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Parent participation has been a feature of this Group from the beginning. For maximum
benefit this needs careful supervision and control, i.e. not all the mothers stay all the time.
Problems have arisen from time to time owing to parent participation, but our experience
has been that the discussion and working out of these problems has greatly enriched our
understanding of the children, the parents and of each other.
The first five children were (ages given are those on admission):
Simon, aged 3 years —tuberose sclerosis, with uncertain degree of mental retardation, poor spatial
sense, and much obsessional activity. Withdrawn after a short time because of difficulty of
transport and mother's illness. Provision of local authority transport would have enabled us to
do more for him. He now attends a school for severely sub-normal children.
Helen aged 2½ years—ambulant hemiplegic child, with some intellectual handicap. After a short
time with us was ready for admission to normal playgroup.
Peter, aged 4½ years — over protected, misguidedly pressurised child, with mild congenital heart
disease, distorted speech and unusual pattern of retardation, with strongly autistic features.
Aggressive and disruptive on admission. He formed a strong attachment to the Group Supervisor
and through this it was possible to modify his behaviour and definite educational potentials were
revealed.
Susie, aged 4½ years — severely retarded child with a history of infantile spasms and without
speech. Some autistic features. Showed some promise of personality development for a few
months but deteriorated, following return of fits. Little over-all improvement.
Trevor, aged 3½ years — emotionally deprived child born with cleft lip and palate. Severely affected
by separation for hospitalisation to the point of showing classic infant depression. On admission
he was withdrawn and rejected play and relationships. He has made steady progress since and
is now co-operating in play and speech training and asserting himself within the Group. It is
too soon to say how far his emotional damage is remediable. He is still a very retarded but
a much happier child.
FURTHER ADMISSIONS: Donald, aged 2½ years — child with fits from early infancy and for
first year no useful vision or hearing could be demonstrated. Provision of a hearing aid at eighteen
months seemed to bring him to life and on admission he could see and hear (without his aid)
and was using single words readily and in imitation, although his behaviour was very disturbed.
He had screaming spells and was often "out of reach". Has improved considerably — no longer
screams when frustrated. Using short sentences. Much more amenable in general. Our observations
suggest vision may be below par and this will be investigated.
Patrick and Stewart. Both of these are normal 2 to 3 year olds, whose mothers were going
through a depressive phase owing to family troubles and were unable to meet the demands
of this age Group. Both children showed speech delay, excessive shyness and rejection of adults
and children alike. They required careful, individual integration into the Group. The mothers
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