Jean Marc Gaspard Itard

Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (born April 24, 1774 – died July 5, 1838) was a French physician, regarded as being the founder of special education and of oto-rhyno-laryngology. He is noted for his work with deaf-mutes, especially the “Wild boy of Aveyron.” He is also credited with describing the first case of Tourette's syndrome and inventing the Eustachian catheter (also known the "Itard's catheter"). Numbness in the tympanic membrane during otosclerosis is referred to as the "Itard-Cholewa Symptom".

Life

Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was born on April 24, 1774 in Oraison, France, and grew up with an uncle, a canon of the cathedral of Riez. He received his education in Riez and Marseilles. Due to the requests of his father, he started work in banking, but the job turned out to be too boring for Itard, and he returned to Riez.

When the French Revolution broke up, Itard was called to join the army. To avoid being sent to the front lines, he presented himself as a physician, and was employed as an assistant physician to a military hospital in Soliers. His brilliance and great personality helped him to quickly acquire necessary knowledge of themedical profession. He ultimately became a military surgeon, attached to Napoleon's famous surgeon Baron Larrey.

After returning to Paris in 1796, Itard started a formal surgical internship. In 1800 he was appointed Chief Physician at the National Institution for Deaf-Mutes in Paris. He became interested in the hearing organ and its diseases, the field in which he remained for the most of his career.

In early 1800s he became engaged with a feral child, known as "The Wild Boy of Aveyron", work which would bring him international fame. His work was subsidized by the French government. Itard spent five years trying to teach the boy, later named "Victor", to read, write, and talk. Itard published two works on his case, in 1802 and 1806. Victor slightly improved, but never reached normal human functioning. Itard returned to his work in otology.

In 1816 Itard served as co-editor of the Journal Universel des Sciences Médicales in Paris, and in 1822 as the editor of the Revue Médical. From 1832 he was an editor of the Dictionnaire de médecine ou répertoire générale des sciences médicales sous le rapport théorique et pratique. In 1821 he published his seminal work Traité des maladies d'oreille et de l'audition.

Itard died on July 5, 1838 in Paris. In his last will he left the Paris institute for the deaf and mute 160.000 francs, which was a substantial amount of money. He instituted a prize to be awarded every three years at the Academy of Medicine for the best work in practical medicine or therapy.

Work

Itard was a prominent otologist, who invented and improved several surgical instruments and techniques. He designed the Eustachian catheter, which is often known as the "Itard’s catheter". He also constructed hearing aids for people with impaired hearing. In 1821 he published his seminal work Traité des maladies d'oreille et de l'audition, which became one of the greatest books on the diseases of the ear. He also designed several methods for educating and treating the deaf. He was also the first who described the condition known as the Syndrome of Tourette, in a French noble woman of 86 years of age.

Itard however remains famous for his work on the case of The Wild Boy of Aveyron, which brought him international fame.

Case of Victor of Aveyron

Victor of Aveyron (also The Wild Boy of Aveyron) was a boy who had apparently lived his entire childhood alone in the woods before being found wandering the woods near Saint Sernin sur Rance, France (near Toulouse) in 1797. He was captured, but soon escaped. He was then captured again and kept in the care of a local woman for about a week before he escaped once more.

However, on January 8, 1800, he emerged from the forests on his own, perhaps habituated to human kindness after his second experience. His age was unknown but citizens of the village estimated that he was about twelve years old. His lack of speech, as well as his food preferences and the numerous scars on his body, indicated that he had been in the wild for the majority of his life. This remarkable situation came about at the end of the Enlightenment, when many were debating what exactly distinguished man from animal. One of the prevailing opinions involved the ability to learn language; it was hoped that by studying the wild boy, they would learn the answer.

Despite the fact that he could hear, Victor was taken to the National Institute of the Deaf for the purpose of study. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, a young medical student, took on the remarkable case as his own. Itard believed that two things separated humans from animals: empathy and language. He wanted to be the first person to fully civilize a wild child and attempted, primarily, to teach Victor to speak and show human emotion. He designed an educational plan for Victor:

1. To interest him in social life
2. To improve his awareness of external stimuli
3. To extend the range of his ideas
4. To teach him to speak
5. To teach him to communicate by using symbol systems

This probably became the first Individual Educational Plan (IEP) in special education.

Though initially successful – Victor showed significant progress, at least, in understanding language and reading simple words – he eventually slowed down to the point that Itard abandoned the experiment. The only words that Victor ever actually learned to speak were lait (milk) and Oh Dieu (oh God). Modern scholars now believe, partly by studying such feral children, that language acquisition must take place in a critical period of early childhood if it is to be successful. Though Itard failed at teaching Victor language, he had a breakthrough emotionally.

Victor lived with Itard and his housekeeper Madam Garhar. One night while setting the table, Victor noticed Madan Gerhar crying over the loss of her husband, he stopped what he was doing and consoled her, thus showing empathy. Itard took this as a major breakthrough in the case proving that the wild child was capable of human emotions.

Itard concluded:

"If we consider human intelligence at the period of earliest childhood man does not yet appear to rise above the level of the other animals. All his intellectual faculties are strictly confined to the narrow circle of his physical needs. It is upon himself alone that the operations of his mind are exercised. Education must then seize them and apply them to his instruction, that is to say to a new order of things which has no connection with his first needs. Such is the source of all knowledge, all mental progress, and the creations of the most sublime genius. Whatever degree of probability there may be in this idea, I only repeat it here as the point of departure on the path towards realization of this last aim" (Itard, 1801/1962).

Legacy

Even though Itard’s work with Victor had a limited success, he proved that children with mental disabilities could improve to some extent. Itard is thus regarded as the founder of the special education. A student of Itard’s, Edouard Seguin, immigrated to the United States in 1848, and became known as the teacher of "idiotic children. Seguin’s student was Maria Montessori, who became one of the greatest educators of modern times.

Itard’s work in the area of the ear and the diseases of the ear makes him one of the founders of the oto-rhyno-laryngology.

Publications

• Itard, J.M.G. 1821. Traité des maladies d'oreille et de l'audition (2 volumes). Paris, Méquignon Marvis.
• Itard, J.M.G. 1962. (Original work published in 1801). The wild boy of Aveyron. (G. Humphrey & M. Humphrey, Trans.). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts ISBN 0139594949

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Ball, Thomas S. 1971. Itard, Seguin, and Kephart: Sensory education—a learning interpretation. Merrill. ISBN 0675091918
• French, J.E. 2000. Itard, Jean-Marie-Gaspard. In A.E. Kazdin, (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 1557981876
• Human Intelligence. Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard. Indiana University <www.indiana.edu> Retrieved on April 7, 2007, <http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eintell/itard.shtml>
• Lane, Harlan. 1975. The Wild Boy of Aveyron. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674952820
• Pinchot, P. 1948. French pioneers in the field of mental deficiency. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 3(1), 128-137.
• Shattuck, Roger. 1981. The Forbidden Experiment: the Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron. Pocket. ISBN 067142209X
• WhoNamedIt.com. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard. Retrieved on April 7, 2007, <http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1168.html>

External links

• European Traces in the History of Psychology – Photos of Itard’s grave and of the entrance to the Institute for the Deaf, Paris
• Feral children – On the phenomena of feral children on FeralChildren.com
• Itard's Mémoir - The complete texts of Itard’s memoirs (in French)
• Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard – Itard’s biography on Indiana University website
• Victor de l'Aveyron - English translation of Itard's Mémoir on Victor de l'Aveyron

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