RETARDED CHILDREN.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17997, 14 February 1924, Page 2

RETARDED CHILDREN.

SPECIAL CLASSES IN WELLINGTON.

(PBESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, February 13. The Department of Education is establishing through the Education Board, Wellington,' special classes for those children who, while not gaining much from, instruction under the ordinary curriculum, are yet quite well endowed with intelligence for mechanical pursuits. The selection of these children is to be made by means of intelligence tests, together with the advice or school medical officers. Miss W. A. Valentine, formerly a teacher under the Otago and Canterbury Education Boards, who has spent two years abroad investigating all matters relating to retarded children, has been appointed to undertake psychological work in intelligence testing. She specialised in this work at Columbia University, New lork. The training of teachers for these two classes will be in the hands of Miss Dorothy Barlow, London, a teacher who is at present securing New Zealand experience, and who has undergone j special training at Home in methods of educating this type of child. Operations will probably commence on March Ist at the Mount Cook boys' and girls' primary schools, where a classroom has been made available.