ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on more general aspects of intelligence and educational retardation as the impinge on and form a part of the developing personalities of children. The concept of intelligence has defied definition in any uniformly acceptable way, and the tests to measure it are less than perfect. When children's school achievements fail to match up to the competence expected for their age and IQ, two sometimes interacting groups of causes are usually responsible: those associated with the socio-emotional environment, and specific, constitutional developmental delays. Michael Rutter and his colleagues in their population studies on the Isle of Wight and in inner London were the first to reveal the important relationships between intelligence, school performance, and mental health in childhood. A small piece of evidence for a protective effect on later personality functioning comes from D. Quinton and Rutter's study of the adult adjustment of girls who had spent long years of their childhood in children's homes.
