[Report 1968] / Principal School Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council.

  • Warwickshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1968] / Principal School Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vation being suspected of having hearing losses. This is the same number as for the previous year. Nine of these were receiving attention in the Lillington and Bedworth Units. Parents of the re¬ maining 14 children were receiving regular sessions of guidance in auditory training and language development. Assessment Units. (a) Lillington. At the time of writing, there were four children on the roll of this unit, travelling daily from Gaydon, Moreton Morrell, Stratford-upon-Avon and Cubbington. The numbers in the class were considerably reduced after the 1963 rubella group of children were placed in schools for hearing impaired children. During the course of the year an offer was accepted from the Warwick Unicorn Club to contribute equipment, and on the suggestion of the Senior County Teacher a radio/micro¬ phone inductance loop drive system for the use of this class was purchased at a cost of £177. (b) Bedworth Heath. This class opened in September, 1968, five children attending daily from Polesworth, Ather- stone, Nuneaton, Meriden and Bedworth. This class also was equipped with a radio/microphone inductance loop drive system, at the County Council’s expense. (c) Shustoke. There was one child over establishment in this class, giving it a roll of 7 instead of 6, the ages of the children varying from 5 to 11. All the children have been well integrated within normal classes, most of the teacher’s work with them being on an individual basis. This was facilitated by the equipment donated last year by the Shakespeare Lions Club of Stratford-upon-Avon, this equip¬ ment having been specifically designed to help the partially hearing children to take part in normal classroom activities. The catchment area for Shustoke now includes Chelmsley Wood. Children in Ordinary Schools. The number of children with hearing losses sufficient to warrant some form of special attention from a teacher of the deaf but attending normal schools increased by fifteen in 1968. The upward trend is believed to indicate increasing awareness of the problem and earlier detection, rather than any true increase in incidence. Children in Residential Schools for the Deaf and Partially Hearing. The limited liaison service between the homes and schools of these children continued. The Service was also called upon during the year to give assistance with the placement of school leavers in industry and advice to future potential employers. Health Visitor Training. These courses continued during the main school holidays and a further 12 health visitors have now been trained in the techniques of screening tests of hearing for babies and young children. Child Guidance. It is disconcerting and astonishing to learn that the Seebohm Committee recommend that child psychiatric services and child guidance centres shall be divorced from other medical services. This is not only incongruous in itself but indicates that the Seebohm Committee have not taken into consideration the Ministry of Health’s suggestion that the present child guidance centres should be replaced by overall assessment centres. Whether or not the Ministry of Health’s Memorandum on this question dated 28th June, 1968, is implemented, the obviously essential base for any child gui¬ dance centre is under medical direction because the problems of those seeking child guidance are not primarily social. They are essentially problems of personal relationships and attitudes to parenthood, and can often be related to some degree of mental ill health of one or both parents. The approach to them is, therefore, essentially psychiatric, that is to say medical. This is demonstra¬ ted in the report of the Consultant Child Psychiatrist which refers to the various groups of children who cannot adjust to the infant class in the local school designed for the average child and points out the importance of assessing these children as early as possible in order to prevent a permanent maladjusted attitude to school and to decide the most suitable form of education. He describes the groups into which such children fall :—