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41
Dr. Lilian Morgan, the Senior Medical Officer who is specially responsible
for children with hearing difficulties, comments:—
"The Units for partially hearing pupils at Kingsley Infants' and Junior
Schools have continued to provide education and training for deaf and
partially hearing children from 3-11 years of age.
Regular visits have been made by myself to these Units throughout the
year to observe the progress and supervise the general health of the children.
Mr. Parsons (Consultant Otologist) has also visited each of the Units
once a year. These visits provide a most useful opportunity for each child
to be discussed individually by Mr. Parsons with the teacher concerned;
Mr. Oakley; the parent (if present); and myself.
Three of the older children (11 + years) left the Junior Unit in July
last, and are now continuing their education at the Unit which opened in
September 1968 at the Riddlesdown County Secondary School.
In all these Units, every effort is made by the teaching staff to integrate
these children with the normal hearing children, both in the classroom
and playground".
I am grateful to the Chief Education Officer who has provided the
following reports on the work of the partially hearing Units.
Partially Hearing Unit for Nursery Children, Kingsley Infants' School
There are se ven children in the Unit ranging in age between three and
five years. Three children moved up into the Infant Unit in September and
there was an entrant of one girl. One girl was admitted towards the end of
November.
The children integrate with the hearing Nursery children for their
dinner and this has provided them with valuable experience of appreciation
of the school environment and of the children contained within it.
The children are taught along Nursery methods of education whereby
free play is interspersed with group activities affording opportunities for
language and social experiences. They are given number experience and
most of them have a good recognition of number up to eight. They are
also given the rudiments of writing.
Two of the children are giving spontaneous speech in the form of intelligible
words and short phrases. The other children are beginning to
vocalize and are definitely watching for speech. The children are given
experience of amplified sound by the usage of the loop induction system
and speech trainer.
Most of the parents of the children are obviously very interested in
all that the children do and co-operate readily.