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THE CHANGING PATTERN OF CHILDHOOD HANDICAPS
With increasing knowledge, facilities, discovery of new drugs and a higher standard of
living, the types of handicapped children have become modified during the past 10 to 20 years.
Surgery for hydrocephaly and spina bifida in early infancy has meant that the majority
born alive live to adult life, many with no disabling handicap and fewer with severe physical
and mental handicaps. Without surgery many used to die and many of the now more fortunate
ones were left extremely handicapped.
Early diagnosis of deafness has mea'nt provision of a hearing aid and the child being
taught to use the hearing which is present and made useful by the aid and to speak well in
early childhood. Instead then of attending "Schools for the Deaf", the majority are able to
attend ordinary schools or units for the partially deaf in ordinary schools and (even fewer)
the schools for the partially deaf. Mainly children with dual handicaps are now needing
admission to the schools for the deaf.
Prevention of eye infection and treatment of various eye conditions by medication and
by surgery has resulted in fewer "blind" children and some, as a result of treatment, transfer
to "partially sighted" schools from blind schools or to ordinary schools from schools for the
partially sighted.
At one time, children who had had rheumatic fever, tuberculosis or poliomyelitis or had
asthma or epilepsy needed special help and special facilities. Now, with preventive care and
suitable medication these children live normal active and healthy lives; these children now
survive illnesses where previously death would have been immediate. Malignant tumours
treated surgically and with radiotherapy, severe accidents on the road and in the home were
previously fatal but now life is saved and, although some make complete recoveries, some are
left severely handicapped for the rest of their life.
Heart surgery has prolonged the life of many children and enabled some to live a normal
life. Orthopaedic surgery, physiotherapy and abdominal surgery have enabled children to live
normal lives and to be far less handicapped than previously. Some children require help from
specialists in all spheres to enable them to attain as much normality as possible.
Severely handicapped children are now of course less likely to die and children who
are very severely retarded, and who would previously have died at a very early age, now live
on to adult life, becoming larger and more difficult to lift until they finally require hospital
care for the rest of their life. To balance that there is the progressive help given in Junior
and Senior Training Centres to children who were at one time institutionalised or hidden
away at home. Instead they develop into well socialised, happy and pleasant individuals,
able to do easy and repetitive work in adult life and make most use of their limited abilities.
They are less likely to cause embarassment when taken out than too many "normal" adolescents.
Increased facilities now provided for the ante-natal and peri-natal period, the easily
attainable expert advice on infant rearing, day nursery care for children in priority categories
and closer supervision of people who daily mind the children of others provide, although
unfortunately in only limited cases, the necessary company of other children and stable
adults so necessary in the formative years.
G.Richards
Senior Medical Officer for Child Care
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