Abstract
The purpose of this research was to analyze the physical and psychological characteristics of mentally retarded children. During the period from 1959 to 1962, medical and psychological examinations were given to 1, 637 mentally retarded individuals at the out-patient clinic'of the Department of Pediatrics of Kyushu University.
The analysis of these 1, 637 cases showed that they could be handled in ten subgroups by clinical diagnosis, those were, cerebral palsy group (898 cases), feeblemindedness group (280 cases), mongolism group (94 cases), athyroidism group (47 cases), microcephaly group (26 cases), hydrocephalus group (56 cases), hereditary degenerative brain condition group (12 cases), speech retardation group (45 cases), deaf group (65 cases) and chronic encephalitis group (109 cases).
With the resulting data on hand, the author analyzed the physical and psychological characteristics exhibited by the ten main types of the mentally retarded children. The results were as follows:
1. The mentally retarded appeared at the ratio of six boys to four girls.
2. Abnormal births, as well as the consanguineous marriages, were significantly more in the mentally retarded than the control group.
3. The physical constitutions of the patients were generally bad, especially weight and head-circumference being inferior. Their physical predisposition was usually normal, but bone growth was late in general. Electroencephalography was abrormal in many cases.
4. Patterns of mental development were differeRt among clinical types. One had primarily motor disorder and possessed secondarily mentalretardation,(cerebral palsy, athyroidism, hydrocephaly, deaf, speech retardation), others had rudimentaly mental retardation and exposed secondarily motor retardation (feeblemindness, mongolism, mycrocephaly, hereditary degeneration, brain condition, chronic encephalitis).
Further research is needed in order to verify those conclusions.
