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school children to be increased so as to allow them to rest a while after
they have had their food, but for the young children, right through the
Infants' School, it is very necessary indeed—particularly in these days
when children do not get enough sleep anyhow.
One of the things which never ceased to amaze me when I had to do
with a large number of children at the hospitals was how, if they were put
to bed for four, five or six weeks, they had grown out of their clothes by the
time they got up again which shows, of course, that they were not getting
enough rest before they had the misfortune to have an enforced rest.
People in the sunny south say that only Englishmen and mad dogs
take exercise in the middle of the day, and there is a lot to be said for this.
In the sunny south the siesta becomes a matter of obligation on account
of the heat. I can only say it is a pity we do not get more sunshine which
would make it obligatory for us to have a mid-day siesta.
Question:— What are the most common causes of speech
defects ?
Answer:— This question is not nearly so easy to answer as might
appear because although the answer in a number of cases is straightforward,
in other cases it is not unusual for a combination of circumstances
to lead up to the defect.
It is quite obvious that where a child is deaf, where there is malformation
of the teeth, where there is a cleft palate, or where there is nasal
obstruction or paralysis of some kind then, of course, we can go right away
to the root of the trouble. Sometimes this can be treated—which is a great
help—but even if treated it is not at all uncommon to find that the child
is learning to talk at a different age than usual and requires help, which
means that the Speech Therapist can be of considerable help.
There are, of course, other cases.
If you watch a baby breathing it is spasmodic and there is no rhythm
in it; indeed, the same is more
or less true of all children up to
the age of about seven, by
which age the rhythm is gradually
established. Some children
do not develop this breathing
sufficiently at the time they begin to speak, and amongst these children are
to be found a large number of speech defects, particularly stammering.
This leads me to another point; it is the intelligent child who
develops this real rhythm in breathing at an early age, and I am inclined
to think that a part of every speech defect is not only due to the fact the
child is a late developer so far as breathing is concerned but—to put it
very modestly—the child is a late developer so far as the mind is concerned.
Some people go so far as to say that speech defect is associated with
low intelligence, and whilst submitting there is something in this I do
think it has more to do with late development than inherent low intelligence.
SPEECH CLINIC
Number of new cases treated 36
Total attendances 1,097
Page 21