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SPEECH DEFECTS. Miss R.Clarke, the senior speech therapist, continued her work at
the main speech clinic at Greengate School; in addition two visits a week were made to the
Spastic Unit. Miss A.Clarke, the assistant speech therapist, who commenced duty in
November, 1954, was occupied mainly with work at the Spastic Unit at the Elizabeth Fry
Special School. The Spastic Unit provides treatment for spastic children of all ages,
particularly for those under seven years of age who are in the nursery class in the Unit.
Physically .handicapped pupils, including those with cerebral palsy, attending the special
school and who need speech therapy are also treated at the Unit. The assistant speech
therapist attends the Unit every morning and In the afternoons spends two sessions at the
main clinic, two at the branch clinic at the Grange Road Maternity and Child Welfare
Clinic, and one at Gurney Special School. It is important that these educationally subnormal
children with speech defects should receive every help we can give them: on the
whole they make slow but steady progress.
Students from the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases attend both the main
clinic and the Spastic Unit. Much use has been made of the tape-recording machines both
at the main clinic and at the Spastic Unit. At the main clinic a record of the children's
progress is kept, and this can be used as a means of demonstrating to the child his own
speech pattern, and its gradual improvement during treatment. The record provides
encouragement and an Incentive to steady perseverance. A permanent record is made at the
Spastic Unit of the progress of each child by regular recordings every half-term. The
special tape-recorder is most useful In demonstrating to parents in a most convincing
fashion, exactly how much has been achieved by the patient work of the speech therapists.
The close liaison between the speech clinics and other parts of the service, child
guidance, nose and throat, paediatric and dental, which is so essential to its success has
continued. Towards the end of the year a new scheme of reinspection of these children at
the speech clinic was put into operation. Once a month the Chief Assistant School Medical
Officer visits the clinic for this purpose and up to 24 children are seen at a session.
The results have been most encouraging and much better than formerly when the children were
reinspected by the school medical officers at their clinics or schools. The chief
advantages are that the speech therapist is present and can give valuable information about
the child and its progress: also the attendance is very good - well over 90 per cent
attend with their parents.
The number of children found suitable for speech therapy during the year was 50, and
6l were considered as no longer In need of treatment. Speech defects of a degree sufficient
to warrant speech therapy do not commonly show themselves in very young children, and so the
number of referrals from the Maternity and Child Welfare Department remained low. Last year
an experiment was started of dealing with these pre-school children in a group and it proved
successful. The group was continued this year and the senior speech therapist records in
her report that - "it has been noticed that the majority of the children respond quickly to
treatment at this age "
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