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training to enable the children to attend the Nursery, Infant and
Junior classes of an adjacent school. The majority of the 22
children are severely deaf, and this Unit is participating in a
wider Research Study on the education of severely deaf children
in ordinary schools.
In addition, 13 partially deaf children attend out-borough
units and 7 deaf children attend residential schools for the deaf.
Peripatetic teachers of the deaf assist 84 children at home, school
and clinics. Thus a very comprehensive service for the deaf school
child has been developed in the first five years of the Borough.
School Psychological Service
This service has now acquired new premises and full-time
clerical assistance. A fourth special class for learning or behaviour
problems has been established and increased liaison of the service
with teachers of a maladjusted children and teachers of remedial
reading has been developed in a tutorial unit.
The Child Guidance Service is developing closer links with
the General Medical Practitioner service and this is shown by the
increased percentage referrals to the Clinic over the past three
years: 11% (1967), 15% (1968), and 21% (1969).
This service now has, by the nature of its organisation, a
complete integration with the child psychiatric hospital and
general medical practitioner services of the Borough.
School Ophthalmic Service
The provision of occluders and alternative vision testing
charts has improved standards of accurate vision testing in schools.
The Stycar testing of under 5 year olds at the Child Health Clinics
provides an earlier screening.
Routine eye tests are carried out at 5 years, 8 years, 10 years
and 14 years examinations and at special examinations when
indicated. There is no delay in follow up and re-examinations,
but clearly the ideal service should provide annual tests. Squint
and amblyopia due to binocular vision or suppression of visual
images can develop quickly after many childhood illnesses and
for other reasons and produce permanent defects of sight. A great
responsibility rests on those officers who carry out these tests but
a further safeguard lies in the fact that the services of four consultant
ophthalmologists are available under the supplementary
ophthalmic service to examine all referrals from school or clinic.
Orthopaedic Service
The number of children at school medical examinations
noted as needing or receiving treatment for defects of posture or
minor deformities of feet decreased by 53. The number of attendances
for remedial exercises decreased by 103. This improvement