Criteria of success and failure in child guidance.

Abstract

I much has been contributed to define and standardize ideas of diagnosis and treatment, the meaning of success and failure remains relatively unstandardized. As long as such a .condition exists, and the concept of success or failure is not definitively clarified, certainly the hopes for validation of any relationship between diagnosis, treatment and outcome would be doubtful.I t is because of the need for such standardization of the idea of success and failure in the treatment of personality maladjustment primarily in children that the writers have surveyed the literature on the subject and attempted to formulate a set of principles to act as guides in setting u p more specific criteria of the success or failure of adjustment. Early Co~tribiition~T h e origin of adjustment ratings of this type seems to be intimately tied up with the attempt a t self-evaluation on the part of institutions and social case work agencies. Blackman (8) mentioned a statistical card devised in 1915 by the American Association for Organizing Social \York, to be used as a guide in evaluating cases a t closing. Fernald (36) in 1 9 1 9 published an after-care study of mental defectives discharged over a 25 year period from the \\'averly institution. He evaluated especially economic status and conflict with the law. Clark (19) (zo), in follow-up studies of \Yhittier State School boys, used a three-fold classification of success devised by Merrill (SZ) in 1915. Baylor and Monachesi (3) felt that the Children's Aid Society of Boston, in 1923, made the first attempt by a social case work agency to evaluate its work systematically in a self-critical way. Following the report of a Committee on Evaluation of the American Association of Social \Yorkers appearing in THE COMPASS in 1923 (94), considerable further interest in the problem became apparent, as well as some doubt as to the possibility of handling it practically. In the SURVEY ~~I D M O K T H L Y , 1926, Emerson (31), Ihlder (63), Kelso, Goldsmith, Hexter, Sanderson, Burnitt and Bedinger (64) discussed the need for measurement and statistics in social work. Craghorn (24) felt that the problem of evaluation was the most important job facing the profession of social work a t the time. Cabot (13) doubted the possibility of measuring or evaluating, feeling that some of the best work will never show in the balance sheet. Swift (106) and Holbrook (61) emphasized their hearty respect for the difficulties facing the evaluator, while Robinson (95) frankly characterized such an inquiry as doomed to being fruitless in the 1930 stage of the case work field. Notwithstanding this point of view, evaluation studies had been made and continued to be made (107) (30) (114) (84) (57) ( 1 1 s ) . Conant's (22) influence 642This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Practical guidance and the teacher.

“…Success or failure must be considered relative matters, according to Perl and Simon (52), who suggest that the respective viewpoints of the guidance agency, the client and his family, and the community need to be taken into account. Bennett and Rogers (7) made a study of two hundred cases at a child guidance center, and reported inexactness in predictability of educational progress; overestimation of improvement of family emotional tone, but encouraging results in self-insight.…”