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a psychotherapist but there are so few of these particularly experienced
in dealing with children. However it is believed that
eventually this appointment will be filled and for the present it
is hoped to make greater use of the services of an experienced
officer of the new Social Services Department. During the past
three years local medical practitioners have more than doubled
their use of the Child Guidance Service.
Audiology and Speech Therapy
There has been reference to the introduction of an audiometer
test at each entrant medical examination and already this has
proved worthwhile. The report outlines the team work between
medical officers, teachers of the deaf, speech therapists and educational
psychologists and the liaison that ensues in the work in the
Audiology Clinic. The comparatively low number of attendances
at this clinic is partly related to the multiplicity of handicaps that
are found and the investigations that are needed. Correct and
precise assessment is essential to the proper placement and treatment
in special units and classes.
Miss Connery is now Senior Speech Therapist on the permanent
establishment of the Service and is coping in a meritorious
manner with the perennial problems of staff changes. In the
report which sets out in detail the distribution of speech defects it
is of interest that specific retardation of speech and language
development is more than four times as common as stammer.
On the list of speech defects stammer ranks as only fourth in
importance and this is a lower position than one might expect of a
defect which has such publicity.
Immunisation Service
A new immunisation programme offering protection against
Rubella (German Measles) was introduced and offered to all girls
between their 11th and 14th birthdays. It was organised to allow
a necessary immunisation interval from B.C.G. vaccination against
Tuberculosis offered to boys and girls in their 13th to 14th years.
The introduction of an immunisation scheme to a selected
age and sex group presents obvious administrative difficulties but
in the case of rubella vaccination this is considered on epidemiological
grounds to be a better practice than a more general
immunisation scheme.
The reduction both in notifications and in the biennial
periodicity of Measles, believed to be the result of the measles
immunisation programme, is well shown in the table of measles
notification since 1965. Immunisation must keep pace with the
recruitment of susceptibles and failure from any cause to ensure