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Vale Road School for Physically Handicapped Children
Cerebral Palsy Unit
I am indebted to Dr. William Dunham for the following report on the
year's work.
"As in previous years, special provision has been made at the Vale
Road Special School for Physically Handicapped Children for children
with cerebral palsy ("spastics"), who accounted for 27 of the 94 children
in attendance. Although this special provision is made necessary because
these children differ as regards ease of movement from normal children,
in other ways they are normal. They are driven by the same emotions.
They have the same interests and ambitions. These are forces which
can be used in their training whether in ordinary school subjects or in
ordinary every-day activities, both at school and at home. Finding out
the exact training needed by a child may call for medical skill, but
training itself is the job of the parents and the teachers. In providing for
children with cerebral palsy, therefore, parents, teachers and doctors
must all collaborate.
At the school, medical guidance is provided by a consultant who attends
weekly; arrangements have been made for a school medical officer also
to attend. Parents are advised how best to help their children at home;
methods of helping the children at school are discussed with the teachers,
whose care is supplemented by the services of a whole-time therapist.
For swimming, help is given by pupils of the South Grove Girls' School.
Domestic science instruction is provided at the Markfield Secondary
School. Woodwork and metalwork for the boys is in abeyance owing
to lack of an instructor.
Much of the early training in movement of the child with cerebral
palsy should, of course, be completed before the child reaches school,
and for this reason arrangements have been made for parents to bring
their children to the school for advice before they reach school age.
During the year, 13 pre-school children and four other children have
been brought to the school in this way. Details of these cases are given
in the accompanying table.
Arrangements of the kind described are new, and it is pleasing to note
that the school receives a number of visitors from the Institute of Education
including post-graduate students taking the Diploma of Education.
Visitors are also sent by the Staff College for Ward Sisters and, from
overseas, by the British Council".
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