[Report 1962] / School Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council.

  • Shropshire Council
Date:
1962
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1962] / School Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In addition— 67 children made single visits to Centres for advice. 19 visits were made to individual homes. 25 visits were made to schools to see children and discuss cases with teachers. In all, 515 children having regular treatment in the County made a total of 6,427 attendances. Unit for Handicapped Children.—We are fortunate that this Unit (referred to on page 00) gives an opportunity for the study of a few children with disorders of communication and allows for a gradual diagnostic assessment to be made. Two little seeds awoke one day, As seeds will do in the month of May, But lo, and behold, they had clean forgot If they were carrots or beets or what ! At length they decided that they must needs Call a council of sixteen seeds. Some said onions or beets; but no, Others said it couldn’t be so; Some said turnips or celery seeds; Some said lettuce; and some said weeds. Then a sunflower spoke: “It may be slow But the way to find out is just to grow ! ” Nineteen children were dealt with during the year and eight were removed from the register, for the reasons indicated below, leaving eleven on the register at 31st December: Substantially improved .. 1 Ceased to attend .. .. 6 Deceased .. .. .. 1 The conditions necessitating attendance for Speech Therapy were as follows: Cases discharged On Register on during year 31st December 3 6 1 — 3 2 1 — 1 — 2 Defects associated with cerebral palsy Dyslalia Delayed speech and language development due to mental retardation and/or psychological factors Mixed defects and cleft palate Non-communication: (a) emotional .. (b) possible neurological causes In addition, 3 children made single visits to the Clinic for advice; 6 visits were made to individual homes. Mrs. C. H. M. Aldridge has submitted the following report on the year’s work at the Speech Clinic held at the Unit: “Children seen at the Unit for Handicapped Children have presented a wide variety of speech disorders. Of the total number of children who attended the Unit during the year, only three were considered to have no speech difficulty. Over half the children requiring Speech Therapy are handicapped by Cerebral Palsy. Their speech problems range from difficulty with only a few sounds, to complete absence of verbal communication. Other children present a complicated picture of behaviour problems, backwardness and speech disorder. In these cases assessment of the speech problems is difficult and requires time. Attendance at the Unit enables the Speech Therapist to study these children in many situations, and offers more opportunity for close consultation with workers in other fields”.