MINORATI PSICHICI. – The term m. p. (or psychically abnormal persons) has a medico-pedagogical meaning and is used in school medicine and remedial pedagogy. Some authors prefer the terms “disharmonious,” “maladjusted,” or “irregular.” In any case, these designations refer to those individuals (especially children and adolescents) who display an insufficiency in learning because they have not attained the mental capacity proper to their age, or who are unable to adapt their moral conduct to the requirements of common life. They are therefore distinguished into those impaired in intelligence, or weak, or minor phrenasthenics (v. FRENESIA), and those impaired in character, or unstable, or affectively abnormal, who correspond to the milder forms of childhood neurosis and psychosis. Mixed cases, the most frequent, are instead those who are simultaneously weak and unstable.
The causative factors may be biopathic, cerebropathic, or mixed (true psychically abnormal persons); they may also be extrinsic to the nervous system and connected with frailty, debilitating illnesses, adenoidism, intoxications, moral neglect, family conflicts, mistaken educational methods, etc. These are the false psychically abnormal persons, or defective normals, because they appear temporarily below the average level and can become normal with appropriate medico-pedagogical treatment.
Such a differentiation between “true” and “false” cases rests largely on the practical results obtained; in advance, however, it often presents considerable difficulties. On the other hand, such classification and the presumption of the subject’s adaptability are essential if the m. p. is to be sent to the institution best suited to the case. This task is entrusted to the “Medico-Psychopedagogical Centres,” where the psychiatrist, psychologist, pedagogist, and social workers collaborate. These centres, which are essentially the Italian interpretation of the American and English “Child guidance clinics,” are also concerned with prevention and treatment.
The problem of the social accommodation and rehabilitation of m. p. has passed through successive stages of development and refinement: from indifference to institutionalization, from re-education to prevention. The first attempts were made approximately a century and a half ago in France and Germany; in Italy, in 1848, the first institution for cretins was opened at Aosta. At first the problem interested only a few volunteers, driven by charity, philanthropy, or science; later the State intervened as well, but legislative provisions supporting and regulating private institutions are still scarce (cf., e.g., royal decree of 5 February 1928, no. 577). Among the most active figures in this field, Tommasini, Gonnelli-Gioni, and Bonfigli should be remembered, and above all S. De Sanctis and Montesano.
The institutions in Italy that provide instruction and education for m. p. who are recognized as socially adaptable are: 1) the “differential classes,” which operate within elementary schools and serve false psychically abnormal children who are not severely retarded or nervous (Montesano), for whom a scholastic leveling and thus a return, after some time, to the ordinary school may be foreseen. Other characteristics of the differential classes are the limited number of pupils, specialized personnel, instruction through differentiated teaching, medical and psychological consultation, and moral and social assistance. 2) The “special schools,” or “autonomous schools,” or “school-asylums,” for true m. p.; they are autonomous in location, direction, and disciplinary, teaching, and educational organization. These are para-scholastic institutions whose aim is the social adaptation of m. p., principally through work. They are organized as day residential institutions, with a special timetable and calendar guaranteeing continuous assistance. These autonomous schools likewise provide permanent medico-psycho-pedagogical collaboration, instruction imparted by differentiated methods, correction of speech defects, corrective physical education, and moral and social assistance; primary importance is given to work—educational, pre-vocational, and vocational-guidance work. The “autonomous school” thus realizes a type of open assistance. 3) Residential “medico-pedagogical institutions” provide residential care for m. p. who lack a family, or who must be removed from it because it constitutes an environment unsuited to the development or correction of their character, or who live in places far from population centres. These institutions have the same organization as autonomous schools, but affective education is developed to a greater extent.
Residential institutions with boarding facilities, for the most part run by religious bodies, or the sections for phrenasthenic minors in psychiatric hospitals, instead serve severe cases recognized as socially unadaptable (or irrecoverable), known as major phrenasthenics. These include persons affected by glandular dystrophies and severe psychopathy, individuals often in need only of purely physical care.