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SPEECH THERAPY
Question:—Is stammering hereditary ?
Answer:—NO ! Stammering is not directly hereditary though how much a
predisposition to it may come from the parents it is often difficult to decide.
Traits of temperament and personality do pass from parents to children and
yet very often this is more obvious than real because, for instance, a nervous mother
may by her very nervousness affect her child who, given a fair chance, would be
otherwise normal.
Babies never stammer; children never stammer in their thoughts or in their
dreams or in their songs. It is only when the
age of self-consciousness is reached that stammering
begins.
SPEECH THERAPY
New Patients 34
Total attendances 859
Number of sessions 175
Stammering is a symptom of an underlying
lack of self-confidence which may become a
habit and which, curiously enough, affects boys
more commonly than girls. Treatment, therefore,
consists broadly in re-establishing general
self-confidence and breaking the habit.
Speech Therapists are difficult to come by, and for some months we had to do
without one. From September, however, daily sessions were held at Paget Ward,
Upney Hospital, and weekly visits were made to Faircross Special School.
CHILDREN'S CLINIC
Question:—What is the purpose of this Clinic ?
Answer:—This is a Clinic presided over by a Children's Specialist.
I like the name "Children's Specialist," but many people prefer the word
"Paediatrician." They think there is something novel in the name—actually, of
course, it is a word, the roots of which are thousands of years old.
Because I use the words "Children's Specialist" no-one should think we have
not a Paediatrician in Barking.
Children's Clinic
Number of new cases seen 60
Total number of attendances
153
When I was a young man Children's
Specialists were very schooled in the diseases of
children, and much of the literature that
Children's Specialists have to study still has to
do with disease—indeed, I am afraid there is not
much that some of them learn about the health
of children.
Now, however, that Children's Specialists are coming out of the cloistered
seclusion of our General Hospitals (where they see only a highly selected number
of cases) into the work-a-day world, we can confidently expect that they will get
a much deeper appreciation than they have had heretofore of the realities of positive
health.
I like to think that in the new order of things, some of the Iron Curtain which
divided one aspect of medicine from another, will be broken down, and I believe
that this must inevitably come to pass, in spite of the efforts of some people who
are trying to rebuild this Iron Curtain.
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