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that it is difficult to free hospital beds. The National Association for Mental Health set
up a committee to investigate the nature of this problem, the metropolitan regional hospital
boards have made increased provision and the children's and adolescent departments of
the Maudsley-Bethlem hospital makes a special contribution; nevertheless, when such a
boy or girl is received in a school or one of the Children's Officers' establishments it is
often exceedingly difficult to find any hospital to receive the child, who has sometimes to
be placed more or less permanently in a ward for adults in a mental hospital.
Another small group difficult to place correctly in their education setting is that of those
children who have sustained a permanent brain damage, whether as the result of encephalitis
or meningitis in early life or of injury. The bizarre and unpredictable behaviour, the
occurrence of major epilepsy, the normal intelligence with defects of spatial or sensory
perception and crossed laterality, make it difficult for them to be accepted in a school for
the physically handicapped, for example, while the less rigid more loosely structured
organization of a school for the maladjusted is in no better position to help them.
Unfortunately, as the toll of infectious diseases declines the number of accidents tends,
if anything, to rise, and it would seem that experiments in the education of these children,
who share some of their problems with the children with cerebral palsy, would be justified.
(k) The 'Underwood' Report 1955—The report of the 'Underwood' Committee on
Maladjusted Children contained nothing which called for reorientation in the Council's
policies towards the special educational treatment of maladjusted children. On the contrary,
London's unique system of special classes was commended for general adoption throughout
the country. In Circular 348 of 10 March, 1959 the Minister of Education asked local
education authorities to consider the provision of day schools and classes; to arrange
for boarding schools to specialise in pupils; to send children out from boarding schools
to local day schools; all of which had been the Council's practice over the past years.
(/) Growth of special educational provision 1951-59—Tables (vi) and (vii) give a
numerical picture of the development of special educational provision for the maladjusted
in London over the past decade.
Table (vi) gives the annual numbers of formal ascertainments under section 34 of the
Education Act, 1944 of pupils requiring treatment as maladjusted, and illustrates how
there has been a steady growth in the numbers dealt with, despite some inexplicable year
to year fluctuations. In particular this table shows the increasing proportion of pupils put
forward for placement at day schools or classes, as opposed to residential placement.
Table (vii) shows the numbers of pupils actually in receipt of special education on stated
dates, analysed according to the type of school attended; it also shows numbers on the
waiting lists on the given dates, thus demonstrating the point that the facilities available
have always fallen short of the recommendations received, and that the demand for day
placement has outgrown the provision available, whilst at the same time, extra boarding
provision has reduced the waiting lists for residential placements.