Health and Mental Development
Derek Bentley had a series of health and developmental problems. During World War II, the house in which Bentley lived was bombed and collapsed around him, leaving Bentley with serious head injuries and concussed.
Kingswood Approved School administered diagnostic tests to Bentley during the time of his detention there. In December 1948, Bentley's mental age was estimated at 10 years, 4 months; his actual age was 15 years, 6 months. Bentley scored 66 on an IQ test in December 1948 and 77 in 1952. After his arrest in November 1952, further IQ tests were administered to Bentley at Brixton Prison. Bentley was described as "borderline feeble-minded", with a verbal score of 71, a performance IQ of 87 and a full scale IQ of 77.
As of December 1948, Bentley had a reading age of 4 years, 6 months. He was still "quite illiterate" at the time of his arrest in November 1952.
Bentley was examined twice by EEG: a reading on 16 November 1949 indicated he was an epileptic and a reading on 9 February 1950 was "abnormal".
In February 1952, Bentley underwent a medical examination for national service, where he was judged "mentally substandard" and unfit for military service.
Read more about this topic: Derek Bentley Case
Famous quotes containing the words health and, health, mental and/or development:
“We have two kinds of “conference.” One is that to which the office boy refers when he tells the applicant for a job that Mr. Blevitch is “in conference.” This means that Mr. Blevitch is in good health and reading the paper, but otherwise unoccupied. The other type of “conference” is bona fide in so far as it implies that three or four men are talking together in one room, and don’t want to be disturbed.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Any balance we achieve between adult and parental identities, between children’s and our own needs, works only for a time—because, as one father says, “It’s a new ball game just about every week.” So we are always in the process of learning to be parents.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion, Dennie, and Palmer Wolf. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)
“The entire construct of the “medical model” of “mental illness”Mwhat is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“The proper aim of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broader and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is as true for first graders as graduate students, for fledging artists as graying accountants.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)