Collecting to understand: the art of children and the medical-pedagogical approach in twentieth-century Portugal.

In this essay I look at the art of children as a tool in the medical-pedagogical approach, as proposed by the founder of child psychiatry in Portugal, Vítor Fontes (1893-1979). First, the topic of the art of children is introduced, and the second part focuses on the model of medical pedagogy as it was practised in Portugal. The third and fourth parts present Fontes's own investigations on the drawings of children with intellectual disabilities under observation at the Instituto Médico-Pedagógico António Aurélio da Costa Ferreira (IAACF) in Lisbon. In the conclusion it is argued that Fontes contributed to the development of child psychiatry in Portugal by showing that children's art can mirror their cognitive and emotional development.

Influencia del tipo de escuela (especial o regular) sobre el aprovechamiento académico del alumnado con necesidades educativas especiales / Influence of Type of School (Special or General) on the Achievement of Students with Special Educational Needs

Resumen En México, los niños con necesidades educativas especiales pueden educarse en escuelas regulares integradoras o en escuelas de educación especial (Centros de Atención Múltiple). En general, estos servicios promueven y apoyan el proceso de integración educativa. Sin embargo, existe poca evidencia sobre la posible influencia que ejercen sobre el aprovechamiento académico de los alumnos. En el presente estudio, se evaluó la influencia del tipo de escuela en 23 niños con necesidades educativas especiales, 12 de escuela regular y 11 de Centros de Atención Múltiple. Se aplicaron cinco pruebas de aprovechamiento académico de la Batería III Woodcock-Muñoz. Los resultados indican un mejor desempeño general y equivalentes de grado más acordes con la edad en alumnos de las escuelas regulares integradoras que los de Centros de Atención Múltiple, particularmente en alumnos que no presentan discapacidad. Sin embargo, de acuerdo con las normas de calificación, el rendimiento académico de los alumnos es en general muy bajo.

Abstract In Mexico, children with special educational needs may be educated in integrative general schools or special education schools (Multiple Care Centers). In general, these services promote and support the process of educational integration. However, there is little evidence of the potential influence they have on student achievement. The present study evaluated the influence of the type of school in 23 children with special educational needs, 12 from regular school and 11 from Multiple Care Centers. Five academic achievement tests of Battery III Woodcock-Muñoz were applied. Results indicate a better overall performance and grade equivalents, more consistent with age, of integrating regular school students than of those in Multiple Care Centers, this was particularly the case for students who do not have a disability. However, according to grading standards, students' academic performance is generally very low.

[Hans Heinze and the Research Programme of the German Association of Child Psychiatry and Therapeutic Education 1942-1945]. / Hans Heinze und das Forschungsprogramm der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Kinderpsychiatrie und Heilpädagogik.

Hans Heinze and the Research Programme of the German Association of Child Psychiatry and Therapeutic Education 1942-1945 Upon its foundation in 1940, Paul Schröder, full professor for psychiatry in Leipzig, was the first president of the German Society for Child Psychiatry and Therapeutic Education (DGKH). Following his death in 1941, his student Hans Heinze (Brandenburg/H.) succeeded him, prevailing over Werner Villinger (Breslau). The principal task of the DGKH was considered to be the exploration of the genetic origins of intellectual disabilities and behavioural disorders among children and adolescents. Based on their research since the 1920s, Schröder and Heinze believed that genetically predisposed, i. e. hereditary, character structures were aetiological for behavioural deviations among minors. It was their opinion that, based on the characterology they had established, development capabilities of children, as well as their "value" for the community, could be reliably predicted. In order to spare the community fruitless expenditures, they suggested that pedagogical stimulation was to be diminished in cases that reached the "hereditary boundaries of education". This assessment of a hereditary and hence unswayable inferiority was contested by the "Berlin School", represented by psychiatrist Franz Kramer and social pedagogue Ruth von der Leyen. They argued that while the possibility of "brutal-egoistical behaviour" existed, given the hereditary predisposition, it could however be successfully counteracted by pedagogic-therapeutic measures. After 1933, this faction controversy within the institutionally emerging child and adolescent psychiatry was decided in favour of the "Leipzig School", which was conform to the system and ideology of the time.

