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parents saw this pre-school check as helpful,
and this could be judged only by assessing
their responses in availing themselves of the
appointments offered.
Because the Heston Hearing Clinic with its
soundproofed rooms for testing hearing adjoins
Heston School for the Deaf, where extra rooms
could be found for the large team of workers
needed to assess motor and language development
of groups of children simultaneously, it
was decided to continue the pre-school survey
in Heston. The Director of Education very
kindly gave permission for the use of some
rooms in Heston School for the Deaf (and indeed
Mr Wain Assistant Director of Education spent
some time observing assessment during the
period of the survey). The survey took place,
as at Chiswick, over two separate weeks during
the school holidays, one at the beginning and
one at the end of the holidays.
Five of the Council's medical officers, six
speech therapists and one psychologist, as
well as Dr N O' Doherty Consultant Paediatrician
of West Middlesex Hospital, Miss Dorothea
Meyerhoff Educational Psvchologist of London
Borough of Hillingdon and Miss Dorothea Waldeck
Senior Educational Psychologist of London
Borough of Merton took part in the assessment
procedures. Other med'cal staff assisted with
administration, as did a finalist undergradude
student from the University of Surrey, as part
of a summer research assignment.
On this occasion only head teachers' lists
were used. Appointments were offered to 320
children and of this number 239 were brought
to the Clinic (approximately 75%). In large scale
research studies, 75% of a particular total
population is considered to be a reasonable
response. Obviously it would have been preferable
to have a 100% response, but even if it is not
possible to make confident statements about
the total group that could have been seen, the
response is sufficiently substantial to warrant
reporting on it and comparing it with the Chiswick
group.
Figure 1 shows the age range and numbers
at each age of both Chiswick and Heston
children, a total of 452 children. It will be seen
that the Heston group contains no children below
the age of 4 years 2 months, as there were no
nursery classes attached to Heston infant
schools. Figure 2 shows the number of boys
and girls in each group - roughly 51% boys
and 49% girls in each area and in line with
findings in other studies. Figure 3 shows the
percentage of children with some form of
pre-school experience in Chiswick and Heston,
either in a play group or nursery. It will be
noted that a considerably higher proportion of
children in Heston had pre-school experience,
but there were 45 children below 4 years 2
months in the Chiswick group, and of these
15 had some pre-school experience, while 30
had none however, if the percentages are
calculated in Chiswick for children of 4 years
2 months and above only, the percentage
change is from 42 to 44%, a comparatively
small shift. Proportions might suggest,
however, that there is a greater tendency for
parents to try and arrange for pre-school
experience in the 4 to 5 age group than for
the 3 to 4 year olds,
Family size was compared for both groups,
and is shown in Table 1. It will be observed
that the peak size in both Chiswick and Heston
is the two child family, with Chiswick having
a slightly greater number of larger families
than Heston it may be that there were greater
numbers of young parents in Heston who have
not yet completed their families. The place
of the chiId in the family - birth order - was
established at the same time, and is shown
in Table 1 also. Here the greatest number in
both areas was of first children, more in
Heston than in Chiswick, possibly lending
support to the idea that there were more as
yet incomplete young families in Heston.
One small but nteresting fact emerging from
the assessment of language development was
that both in Chiswick and Heston, proportion
ately more of the children who had immature
or defective speech were youngest children
as against all other children whose articulation
of speech did not arouse comment.
Hearing
In Chiswick as reported last year 20 children
were found to have some hearing difficulty
of which 6 were bilateral and 14 unilateral,
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