntingdon
County showed less than 1 per cent of the known seriously handicapped
children were reported as a result of the law. Therefore, even after
the legal provision for enumerating was made, it was still impossible
to accept literally the results as a true picture.
7. Pennsylvania, School Laws of Pennsylvania, 1941, Section 1413, par. 1
p. 168.
7
In 1936 in the State of Ohio, E. L. Bowsher, State Director of
Education, sent out a questionnaire to all superintendents of public
schools in the state. The purpose was to discover the number of pupils
in the kindergarten, the elementary grades, and the high schools who,
in the judgment of the teachers, were mentally retarded, defective in
speech, or behavior problems; and further to find out how many children
had more than one of the three handicaps. The results, according to the
teachers’ beliefs, were: mentally retarded 3.4 per cent, speeoh defec
tive 1.1 per cent, behavior problems 1.5 per cent. Approximately one-
fourth of the children reported had two or all three of the handicaps.
Dr. Berry,8 who reported this study, stated that the estimates shown
were probably too conservative.
In the State of Wisconsin, J. A. Young^ reported a survey oonduoted
in rural schools with special reference to speech and hearing. Out of
9,553 children examined, 488 or 5.1 per cent had defective speech, and
155 or 1.6 per cent had defective hearing. Intelligence tests and
personality tests were also given, although the results were not reported.
Ho comparative results were given for children with multiple handicaps.
Hilleboe-*-® summarized the research up to 1930. The statement of
his problem explains his viewpoint:
"It is the purpose of this study to classify atypical boy s and
girls from the viewpoint of selection for special education;
to determine the probable percentage of childrenin each of the
classifications, including the degree to which the school
systems investigated are providing for atypical children, the
8. Berry, Charles Scott, "A Survey of Mentally Retarded, Speech Defec
tive, and Behavior Problem Children in the Public Schools of Ohio"
(Ohio State University, October, 1938) p. 6-7
9. Young, J. A., "Speech Rehabilitation in the Rural Schools of Waukesha
County, Wisconsin", Journal of Speech Disorders, Vol. 5 (March 1940)
pp. 25-27.
10. Hilleboe, Guy L., Finding and Teaching Atypical Children (Hew York,
Teachers College, Columbia University, 1930) p. 3.
