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aptitudes have been carefully assessed, the skills or functions,
however modest, which have a potential for development are
encouraged and exploited.
Behaviour and aptitudes have improved remarkably and the
parents and relatives of these handicapped children have been
made to feel that, at long last, education and training is a matter of
degree and not of segregation and priorities. Parents' confidence
has been restored and they feel able to face a future which now
holds a measure of promise hitherto denied them.
The centre provides for the accommodation of 115 children in
three main groups:—
1. Nursery
A unit serving the needs of 20 children between the ages of 3½
and 5 years in the severely mentally handicapped range including a
few selected subnormal children who suffer from specific problems
such as walking, speech, self-feeding or behaviour with a view
to their entering, eventually, a special school.
2. Training Centre
Catering for a total of 80 children between the ages of 5 and
16 years, this section is organised into four classes each of 20
children including a transition class for boys and girls aged 14 to
16 years.
It is the intention of centre training to have regard to the whole
personality of a child and eventually to prepare him/her not only
for undertaking employment but also to encourage the use of leisure
hours to advantage.
3. Special Care Unit
With the object of accommodating 15 very severely retarded
children suffering from other handicaps, this unit must also be
considered as a training unit in that children are being helped
towards greater independence. On admission at the age of 5 or
6 years, some children are still bottle-fed and a great deal of
skilled and patient teaching is required to assist them to surmount
the physical handicaps which make self-help so difficult.
This group, perhaps above all others, needs to be taughl leisurehour
activities in order that the many hours spent by its members
in wheelchairs at home may, in fact, be those of leisure and not
of boring deleterious idleness.
Since the inauguration of this training unit, success has crowned
the efforts of the staff in creating a stimulating and happy atmos-