View report page

63
"The numbers on the roll have steadily increased since the school opened in August
reaching 89 before the end of the term. The attendance on the whole is very satisfactory. Except
for one case of smallpox, there has been no infectious illness amongst the children. Even for the
short time the children have been under my observation, I can see distinct progress mentally
and physically. Two cases of rickets show marked improvement. The parents are very willing
to carry out any treatment suggested at the medical inspections.
"One realises the nursery school provides much more than good food and treatment of
physical defects. It fosters all round healthy development by providing a favourable environment,
training in hygienic habits, and by encouraging free activity."
Child Guidance.
During the last two years increasing attention has been devoted to certain
types of children who either fail to comport themselves normally or who do not make
the educational progress that might reasonably be expected. The causes of failure
sometimes depend on innate factors such as limited intelligence, physical defects,
lack of emotional control or absence of interest and so of any incentive to profit by
education. The needs of children with clearly defined defects have long been realised
and special provision made in the form of schools for the blind or deaf, since extended
for the help of those who have serious but far from complete loss of vision or hearing,
for cripples and sufferers from heart disease, for the debilitated and for the mentally
defective. As time went on it became clear that other groups needed help either
because of some innate or acquired personal mental trait or lack or because of some
stresses in their environment which the children were unable to meet unaided. To
help such children it is necessary to study the individual, his surroundings, his family
and his acquaintances, since the difficulties which give rise to behaviour problems
result not so much from the struggle of the individual against more or less immutable
physical obstructions as from the much more variable matter of the interaction and
clash of personalities. For this purpose there is needed a physical study of the child
as complete as can be made with perhaps rather more stress on neurological features
than would be placed in a routine school examination of an apparently normal child.
The principal points for investigation are the measure of the child's intelligence,
attainments and reactions to educational material, such as can only be carried out
by an educational psychologist or a medical practitioner who has devoted special
study to this branch. Further should be recorded the emotional trends, instincts and
desires of the child by a medical officer with psychiatric experience among children,
and, above all, a careful study of the whole social situation should be made by a
trained worker. When these data are collected it is often possible to do much to
relieve existing difficulties or to prevent the onset of further problems either in the
child under consideration, or which is of as much or more importance, in other members
of the family. To secure such a result the co-operation, it may be said the understanding
co-operation, of the family is required; where the parents are frankly
hostile or refuse any assistance it is impracticable to do much to relieve the home
situation and if the behaviour of the subject is such as to require and permit drastic
action some steps must be taken to place the child for a time under more favourable
auspices. When, however, the parents are really interested, or merely perplexed
but well disposed and sometimes even when they are indifferent but not actively
hostile they may be materially helped in the appropriate supervision and guidance
of a distracted child. The child may be led to more personally gratifying intellectual
and emotional expression, more acceptable recreational satisfaction and so to greater
stability, which in turn facilitates scholastic progress and social adaptation.
Several hospital departments and clinics are now at work in this field and
afford greater or less opportunity of investigation in the different sections of the
work which may be regarded as generally speaking requisite to a complete study.
As the emphasis laid on the different lines of investigation, physical, psychological
and social from different sources varies in intensity, it may be possible later to
appraise their respective values. At the moment it seems probable that each has its
place. For instance, to relieve the problems of one child individual attention and