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We have seen that there is a need for such provision but before any proposals were
made it was necessary to find out whether the mothers of handicapped children also
felt the need and to what extent they were likely to avail themselves of any provisions
made; and also to find out what the home circumstances and conditions of each of these
children were. This type of investigation must, as far as possible, be objective and
therefore in the hands of one investigator, as it has been proved so often that reports
from a team of visitors will vary as to standards found and expected.
Each of these families was therefore visited by one medical officer and I append a
sample of those families seen. The sample has been chosen solely geographically but
represents most types of defect.
When the disabilities of the handicapped children in this sample are considered in
relation to their backgrounds and to the amount of help their mothers can give them,
it is apparent that they and their families are in need of some help in overcoming these
disabilities or at least in learning to adjust to them.
Visits to these homes make it abundantly clear that it is not in the cases of minor
physical handicap that help is most needed but where there is a dual defect as there is in
a large proportion of the more seriously handicapped, e.g., epileptics and spastics. In
these cases the mental retardation slows the progress that might be expected in overcoming
the physical disability, and makes the child an increasingly heavy burden on the
mother as he grows from infancy to childhood.
It should be noted that although this sample of 12 was chosen on grounds of accessibility
for visiting, it does include a number of the more seriously handicapped children
in the area. The proportion of these in the full survey of 85 children is not exactly the
same because the full list includes some with minor degrees of disability who will need
no special provisions either before or after they come of school age.
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