London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Hounslow 1966

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hounslow]

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of the social services and the senior psychologist
acts as chairman. I would like to express my
thanks for the continuing co-operation of the
medical department who are represented on the
working party by Dr Wilkinson and Mr Sanger.
The work has involved frequent attendance at
meetings and a large amount of routine work
involved in tracing and co-ordinating the medical
records of 100 absentee children. The end product
has been extremely useful to the working party.
The medical department's resources have also
been made available for the copying of graphs
and articles of interest, help for which I have been
most grateful.
The request for an appointment of a social
worker to the School Psychological Service was
first made in 1965. This has now been approved
and an appointment is shortly to be made. The
appointment will be made through the medical
department and the social worker seconded to
work attached to the School Psychological
Service. The social worker will be concerned
mainly with casework of parents of children
showing severe learning problems and having
individual remedial treatment or placed in a
remedial centre or special class. Once again I
wish to express my thanks to the Principal School
Medical Officer for his help and encouragement in
achieving this important appointment.'

The number of referrals to the School Psychological Service during 1966 was—

Behaviour problems59
Learning difficulties182
Others70
Total311

Handicapped Pupils
The Education Act places on local education
authorities the duties of ascertaining which
pupils in their area are handicapped and of
providing special educational treatment for such
pupils. The several categories of pupils requiring
special educational treatment are defined in the
Handicapped Pupils and Special School
Regulations as follows—
Blind Epileptic
Partially sighted Maladjusted
Deaf Physically handicapped
Partially hearing Suffering from speech defects
Educationally Delicate
sub-normal
For the purposes of these regulations, ascertainment
applies from the age of two years. A blind
or deaf child must be educated at a special school
unless the Minister approves otherwise.
Special educational treatment for other
handicaps may be provided in an ordinary school
with the stipulation that the special educational
treatment must be appropriate to the disability.
The number of ascertained handicapped pupils
and the arrangements made for their special
educational treatment are shown in the table
overleaf—
53