By Margaret Lowenfeld

A small boy stands at the edge of the school playground looking longingly at a group of children playing twos and threes. He would so like to join them; he kicks the wall behind him and feels miserable then he drifts off aimlessly by himself. He is an isolated child, a boy with no friends a boy who seems somehow always to get left out when group activities are planned. In another part of the playground, a girl darts in and out, teasing slyly, pinching one child, pushing another. She is a spiteful child and the bane of her teachers. Neither kindness nor punishment seems to have any effect on her.