Special talents and defects

I. COHERENCE AMONG LINGUISTIC FUNCTIONS

According to Meumann, the whole field of language is a unit, psychologically considered. Reading, spelling, composition, the learning of foreign languages should thus be intimately interconnected for a given individual. He who learns one readily, should also readily learn the others, without notable exception.

This view of the close coherence among linguistic functions is borne out, also, by the work of Gates, already cited, in which he found high positive correlations among perceptual tests which use words as materials.

We must notice, nevertheless, that the correlations fall considerably short of unity. Illustrative cases show that occasionally children are found who can read well, but cannot spell legibly, though the present writer has not seen cases of the opposite condition, and has not found them reported in the literature.

Special defect in spelling will, therefore, be given separate consideration, though it must be recognized that abilities in spelling and reading are usually closely associated.

II. ANALYSIS OF LEARNING TO SPELL

It is virtually impossible for an educated adult, whose spelling habits have long ago become automatic, to reconstruct from introspection the long, difficult, and complex processes through which he passed in learning to communicate by means of correctly spelled words. Such an adult may gain some idea of what is involved in the spelling process by confronting himself with the task of learning to spell and write words upside down and backwards, but even so the experience of the child is not duplicated.

Analysis teaches us that this aspect of linguistic attainment ordinarily involves the formation of a series of connections approximately as follows:

(1) An object, act, quality, or relation is “bound” to a certain sound, which has often been repeated while the object is pointed at, the act performed, and so forth. In order that the connection may become definitely established, it is necessary (a) that the individual should be able to identify for himself the object, act, quality, or relation, and (b) that he should be able to recollect the particular vocal sounds which have been associated therewith. When this is accomplished, the sound has become a word.

(2) The sound (word) becomes “bound” with performance of the very complex muscular act necessary for articulating it.

(3) When school age is reached, certain printed and written symbols, arbitrarily chosen, visually representing sounds, become “bound” (a) with the recognized objects, acts, and so forth, and (b) with their vocal representatives, so that when the symbols are presented to sight, the word can be uttered by the perceiving individual. This is what we should call ability “to read” the word.

(4) The separate elements of the symbols (letters) become associated with each other in the proper sequence, and have the effect of calling each other up to consciousness in the prescribed order. When this has taken place we say that the individual can spell orally.

(5) The child by a slow, voluntary process “binds” the visual perception of the separate letters with the muscular movements of arm, hand, and fingers necessary to copy the word.

(6) The child “binds” the representatives in consciousness of the visual symbols with the motor responses necessary to produce the written word spontaneously, at pleasure.

This analysis is probably not exhaustive, but it provides a foundation on which to construct an understanding of poor spellers. Obviously, poor spelling may be due to one or another of quite different defects, or to a combination of several defects. In an ability so complex there is opportunity for the occurrence of a great variety of deficiencies. In any particular case the underlying cause can be discovered only by means of a psychological examination covering the various processes involved.

III. PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF POOR SPELLERS^[14]

Poor spelling, like poor reading, may be due to sensory defects, either of the ear or of the eye. If sounds are indistinct, or if visual stimuli are vague or distorted, the prescribed connections involving these elements will be difficult to form. Thus tests of auditory and visual acuity must be given. If any sensory defect is revealed, it should be corrected, if it is corrigible.

The degree of general intelligence must be determined. Failure to learn to spell is frequently symptomatic of general incompetence, though not so frequently as in the case of reading. The correlation coefficients cluster around .50 only, in the case of spelling and general intelligence. Quite a number of children will be found, whose achievement in spelling shows marked discrepancy with general capacity. Spelling is more mechanical than reading, so that the stupid may more easily master it by tireless drill, while the intelligent are not likely to derive so much pleasure from it or to practice it so much.

The connections which are described in our analysis under (2) may be inadequately or incorrectly developed. This would be faulty pronunciation. This is undoubtedly a very prolific cause of poor spelling. Such errors as “a-f-t-e-r-w-o-o-d-s” for “afterwards,” “w-h-e-n-t” for “went,” “p-r-e-h-a-p-s” for “perhaps,” will serve to illustrate this point. In observations on poor spellers, such errors are found by the score, and it is discovered that the words are pronounced as spelled. Thus the poor speller should be tested for the pronunciation of the words which he misspells. It may be that drill in correct pronunciation is what is needed, in order to improve his spelling.

