Description:The idea of the ‘normal child’ was reinforced by research by psychologists in the early 20th century which identified and categorised some children as being ‘abnormal’. Cyril Burt designed tests to identify the distribution of learning difficulties across groups of children in Birmingham. This table presents his data on the characteristics of ‘backward’ children. Burt was a eugenicist who believed that social inequalities were determined by biology and that the selective breeding of children could improve the population.