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children on the waiting lists, the heaviest pressure
being on the special care units. The borough is
shortly to enlarge its training scheme for teachers
of mentally handicapped children. A total of three
trainees will be appointed and will work for a
year at the schools before being seconded to the
2 year training course at the Chiswick Polytechnic.
The appointment of trainees is done in conjunction
with the tutor of the course at Chiswick
Polytechnic so that the trainees' acceptance on
the course is virtually assured.
Isleworth Junior Training School.
This school continued to run smoothly and
efficiently, the major change being the retirement
of Miss G M Chapman who had been supervisor
since the opening of the school. Mrs M S Moodie
was appointed as the new supervisor and I have
no doubt she will be a worthy successor to
Miss Chapman.
Hanworth Junior Training School
The building of the new school is progressing
according to schedule and it is hoped to move in
very early in the new year. It is anticipated that
these very pleasant premises will prove a stimulus
to both children and staff alike. It is known that
the London Borough of Richmond intend to
withdraw 12 children from this school in the new
year to attend a small junior training school they
are preparing. It is hoped that this pattern will
continue and as other local authorities open their
own schools it will be possible to implement the
staff to pupil ratio of 1 to 10 recommended by the
Scott Committee.
Speech Therapy—Report by Mrs D E Cox,
Senior Speech Therapist
Changes of speech therapists during the year have
made it difficult to properly assess their work.
An outline of the work carried out is given in the
figures below, but the significant fact of the year
under review has been the great increase of interest
among many disciplines, in language development
and its malfunction. This has led to discussions
about the speech therapist's work, with teachers
and educational psychologists, and during the
latter part of the year planning was commenced
for a wider use of speech therapists in the junior
training schools, following a definite programme
so that an evaluation of their contribution to the
children's progress can be made at a later date.
The planning will include assessment of
individual children's speech and language ability
in comparison with their general level of
development, followed by individual treatment
programmes by the speech therapist for the child
found to have a speech defect in addition to other
problems. At the same time more general work is
to be planned in collaboration with the class
teachers to provide a daily class session of
language stimulation, since all these children show
degrees of language retardation, and need far
more stimulation than their age peers.
Since the speech therapy training schools express
great interest in all special schools, and those in
the London Borough of Hounslow are known for
their excellent work, it will be possible to utilise
the help of students in their final year of training
to extend the work of the speech therapist. The
maximum use of students is therefore planned for
1968.