'A disease that makes criminals': encephalitis lethargica (EL) in children, mental deficiency, and the 1927 Mental Deficiency Act.

Encephalitis lethargica (EL) was an epidemic that spread throughout Europe and North America during the 1920s. Although it could affect both children and adults alike, there were a strange series of chronic symptoms that exclusively affected its younger victims: behavioural disorders which could include criminal propensities. In Britain, which had passed the Mental Deficiency Act in 1913, the concept of mental deficiency was well understood when EL appeared. However, EL defied some of the basic precepts of mental deficiency to such an extent that amendments were made to the Mental Deficiency Act in 1927. I examine how clinicians approached the sequelae of EL in children during the 1920s, and how their work and the social problem that these children posed eventually led to changes in the legal definition of mental deficiency. EL serves as an example of how diseases are not only framed by the society they emerge in, but can also help to frame and change existing concepts within that same society.

[A ''humanitarian duty and a matter of honour for German Jewry": "feeble-minded" Jewish children and the Institution in Beelitz]. / Eine "Pflicht der Humanität und Ehre der deutschen Judenheit": Die "Schwachsinnigenfürsorge" am Beispiel der Israelitischen Erziehungsanstalt für geistig zurückgebliebene Kinder Wilhelm-Auguste-Victoria-Stiftung in Beelitz e. V.

In 1908, in collaboration with the Bnei Briss, the German Association of Israelite Communities founded an institution for intellectually disabled Jewish children in Beelitz with the aim of educating 7-14-year-olds, using therapeutic pedagogy. The institution was part of the philanthropic efforts undertaken by German Jewry in that period. It was set up in the wake of the German Kaiser's call to found more philanthropic institutions, and its establishment is indicative of the efforts at integration being made by German Jewry. In their fund-raising material, the German Association of Israelite Communities stressed the "loyalty and patriotism" of German Jewry and described the establishment of the institution as "a humanitarian duty" and "a matter of honour for German Jewry". It was, therefore, demands from the non-Jewish world that led to the foundation of a Jewish institution; however, its establishment was also symbolic of the struggle against anti-Semitism and indicative both of German Jewry's dissimilation and their efforts at integration. The article investigates the struggle of Jewish parents to have their children admitted to the institution, the philosophy and teaching methods of the director Sally Bein (1881-1942) and his wife Friederike Rebeka Bein (1883-1942), the background of the students, the causes of intellectual disability, as well as the disagreements that occurred between parents, teachers and the director. The article also discusses the successes and failures of therapeutic pedagogy.

Beyond terminology: the policy impact of a grassroots movement.

This article discusses the history of the grassroots movement led by self-advocates and their families to replace the stigmatizing term "mental retardation" with "intellectual disability" in federal statute. It also describes recent and pending changes in federal regulations and policy to adopt the new terminology for Social Security and Medicaid.

'A group of parents came together': parent advocacy groups for children with intellectual disabilities in post-World War II Australia.

In the late 1940s, small groups of 'interested parents' and 'concerned citizens' began to gather in community halls, hoping to assuage the 'plight' of their intellectually disabled offspring. These meetings led to the formation of an association dedicated to the foundation of schools, day centres, or hostels for their children. By the 1960s, at least one of these groups existed in every Australian state. Together, they established several hundred schools, farm colonies, hostels, and workshops, and successfully lobbied state and federal governments to fund their ventures. Just as importantly, their extensive publicity campaigns changed the public discourse surrounding intellectual disability. Despite their wide-ranging influence, these groups have been largely overlooked by historians. In this paper I survey the rise of the parent groups, their philosophy, and the facilities they operated.

Institutionalization of mentally-impaired children in Scotland, c. 1855-1914.

This article examines two institutions which were established in Scotland specifically for the accommodation of mentally-impaired children: Baldovan Asylum near Dundee and the 'Scottish National Institution for the Education of Imbecile Children' in Larbert, Stirlingshire. It surveys the aims and agendas of the institutions in the spheres of residential childcare, mental health, and education and training. It compares the admission regimes of these institutions and considers whether they complemented one another in serving an unsatisfied demand for places, or whether they were in competition for admissions, staff and charitable support. The survey covers the period from the opening of both institutions to the implementation of the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 which required the (re)certification of all children.

