Abnormal and subnormal rigidity.

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Abstract
The term rigidity as used here apparently connotes a tendency to perseverate or to persistently repeat an activity once begun. The author demonstrates a difference in respect to this behavioral characteristic in 2 groups of mentally retarded children closely matched according to MA and IQ. The mean IQ of 18 brain-injured children in the study was 68.2; their mean MA, 9-0. The 18 non-brain-injured, or feeble-minded children of the second group had a mean IQ of 69 and a mean MA of 9-1. Four expts. were designed which would encourage repetition of previously learned responses. Material was presented visually or auditorily, and the children reproduced these presentations at once by drawing, speaking, or pressing a key to reproduce certain rhythmic tone patterns. A preliminary series of presentations consisted either of rhythmic tone patterns to be duplicated, pictures of objects to be named, dot configurations to be drawn, or word lists to be repeated. Each of these periods was followed by a main testing sequence requiring the reproduction of similarly presented material. The brain-injured children, in all expts., produced significantly more perseverations than did the feeble-minded group. This difference in tendency toward rigidity was quantitative and qualitative: brain-injured children often showed a "delayed "ora" repetitive" type of perseverated response. They tended to repeat patterns which were presented 2 or more trials back, or which appeared more than once in a series. Perseveration among the feeble-minded was essentially simple, consisting of single repetitions of immediately preceding patterns. The feeble-minded response can be considered a subnormal form of rigidity, best descr. in terms of dedifferen-tiation. Whole situations, not sharply set apart from one another, tend to fuse easily, resulting in stereotyped behavior. The abnormal type of rigidity encountered in the brain-injured seems best descr. in terms of disintegration. Whole situations are dissected into parts, and singular elements become self-contained and isolated to such an extent that they may be repeated over and over again, or appear suddenly in the fore, despite the incongruity of such behavior.

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