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SCHOOL HEALTH
average intelligence but with severe speech defects who would benefit from
special teaching combined, where appropriate, with speech therapy. It is
hoped that it will be possible to make satisfactory arrangements in the near
future.
Child guidance
centre and clinic
The Child Guidance Centre and Clinic is situated at 8 Dryden Road, Bush
Hill Park. There is staffing provision for a part-time psychiatrist (eight
sessions per week), four psychiatric social workers, four educational
psychologists and two psychotherapists. The Education Committee is
responsible for appointing staff other than the psychiatrist, who is appointed
by the North East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.
Although the centre and clinic are housed in one building, the work falls
broadly into two categories, namely, educational problems and the assessment
of intelligence on the one hand and emotional and psychiatric problems
on the other. The educational psychologists deal mainly with problems
arising in school. If the problem seems to be of emotional origin, the child
may be referred to the psychiatrist by the school medical officer, family
doctor, hospital service, and sometimes by the parents themselves.
The psychiatric social worker's duties are with the parents of children with
problems, and the psychotherapists see children for regular treatment
sessions.
In conjunction with the centre and clinic there is the Selection Unit at Chase
Side School for twenty young children suffering severe emotional disorder.
They are admitted on the recommendation of the psychiatrist. The Unit
provides a therapeutic environment in which further assessment of the
problems and abilities of these children is possible, as many of them are nonspeaking
and in other ways inaccessible.
Elsewhere, remedial classes are provided for very small groups of children
with specific learning difficulties, who attend part-time; additionally a small
full-time class for hyperactive infants is now held under the supervision of
the teacher in charge of the Selection Unit.
The recent provision of Aylands, a day school for 50 maladjusted boys and
girls of all ages, and the conversion of Wavendon House to a residential
school for maladjusted boys has greatly improved the prospects of satisfactory
placement for many of the children seen at the Child Guidance Clinic.
Nutrition
Although advice on nutrition is generally available at medical inspections,
the more positive approach to the problem of the overweight child and the
underweight child - inaugurated last year - was continued.
Advice, both individually and by group method, was supplemented by the
use of diet sheets and weight charts.
No underweight children were referred for advice. At the end of the year 45
children were attending.
Enuresis
Twenty-two automatic enuresis alarm devices are available locally to assist in
the treatment of enuretic children.
Alarms were issued to 56 children during the year. Eighteen other children
were offered alarms but eight no longer needed them, and the remaining ten
did not accept the offer.
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