Turning the educability narrative: Samuel A. Kirk at the intersection of learning disability and "mental retardation".

It is often assumed that current disability constructs exist in conceptual isolation from one another. This article explores the tangled historical relationship between "mental retardation" and learning disability in the writings and speeches of special education pioneer Samuel A. Kirk. Beginning in the 1950s, Kirk repeatedly told an educability narrative that described children with low IQ scores as capable students worthy of instruction. However, when he tried to clearly distinguish between the new learning disability construct and the older mental retardation, Kirk altered his standard tale. True intellectual potential then shifted to the learning disability, leaving mental retardation doubly stigmatized as the disorder of educational infertility.

Ulysses Pernambucano e a assistência ao alienado no início do século XX: preâmbulo para uma história das práticas de atençäo psicossocial no Brasil / Ulysses Pernambucano and the care to the mentally ill at the beginning of the XXth century: a preface to a history of psycho-social care practices in Brazil

Propõe possíveis imbricações entre os campos da saúde e da educaçäo, tendo como fios condutores a psiquiatria e a psicologia. Envolvido de 1917 a 1926 na assistência a alienados, Ulysses Pernambucano retoma esse compromisso na década de 1930, ao empreender em Pernambuco a reforma dessa assistência nos moldes da escola de Juliano Moreira (instituições específicas para tipos determinados de doença mental). Em 1925, aventura-se no campo da educaçäo, na área da psicologia, e cria uma instituiçäo de formaçäo de profissionais para o cuidado dos anormais, cientificamente pesquisados por testes de inteligência. A junçäo entre psiquiatria e educaçäo se dá no interesse pela assistência aos doentes mentais e às crianças anormais, incluindo-se, no último caso, a formaçäo em psicologia para os profissionais e a própria institucionalizaçäo do ensino para a infância anormal. (AU)

Colonias y escuelas de niños débiles. Los instrumentos higiénicos para la eugenesia. Primera mitad del siglo XX en Argentina / Colonies and schools for insane children: the hygienic tools for eugenics in the first half of the XXth century in Argentina

Incorpora una visión histórica y problemática donde se analizan los sujetos, la intervención institucional y sus modificaciones en la organización y funcionamiento de las Escuelas de Niños Débiles y las Colonias de Vacaciones, haciendo hincapié en las características del interior argentino, específicamente en el que fuera Territorio Nacional de Pampa.(AU)

En pos de la regeneración nacional: instituciones y biotipología en Argentina (1900-1940) / After the national regeneration: institutions and biotype in Argentina (1900-1940)

Examina el establecimiento de instrumentos de recolección estadística de la situación física y psíquica de los escolares y las propuestas concretas enmarcadas en el establecimiento de instituciones como las escuelas y colonias de niños débiles. Incorpora una visión histórica y problemática donde se analizan los sujetos, la inteervención institucional y las modificaciones de educadores, médicos y otros profesionales para solucionar la "degeneración racial" de la población, abordando especialmente el Territorio Nacional de la Pampa, como ejemplo de análisis que puede sin embargo generalizarse a otros espacios similares en Argentina.(AU)

Escuela para niños anormales, anexa al Pabellón de Psiquiatría Infantil del Manicomio General, 1930-1940 / School for disabled children, annexed to the Pabellón de Psiquiatría Infantil of Manicomio General, 1930-1940

Menciona que debido al frecuente ingreso de infantes con afecciones neurológicas en el Manicomio General de México, fue necesario integrar al Pabellón de Psiquiatría Infantil la Escuela para Anormales, la cual medicante educación de los sentidos y el lenguaje, complementada con gimnasia, trabajos manuales y, sobre todo, con vigilancia médica especializada, buscaba que los pequeños se bastaran a sí mismos, mediante el desarrollo de sus aptitudes y aprendizaje de oficios.(AU)