Faulty pronunciation may itself be due to various causes. In the majority of cases it doubtless arises from false auditory perception, as in such misspellings as “hares breath” for “hair’s breadth,” and “Mail Brothers” for “Mayo Brothers.” In other cases it arises from inability to articulate properly, as with children who stammer or lisp, or have nasal obstructions.

It may be that a pupil’s weakness lies in the formation of connections, which we have noted in our analysis under (3). The formation of these connections involves visual perception, habits of interpretation through the eye, which have been found to be of first rate importance in spelling. We may refer back to the discussion of the perceptual factors in reading. In spelling, also, it has been discovered that error is not distributed at random, but follows certain laws. For instance, there is a constant tendency to shorten, rather than to lengthen words in misspelling them. The influence of any letter over error varies greatly with the position of the letter in the word. The last halves of misspelled words show many more errors than are found in first halves. From these and other facts it is apparent that failures in visual perception contribute to the difficulties of poor spellers. In order to determine whether such is the case with any particular child, it will be necessary to make an analysis of his work, to see whether the distribution of his errors reveals such perceptual weakness. If a child can spell the first halves of words correctly, but does not spell the last halves, or if he learns to spell the upper halves of words correctly, but cannot spell the lower halves of them, the remedy is to bring about readjustments of attention, whereby he will look at those portions of words, which formerly he failed, unconsciously, to see.

Poor spelling may be due to sheer failure to remember—failure to retain impressions which were originally clearly and correctly perceived. This may mean simply that the child requires unusually numerous repetitions before he can form the connections described under (4) in our analysis; or it may be that his memory span is abnormally brief, and that he cannot easily associate more than three or four elements together as a unitary sequence. Tests of memory span for various kinds of materials should be instituted, in order to gain light on this point. If it appears that his performance is decidedly below the normal for his age, especially when the material is letters, it may be concluded that too brief memory span is probably playing a part in his difficulties. This could be checked up further by an analysis of his spellings, to see to what extent he spells short words correctly, but misspells longer words. Emphasis upon syllabication, prefixes, suffixes, and other short units should be helpful. The child might be able to remember three syllables of three letters each, but unable to retain, with the same amount of practice, one word of nine letters. Psychologically, these two tasks are different.

Smedley suggested years ago that there might be a “rational element” in spelling, whereby knowledge of the meaning of words would contribute to the correct spelling of them, in and of itself. Connections involving meaning are considered in our analysis under (1). Children produce an especially great proportion of error in spelling words which have no meaning for them. Hence it is of interest to test the child for knowledge of the meaning of words which he misspells. It is necessary to find out whether the words which confuse him are in his vocabulary.

Motor awkwardness and incoördination may contribute to poor spelling. Here are involved the connections discussed by us under (5) and (6). In written spelling (with which education is chiefly concerned), it is necessary not only to know what symbols are required, but to execute them successfully with arm, hand, and fingers. Here we must have recourse to motor tests, for steadiness, coördination, and speed of voluntary movement. Occasionally one finds a child who does much better at oral spelling than he does at written spelling. In such cases, improvement in handwriting is what is needed, either in respect to rate or quality. A slow writer may misspell many words if he attempts to hurry.

Many of the mistakes of poor spellers are merely lapses. These are errors committed by children who “know better,” who can correct the mistake spontaneously as soon as attention is called to it. There are wide individual differences in the liability to lapse. It is difficult to see what remedial measures may be taken to improve those whose disability is due largely to lapsing, since lapses are not only involuntary, but for the most part unconscious; there is no awareness of them until one perceives them anew. Examples of lapsing may be seen in “Complicated musich which he heard played,” and “It mak make an impression,” for “It may make an impression.”

One might suggest that children who show this tendency in marked degree should be trained to lay aside for a few minutes all written communications; then to take up their work and look anew at each word, in order to correct all lapses. It is not known experimentally how long an interval must elapse in order that writing may “get cold,” so that lapses may be detected by the author of them. A few minutes will probably suffice.

