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Speech Therapy
Miss Came, Senior Speech Therapist, reports as follows:—
"Since speech therapy's introduction early in this century, the general
public's conception of its aims as the mechanical correction of "speech
impediments" has radically altered. The intimate relationship of speech
to the whole personality structure of the individual is more generally
realised.
The speech therapist in the school health service deals with the whole
child, including the family of which it forms an integral part, and not
just the speech defect. The wider environment of school may also need
adjustment. Speech improvement is seldom the only outcome of successful
treatment. Increased stability, confidence, social adjustment or even
better, educational progress are equally important.
Speech cannot be divorced from language. The pre-school years,
when these skills may break down or show abnormal slowness of
development, offer great opportunities for preventive work.
The difficulties in discovering every stammerer in time to offer maximum
help are great, largely owing to our big school populations. We are still
concerned at the occasional referral of the older child, who is known to
have stammered from an early age. If the teachers of the first classes in
the junior and infant schools, i.e. age groups five plus and seven plus,
could be encouraged to bring any cases not previously diagnosed to the
medical officer's attention, this delay in treatment, with all its adverse
consequences, could be avoided."
Hospital School
I am indebted to Mr. J. Power, M.A., Borough Education Officer,
Tottenham, for the following report:—
"Tottenham Education Committee now employs two full-time teachers
to provide tuition for children at St. Ann's and the Prince of Wales's
Hospitals. Priority is given to long-stay patients but every effort is also
made to cater for children who are in hospital for shorter periods. An
average of from 35 to 40 children, aged from five to sixteen years, receive
tuition each week.
In St. Ann's Hospital, where the main bulk of the work is carried out,
part of a ward is equipped as a schoolroom, where those children who are
well enough to be moved take their lessons. Other children are dealt
with individually at their bedside, and tuition is provided in the poliomyelitis
and tuberculosis eye wards, as well as in others. The schoolroom
is well equipped with school furniture, a library, a wireless set, an electric
gramophone, a colour duplicator, a shop and a puppet theatre. The
hospital authorities have provided a television set which can be used for
school programmes. There is also a full set of equipment for infant
children.
It is the aim of the teachers to ensure that each child continues his
school studies and individual interests are also pursued. To this end a
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