What is the child's absolute sensitivity

to colour, sound, smell, touch,

taste?
Which sense is relatively most keen?
Which sense seems to play the most

important r61e in his ideas?

Abstraction.
Tests.
Mathematical processes: Solution of
sums in mental arithmetic, like

3+2-1X2+3+1-^3=?

Number sense: Solution of sums in

mental arithmetic, like: What is
the number that gives 12 if you add
3 to it?
Deductions.
Does the child have trouble in getting
the ideas of addition, multiplication,
and so on, and distinguishing be-
tween them?

Or, does he show inaccuracy in the
actual figuring?



176 THe BacK^ward CHild

Association.
Tests.
Writing a list of ten to thirty common

words.
Answering the first word thought of on
hearing the examiner's key word.
Deductions.
Are the associations verbal or objective ?
Continuous or in groups? Rapid,
easy, or monotonous?
(In verbal, rapid, jerky, monotonous
associations, note possible tendency
to hysteria.)

Attention.
Tests.
Simultaneous: (a) Unconscious: The
ntmiber of pictures on a card noticed
by the child while the teacher talks
about only one of them, (b) Con-
scious: The number of pictures
noticed by the child when the card is
shown him for a few seconds without
comment from the teacher.
Test Interpretation 177

Homogeneous : Crossing out letters on
a printed page, either a single letter
wherever it occurs or two recurring
letters, one with a vertical stroke
and the other with a dash.
Disparate: Reading aloud an easy
verse and at the same time writing
A's on a sheet of paper. More com-
plicated, writing the alphabet at the
same time as the reading.
Deductions.
