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ASCERTAINMENT AND REHABILITATION OF
PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDREN
The Ministries of Health and Education, on behalf of the
World Health Organisation, United Nations International
Children's Emergency Fund, and the United Nations Department
of Social Affairs, organised a course in March for interested persons
from abroad.
In particular, the Ministry of Education wished to show the
work of the School Health Service. At the request of the Ministry
a programme of visits was arranged in Walthamstow, which
included reception by the Mayor at the Town Hall and visits to
the Open-Air School for Physically Handicapped Children (where
cases were demonstrated by Dr. Hinden, Pædiatrician, and Dr.
Watkins). At this demonstration the various "opposite numbers"
in Walthamstow of the visitors were present. After lunch the
school kitchen was inspected, and later the Nursery School, the
adjoining Child Welfare Centre and School Clinic, and lastly the
Child Guidance Clinic.
The Deaf Child.
During the year Dr. Watkins attended a refresher course in
the care of the deaf child and held at Manchester. Dr. Watkins
reports as follows:—
The course began with a visit to the Royal Residential Schools
for the Deaf. The schools cater for the partially deaf and totally
deaf. Those with equal degrees of deafness were taught together
in their own age-groups. The fullest advantage was taken of any
residual hearing to teach by means of ordinary speech. Hearing
aids were used extensively in this group. The hearing aids were
operated centrally, each child using headphones which could be
individually adjusted for pitch and intensity to suit the child and
to suit each ear.