Abstract
101 mentally retarded boys and girls were given the Children's Personality Questionnaire (Porter & Cattell, 1963), a Personal Data Questionnaire and rated on a Teacher's Opinion Sheet in order to examine personality and social correlates of mental deficiency. The data portray a number of significant differences between such children and otherwise normal control children, and for boys there are a number of significant correlations between personality factors and mathematics achievement that differ from those described for normal students. Relationships between environmental events and mental subnormality were briefly discussed, with a major emphasis being placed upon the role that such environmental factors as the broken home with its attendant stresses may play in augmenting mental deficiency among girls. Since the observed frequency of broken homes was quite high for the retarded children in this study, the notion was developed that the more divergent personality structures of these children might be related to familial instability.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.