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amblyopic eye has very often improved from 6/60 or 6/36 to 6/6 or near
6/6. This is followed by a course of orthoptic exercises to re-establish
and maintain binocular vision.
A most valuable part of the work at the clinics is the opportunity
afforded of seeing very young children—sometimes infants—in the preschool
age. Squints can then be treated at their inception which in many
cases alone can guarantee a successful result.
Such cases—where squint appears in the first or second year of life and
where there is a family history of a "lazy eye"—may develop an intractable
and irretrievable amblyopia by the time school age is reached. It is gratifying
to be able to see and treat these cases usually referred by the doctors
at the child welfare clinics.
Another type of case which is closely supervised at the clinic is the
patient with progressively increasing myopia. Advice is given as to their
management with a view to arresting it and where the clinical signs of
progressive myopia are pronounced and associated with poor vision, a
partially sighted school is recommended. I am indebted to the orthoptist
for her invaluable help in treating the above-mentioned cases of squint
and also those who present symptoms due to anomalies of oculo-motor
balance and who have not acquired full binocular vision".
Child Guidance Service
Dr. C. Phillips, M.R.C.S., D.P.M., visiting psychiatrist, reports:—
"The year under review has seen the work of the Child Guidance Centres
at Hornsey and Tottenham continuing in much the same way as has been
described in previous reports.
We have been fortunate in filling the somewhat long-standing vacancy
for a part-time psychotherapist for the Tottenham Child Guidance Clinic,
and this has greatly increased our facilities for treatment since the time of
her appointment in April 1958.
Work with the treatment and investigation of behaviour disorders in
children under five is going on, and health visitors have been encouraged
to bring cases for consultation and treatment. A scheme is in progress
whereby each health visitor in turn is present at the diagnostic interview
and the subsequent treatment interview(s). By this means it is hoped
to give them an insight into simple methods that can be used to deal with
emotional disturbances in young children at the beginning before they have
become difficult and complicated. It is hoped, too, that this will make a
significant contribution to the prevention of illness in school children and
consequently diminish the amount of instability in adults whose mothers
have had the benefit of sound advice and help during the formative years "
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