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68
should be seen by a Speech Therapist and treatment if
indicated can be instituted from then on. It is hoped
that an increasing number of parents of young children
will take advantage of the expert advice available to
them.
The Speech Class at Stanhope Infants School continues
to prove of great value in catering for children with
more severe speech defects,, Accommodation is provided for
about ten pupils and during the past year there have been
five new admissions and three diseharges
EALING CHILD GUIDANCE CENTRE.
Dr. P Holman. Consulting Psychiatrist, reports:-
152 Ealing patients were referred to the Centre in
1959, This figure hardly differs from that of 1958
Fewer cases were withdrawn before investigation at
the Centre, This is more satisfactory than in previous
years. It is impossible to avoid some wastage when, for
example, families remove from the area; parents become
ill, or the child makes a spontaneous recovery
22 children were placed in Residential Schools in the
course of the year.
The frequency of different types of cases and of
different symptoms changes little year by year. The
average I.Q is exactly the same this year as last: the
average age has gone down by one month (not a significant
change). There is little change in the ratio of primary
to secondary children coming to us.
Although there is an apparent drop in the number of
pre-school children referred, this is much more than
balanced by the large number of young children now seen
informally by the Psychiatrists and Psychiatric Social
Workers in the Maternity and Child Welfare Clinics.
Only one new case referred by the Probation Officers
was seen during the year, though several old cases who
had come to us in this way continued to take up a disproportionate
amount of our time
There was a further slight rise in the number of
children placed in schools for maladjusted children. It
is noticeable that more than two thirds of these are
children of secondary school age, for whose special
educational treatment there is little day school provision.