You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The striking picture of the infants studied in Foundling Home encouraged us to make every effort to get whatever information we could on the further development of the individual children. Distance made it impossible for the author to attend to this personally. The investigator who assisted in the original study was therefore directed to ascertain, at regular intervals, certain objectively observable facts on all those infants who were still available. He visited Foundling Home during the two years following our own study, at four-monthly intervals. On these occasions, equipped with a questionnaire prepared by the author, he asked the nursing personnel a series of questions. He observed each child's general behavior, and tried to make contact with each. He took some motion pictures of them, and a set of stills at the end of the two years, Finally, some bodily measurements, namely, weight, height, and occipital circumference, were taken.
The questions referred to three principal sectors of personality:
1Bodily performance: the gross indicator used was whether the child could sit, stand, or walk.
2Intellectual capacity to handle materials: the gross indicator used was whether the child was capable of eating food alone with the help of a spoon, and whether he could dress alone.
3Social relations: these were explored by ascertaining the number of words spoken by each child, and by finding out whether he was toilet trained.
We are only too well aware that the resulting information is inadequate for a thorough study. As will be seen, however, even this inadequate follow-up yields a number of instructive data.
As is usually the case in follow-up investigations, only a relatively