View report page

91
(2) To lessen the feeling of restraint which crippled or
debilitated children must, perhaps subconsciously, experience
and which restricts their outlook upon life.
The following are the types of children who might benefit
from a stay in an open air school:—
(1) Physically Defective Children.—These are children with
orthopaedic defects which render them incapable of competing
with their more healthy school mates. Most of the children will
have received treatment at the orthopaedic hospital for crippling
conditions resulting from infantile paralysis, from tuberculous
disease of the bones or joints or from congenital defects.
(2) Debilitated Children. These are children who are classed as
"delicate'' —the "Nutrition C and D" children. The debility
may be due to poor home circumstances, insufficient food or
inadequate care or to constitutional weakness. A large number of
these children will have been under observation for a long time on
account of their debility. Some will always be weaklings and
more prone than the normal child to fail under the stress of everyday
life. With a lengthy period of attendance at an open air school
they will become better able to profit from their education and
will ultimately attend the ordinary school.
There are also children who, at some period of their lives,
become delicate, for example, children who have had acute illnesses
and operations. Most of these children are sent to Convalescent
Homes but some of them would benefit by a short stay at an open
air school after their return from the convalescent treatment.
Many of the children who undergo tonsillectomy also suffer
from chronic nasal catarrh, frequent coughs, bronchitis and enlarged
glands of the neck and some of them would benefit from a stay
in an open air school for some weeks after the operation. In the
same category are the children with middle ear disease, for this
complaint is frequently the result of an unhealthy naso-pharynx
with possibly adenoids and nasal catarrh.
Nervous children, in particular children with a tendency to
attacks of chorea, often benefit from the kind of life associated
with an open air school.