Transfer of habits previously acquired is occasionally the cause of misspelling. Children who have learned to read and spell a phonetic language, like German, or a language that proceeds from right to left in spelling, are prone to difficulty with English spelling. The possible existence of such an influence is to be determined by taking the school history.

Sometimes it happens that the errors of the child are of one particular kind. Such idiosyncrasies may be exemplified by the case of a child who had a strong tendency to add final “e” to all words; and by the case of another, who was addicted to intrusive consonants, especially “m” and “n.” These idiosyncrasies may doubtless be traced to their source in every case by a patient analysis of the child’s mental contents. The child who added final “e” may, for instance, have been told by a careless teacher “Don’t leave off your ‘e’s’.” The cause of error will be different in every case. It is impossible to generalize about idiosyncrasies.

After all of the foregoing factors have been considered, there still remains the possibility that the failure to learn is due wholly or partially to temperamental traits—instability, indifference, lack of incentive, distaste for intellectual drudgery. English spelling calls largely for rote learning. It can be acquired only by the formation of thousands of specific bonds, arbitrarily prescribed. Its pursuit is almost inevitably tedious. Thus many children will be temperamentally ill adapted to become good spellers.

Failure in spelling, in an intelligent child, may thus result from various kinds of interference with prescribed habit formation. It is apparent that the psychological examination of a poor speller is neither a brief nor a simple task.

The direct examination of the individual should be supplemented by a family history, a development history, and a school history. In some cases special deficiency in spelling seems to be hereditary. Earle has made a study of the inheritance of capacity for spelling, from which he concludes that there is distinct fraternal resemblance in spelling. Stephenson has reported six cases of special inability to read and spell, which occurred in three generations of one family.

IV. CAN SPECIAL DEFECT IN SPELLING BE OVERCOME?

Spelling has received relatively little study as a process, in comparison with the attention which has been given to reading and arithmetic. We have no variety of experiments carried out to improve poor spellers, as we have in the case of poor readers. In 1918 the present writer reported, with Miss Winford, the results of studying and teaching a group of poor spellers, from the fifth grade. The experiment extended over two periods of ten weeks each, but the time was largely devoted to observations of the errors made, measurements of intelligence, and inventions of incentives for arousing interest in spelling as a group project. No child was taken individually, and given intensive instruction, as with the boy, X, in reading, reported in Chapter IV.

During the period of class teaching, all the poor spellers improved, as measured by the Ayres scale, but the three very poorest still remained at the bottom of the class. By intensive individual instruction any one of these three might have made much greater improvement.

We are, therefore, now in need of experiments carried out to improve poor spellers. Such experiments must include precise measurements of intelligence, ability to spell, ability to read, and amount of time expended. They must include a description of the sensory equipment of the spellers, and information on all points listed under the suggested outline for the examination of poor spellers. There must be an adequate account of method used, and objective measurements of improvement must be presented.

From knowledge of spelling as a process of habit formation, it would be predicted that any child of average intelligence, and normal sensory capacity, can learn to spell, if sufficient drill be undergone. English spelling is, however, relatively resistant to learning, because of the specific character of the connections to be made. Very few generalizations are possible, each word being to so great an extent a special matter. For this reason it is very important to teach first the words most commonly used. These have been ascertained by research in the Russell Sage Foundation.

V. DOES READING TEACH SPELLING?

In the Atlantic Monthly of October, 1921, an enemy of simplified spelling writes as follows: “Spelling is not a craft by itself: it is a part of writing and reading, training of eye and hand. When a boy writes ‘starboard martyr’ for ‘Stabat Mater,’ or ‘forehead’ for ‘forward,’ he writes what he hears; the fault is not with his ear but with his visual image of the words. It means that he is not a reader, and is not accustomed to the appearance of the words. To try to teach him the distinctions by lists of letters alone would be about as useless as to try to teach him to distinguish people he never saw by means of verbal descriptions.”^[15]

Have psychologists produced any evidence to show whether the view is correct, that reading will teach spelling? The positive correlation between ability to read and ability to spell does not, of course, give light on this question. Neither does correlation between amount of reading done and ability to spell, for the positive correlation, which would undoubtedly appear, might mean only that general intelligence determines both the amount of reading and accuracy of spelling, to the extent of positive correlation found.

