| Abstrakt: |
Psychologic study of prematurely born children is scantily and inadequately reported, and widely conflicting statements are found. It is not our purpose to review the literature at this time, but an illustrative quotation from an extensive study of 437 premature or immature children will not be amiss.The fate of immature children is not enviable; almost one-half of them die during the first year of life. Of those that remain alive, the majority are physically as well as mentally underdeveloped. Some of them show a late mental development; others show a condition of psychic infantilism, if the term may be used in its nonspecific sense; while still others show permanent and severe mental diseases. When they are passed in review, one is surprised at the variety and amount of abnormality encountered, almost a regular "pathologic museum." In brief, the immature infant becomes the backward school child, and is a potential |
