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16.
who would formerly have died to survive but, unfortunately,
sometimes they only just survive and prove to be substantially
handicapped. One would expect a reduction in the numbers of
children suffering from familial defects such as haemophilia
since the high mortality rate should make these conditions
self limiting but as many as 50 per cent of cases now arise,
de novo, in previously normal families as a result of
genetic mutations. The only known cause of mutation is
ionizing radiation and there is little hope that the level of
radioactivity will diminish.
Our provision of special schooling and of the employment
and welfare services for handicapped school leavers ought to
be designed with these problems clearly in view There is a
world of difference between a child whose legs are crippled
by polio, but whose brain and body are normal and a cerebral
palsied cripple whose whole body and brain and not merely his
legs, are affected. The former is a child with a handicap
while the latter is one example of that much greater problem,
the multiply handicapped child. These are the unhappy few
who need comprehensive and continuous help, not merely at
school but throughout their lives.
GEOFFREY POOLE.
A SURVEY OF PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDREN
For some years a progressive change has been noted in
the types of defect leading to the placement of children in
Open Air or Physically Handicapped Schools Preventive
medicine and improvements in nutrition with earlier and more
effective treatment have greatly reduced the numbers disabled
or debilitated by infective conditions while other factors
(discussed elsewhere in the Report) have enabled many physi
cally handicapped children to be accommodated in normal schools.
The stage has been reached where it appears necessary to
review critically our provisions for the special educational
treatment of physically handicapped children in the light of
conditions now prevalent, as illustrated by a survey of the
pupils at present attending our School for the Physically
Handicapped at Wingfield House. This school has an establishment
of 95 places and, at the end of the year, 94 children
were in attendance arranged in five classes, as shown in
Table I.