Intellectual disability and the myth of the changeling myth
- 1 June 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
- Vol. 37 (3) , 223-240
- https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.1032
Abstract
This article investigates the historical sources for the idea of the “changeling” or substitute child as an explanation for congenital intellectual disability. Pre‐modern sources for this idea are elite and theological as much as popular and folkloric, nor do they refer to intellectual disability in any sense recognizable to us. Rather, both the concept of intellectual disability and the notion of a transhistorical changeling myth emerge from the historical core of modern psychology. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Keywords
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