[Report 1965] / School Medical Officer of Health, Leeds City.

  • Leeds (England). City Council.
Date:
1965
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1965] / School Medical Officer of Health, Leeds City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/62 (page 23)
    CHILD GUIDANCE SERVICE Mr. P. C. Love, Senior Education I Psychologist, reports Within the comprehensive ihild guidano service administer* d by the Leeds Education Committee are three main components. 1 hese are the school psychological service, the spt rial education unit, and the clinical service for maladjusted children. The school psychological service is staffed by the educational psychologists and by the remedial teachers. It is concerned with the assessment and the treatment of learning difficultic s. At 1h< request of headteachers the stall of the school psychological service will help tin school staff to pick out the children who need spe c in] help with number or reading, and will give advice on ways of providing suitable help within the existing organisation of the school. During the year, remedial teachers also g..ve direct help through individual reading lessons to 137 pupils, and through small teaching groups to a furthe r 202 boys and girls. Most of this help was provided in the childre n’s own schools. The educational psychologists also assessed a number of children who were generally backward in schoolwork, and advised on their transfer to full-time special education. The special education unit of the child guidance service com¬ prised three classes for maladjusted pupils and a full-time class attached to the Care of Children Department’s Reception Centre. A total of 106 children attended these special classes at some time during the year. The clinical component is staffed by educational psychologists and social workers, who with the help of a consultant paediatrician and a consultant child psychiatrist, provided a service of assessment and treatment for maladjusted children. A maladjusted child is one who ‘‘shows evidence of emotional instability or psychological disturbance (Handicapped Pupils and Special Schools Regulations, l959). Among the symptoms of maladjustment which led to the referral of 307 children to the child guidance service during the year, were pilfering, school refusal, nocturnal enuresis, lack of response to normal parental or school discipline, outbursts of physical aggression, under-functioning in schoolwork, and withdrawal from reality. Seventy-eight per cent of these 307 children were in the age range of from seven to fifteen years, but this part of the service does not confine its work to children of school age, and a few children of two years of age, and a few young adults ranging up to eighteen years of age, were also seen. Tin investigation of a cliild who had been referred for syniptojns of maladjustment was usually made by a social worker and psycholo¬ gist- The social worker obtained a case history from the parents