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Conclusion
The preceding pages give a picture of the changes that have taken place, and are still
taking place, in the special educational treatment of the physically handicapped child.
Comprehensive surveys of this kind need to be undertaken periodically in an attempt
to answer the simple questions : ' what are we doing ? '' why are we doing it ? ' and
' what is still to be done ? The questions are simple indeed but finding the answers
is a much more formidable undertaking.
Where the handicapped child is concerned, there is no doubt about what we are
trying to do. It is, quite simply, to prepare the child to take a place in the normal everyday
world at as early an age as possible and we are doing it because this is clearly in the best
interests of the child and of the community. How this is done, in any particular case,
depends upon an intricate combination of factors of which the nature of the disability
is not always the most important. The choice of the most suitable form of education
for a child with any handicap is an individual matter dependent on that child's social,
educational and medical needs.
The fall in the numbers of children in special schools is not simply a decline in the
incidence of certain disease-groups. In some cases it has reflected a change in the climate
of opinion and a better appreciation of the resistance of a damaged body. Ordinary
schools nowadays feel able to take certain handicapped children and the special school
in its turn absorbs children with more severe handicaps than formerly. This trend will
undoubtedly be followed for some time to come. As for the future, it is reasonable to
anticipate a substantial reduction in the numbers of children crippled by poliomyelitis,
but the prevention of cerebral palsy still seems far away.
Quantitatively the schools for the physically handicapped may have a less important
role to play, but qualitatively their task is becoming more difficult because of the
reduction in the number of children requiring specialised treatment. In the circumstances
it is fortunate that London has so large a concentration of population as to make it
possible for the Council to provide so comprehensive a service.
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