Books

Those Mental Measurements Yearbooks by Buros are what we psychologists use to check the statistical properties of the tests we use - reliability, validity, sample size, power, etc. Very handy if you ever have to go to court. :-)

Thanks for the info Lynne, I was wondering what that meant...

"Mentally Subnormal"? There's one I haven't heard before...

yeah, same here... i was wondering too. Thanks Lynne!

Mentally subnormal - gotta give that one a bit of a think myself. I know a crapload of people who fit that category.

"Mentally subnormal" was where we were somewheres after we dropped the terms "idiot," "imbecile," and "moron" while we were past "feeble-minded" but not quite up to "mentally deficient," which of course was years before we used the term "mental retardation."
Like "retardation" it was initially not considered anything but descriptive - if you believe that intelligence lies on a bell curve then 1/2 the people in the population are above the middle score and half the people are below the middle score. If you are several "standard deviations" below the norm, statistically speaking, you would be "below normal" or "subnormal." However, it soon took on connotations like "subhuman," even though it was just meant as a descriptor.

In today's vernacular the person HAS (as opposed to IS) an "intellectual disability" and/or s/he needs "increased supports to make it in his/her environment."

No one is ever happy with things how they are. But that is usually a good thing. :-)

Idiot = originally "layman, person lacking professional skill", "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning."

Imbecile = through the French from Latin imbecillus or imbecillis, weak, feeble; of unknown origin, weak or feeble, particularly in mind.

Moron = Coined by Henry H. Goddard who took the word from the ancient Greek moros, meaning dull or foolish.

Today's history lesson free, and worth every penny!

Hey Thanks Lynne. As always when i see your words here....I just got a little bit smarter!

Yeah, maybe you can help me write my paper on the Amygdla!

Lynne, I have old postcards of psychiatric hospitals nd I often see them referred to as insane asylums, home for the feeble minded. Ive also seen Home Hotel for nervous invalids. They had so many different names for these places.

I love the old postcards, but onto the picture. Interesting black and white shot there.

Jackieb,

It makes it difficult to do a search for historical items on eBay or anywhere on the web because of the changes in terms over the years. It also makes it difficult to understand what other people are talking about because many of the categories overlap or are mutually exclusive. I find it is always helpful to go over vocabulary before I talk to anyone because there are plenty of misconceptions from words and terms we used to use and because our concepts change every few years and we learn more.

Here are some of the many old terms, all of which were "official" terminology sometime in the past 250 years:

Psychiatric Illness:
lunatic hospital
lunatic asylum
insane hospital
insane asylum
state hospital
psychiatric hospital
mental institution
mental hospital
mental asylum
asylum
sanitarium
sanitorium
inpatient hospital
psychiatric ward
forensic hospital/ward
residential psychiatric facility
mental home
mental health institution
madhouse
psych ward

Intellectual Disabilities:
asylum for idiots
feeble-minded
amentia
mental deficiency
mental subnormality
mental retardation
idiot
imbecile
moron
trainable
educable
low-grade
high-grade
mentally challenged
mentally defective

didn't those people know words hurt??!!

likely not as much as the leather straps the interns used, but still...

Hey Lynne all those Intellectual Disabilities describe Gorge Bush!... At least that what most of us in Canada think.

Well Danvers had the nickname of the Hathorn Hilton, later the Waldorf Hysteria.

With all due respect to you all, but find curious that the very targets of those hurting words are the the less offended!!!... intriguing what term would "they" have for us???

Ok, to show how much of a dork I truly am...

I saw this and my first thought was "Wonder if that would increase any of my skill in Oblivion; The Elder Scrolls... This would probably be on the Shivering Isles expansion pack though... So I don't- Wait! Why am I even thinking about this?!"

tbut what's normal?

I should've used those books in my psychology class last semester...

The MMY has been around since like 1938 or so and they are on the 18th edition now; I see a 3rd and fourth edition on that shelf. The earliest edition I found on a google search is the 9th ed. from 1985. upon further search the 3rd edition was published in 1949 and the 4th in 1953.