The case of X, described in Chapter IV, is somewhat instructive in this connection. The necessity to learn reading was so urgent that it was soon decided to give no time to spelling as such. The special teaching did not, therefore, include formal instruction in written spelling. The regular spelling lessons at school were, of course, taken by X, as well as might be.

After X had learned the letters thoroughly, so that he never erred in writing one, he made great improvement in his grades on the regular spelling lessons given at school, in which assigned words were learned by rote.

Words not thus specifically learned were spelled “by ear,” with the general result which is exemplified in Figure 10.

X was taught the use of the dictionary, and by its aid he could spell as shown in Figure 11.

In German or Italian, the mutual helpfulness of reading and spelling would probably be much greater, for words in these languages are not nearly so specific in character as English words are.

VI. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES

Two cases are herewith given, to illustrate the marked discrepancies which may rarely be found between general intelligence and ability to spell. The first is that of a schoolboy of average intelligence, whose spelling is illegible. The second is that of a feeble-minded schoolgirl, whose spelling is very much above what would be predicted from mental age and IQ.

This boy was 14 years 2 months of age, and had been in school since the age of 6 years. His IQ was 93 (Stanford-Binet). He was referred for mental examination, because of failure to learn to read and spell. Figure 12 shows his attempts to spell the following words: cannot, September, burned, houses, center, thousand, fifty, families, defends, bravely.

The girl, who shows the opposite discrepancy, was in a school for the feeble-minded, at the time of examination. Her age was 12 years 6 months, her mental age 7 years 4 months, with an IQ of 59 (Stanford-Binet). She had attended school for 6 years. Figure 13 shows her ability to spell the same words attempted by the boy referred to above.

On Ayres’ scale, this feeble-minded girl scored at fifth grade ability, at least three years beyond expectation from general intelligence. The boy, of average intelligence, scored on the Ayres scale below first grade ability—at least seven years below expectation from general intelligence.

The girl could not learn subject matter, or manage her affairs any better than a 7-year-old child. The boy could work for money, was reliable and efficient in ordinary affairs, could master subject matter read to him, was expert in bird lore, and showed the general competence of a typical 14-year-old, except in reading and spelling.

One judging these individuals for practical purposes, on the basis of a test in spelling, would be profoundly deceived.

Figure 14 also exemplifies the spelling of a child whose general intelligence cannot be correctly inferred from performance in spelling. This child was 9 years 10 months old at the time this letter was written, her mental age being 14 years 1 month. The child had been three years in school. She learned reading very easily, reading at this time with fluency and grace of inflection. Her case, therefore, illustrates discrepancy between reading and spelling, as well as between spelling and general intelligence.

The inadequacies noted here were probably due to distaste for the drill which is required for mastery of spelling and punctuation. For bright children, reading is motivated by the fact that from it they gain ideas. In presenting ideas, it is not necessary to spell exactly, but only approximately. Hence very young, bright children may read accurately, but spell poorly.

Carman, E. K.—“The Cause of Chronic Bad Spelling”; Journal of Psychology, 1900.

Charters, W. W.—“A Spelling ‘Hospital’ in the High School”; School Review, 1910.

Earle, E. L.—The Inheritance of the Ability to Learn to Spell; Columbia University, New York, 1903.

Hollingworth, L. S.—The Psychology of Special Disability in Spelling; Teachers College, Columbia University, 1918.

Hollingworth, L. S.—“The Psychological Examination of Poor Spellers”; Teachers College Record, 1919.

Kallom, A. W.—“Some Causes of Misspellings”; Journal of Educational Psychology, 1917.

Pryor, H. C., and Pittman, M. S.—A Guide to the Teaching of Spelling; The Macmillan Company, New York, 1921.

Weseen, M. H.—“Can Spelling be Taught?” American Education, 1921.

Witmer, L.—“A Case of Chronic Bad Spelling”; Psychological Clinic, 1907.