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69
London child
guidance
clinic.
Dr. William Moodie, the medical director of the London child guidance clinic,
Canonbury, reports that a general survey of the clinic shows that the work is steadily
increasing, that the results of treatment are at a constant high level, and that, by
means of certain economies of administration, recording and general management,
the labour involved and the time expended in the treatment of cases are gradually
but steadily decreasing. With the experience of the past seven years the staff have
now that confidence in their own powers of dealing with cases which enables the work
to be approached in a more definite way, and it is now possible to predict with greater
exactitude the course which a particular case is likely to take, and so to concentrate
effective effort in the direction most suitable. Fewer home visits are undertaken by
the social workers, but the parents are encouraged to attend more frequently at the
clinic for interview, as it is shown that the visits to the centre are taken much more
seriously and the parents are able to look upon their troubles in a more detached
way. Play activities have continued to prove of great value in diagnosis and treatment.
Special attention has been given to individual instruction in cases of educational
backwardness where the children have been psychologically able to profit
from definite teaching in the fundamentals of school work, and the results indicate the
value of assessing the causative factors underlying such backwardness, and of giving
the appropriate help in the light of this knowledge. The co-operation of the teachers
in this work has been most helpful, and in many cases it has been possible for the
clinical work to be supplemented by special programmes of instruction in school.
Very great assistance has also been given to the work of the clinic by the unfailing
co-operation of district organisers and care committee workers in the interchange
of information and following-up of the cases. So far as the treatment of cases during
the year is concerned, the largest number of boys dealt with fall within the age
group 5 to 11 years, and girls in the age groups 11 to 13 years. Every child is submitted
to an intelligence test, and the estimate of his capabilities balanced against
his actual educational attainments. Discrepancies between these are very frequently
associated with disturbances of behaviour and often form an important feature in
their production. The extent of these discrepancies are seldom recognised before
clinical examinations.