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24
SPASTIC CHILDREN
A non-resident treatment centre was established at 61, Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea, in 1955 under the aegis of No. 4 (Chelsea) Group Hospital
Management Committee, and during the past year it has continued to widen
its experience, and at the same time expand. The Centre now takes
cases whether adult or child, from many hospitals both inside and outside .
the territory of the Regional Hospital Board for this area.
The pattern of examination and investigation has remained much the
same, though in addition to formal neurological and psychological
assessment, audiometric and ophthalmological examinations are now being
carried out on every case referred, and in most cases an orthopaedic
opinion is also sought.
Examinations have been made upon some two hundred and fifty cases,
and the current number of children attending classes regularly is
sixty-five, of whom thirty-eight attend daily either in the two classrooms
or an assessment class.
Inevitably a fairly high proportion of the children referred is
unsuitable for admission because of age, distance, or mental defect,
and, as might have been expected, the small Assessment Unit recently
established to ascertain the special facilities for certain patients
has tended to accumulate cases with such severe physical and mental
disabilities that they are plainly ineducable.
A nursery school which is recognised by the London County Council
as a special school as well as a hospital school, has an upper age
limit of seven.
Expansion has taken place into the second floor of No. 61, Cheyne
Walk, (the old Cheyne Hospital), so that the Centre now occupies half
of this floor, the whole of the ground floor, its own classrooms in the
garden, and the whole of No. 62, Cheyne Walk.
A most valuable facility has been provided by the Friends of the
Centre in No. 63, Cheyne Walk, now rebuilt, which now serves as a
hostel for children who would otherwise live too far away to attend daily.
These children are thus able to live in the hostel from Monday to Friday
weekly. In addition, a mother and child from afar can be accommodated
for several weeks while assessment is being carried out. This service
is provided at relatively small cost to the parents, and is available
to children from any county.