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If these difficulties are to be avoided, the child must attend at a
speech clinic for assessment, diagnosis and treatment before he attains
school age. A decision can then be reached concerning his educational
future. Unless a local authority is prepared to make special provision
for such children, three possible alternatives remain:—
(1) The provision of special help in normal primary schools. If the child
has been fully assessed before school entry the speech therapist can
attempt to make his entry into school as smooth as possible by contacting
the Head Teacher and explaining the child's difficulties.
However this is a solution of choice for only a very small proportion
of children because:—
(a) Daily speech therapy is not possible without serious disruption of
the child's general education.
(b) The child is under stress as he will still experience the difficulties
already described.
(c) A strain is placed upon the teacher as it is virtually impossible to
give the aphasic child sufficient individual attention.
(2) There are two special schools for speech disordered children in
Great Britain and both are residential. Attendance at one of these schools
also poses problems. There are long waiting lists, as pupils are selected
from the whole of Great Britain, and both schools are residential. Such
a placement can be upsetting to a young aphasic child as it is difficult
to explain such a school to him, and the fact that he has not been left
permanently. In a few cases, however, a residential placement is advisable,
especially if the home circumstances are unsatisfactory.
(3) Some aphasic children are placed within special schools for other
handicaps primarily because of the smaller classes and more permissive
atmosphere. This solution again is not ideal because placement .in a
school for E.S.N, children, whilst initially satisfactory, may fail to provide
the rapid stimulation necessary when improvement occurs. In addition
if the child attends a school for physically handicapped children, he may
be alarmed by seeing grossly .handicapped children.
It was for these reasons that the Education Committee decided to
open a special unit for speech disordered children. It is attached to the
West Thornton Primary School and opened in January 1966. Its purpose
is twofold - to provide specialised treatment and education, and to integrate
the children into a normal school environment as quickly as possible.
The special unit consists of three rooms which are housed in a wing
of the Primary School. There is a large classroom with a full-time
teacher. The room is sufficiently spacious to allow the teacher to group
the children. There is a treatment room, and a speech therapist is in
attendance daily. A play room adjoins the treatment room, which has a
concealed microphone and a one-way observation window. This allowo