[Report 1968] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council.

  • Cumberland County Council
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1968] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    result from a child being placed in an educational environ- ment which is beyond his capabilities. One case I remember is a girl who, although in the progress class, was unhappy and unable to make or keep friends and unable to keep up with the others educationally in class. This was because she was in normal school but was educationally subnormal due to kernicterus at birth. She should have been in a school for E.S.N. children, but unfortunately her parents could not be persuaded to allow her to go. “I do feel this is a most useful area of the school medical officer’s work which for the most part would not otherwise be dealt with. I feel we are dealing here in some cases with the germ of criminal potential and if the cause of the dis- turbed behaviour is recognised and the right help is offered in these formative years I believe we can help to prevent many children growing up disturbed and aggressive against society. I do think that, when more of the routine work of the school medical officer is taken on by family doctors, this field of handicap is one which could be readily developed to use the experience of the present school medical officers. If eventually assessment centres could be developed the school medical officer could be linked to the paediatrician and Child Guidance Services and work in conjunction with the Educational Psychologist, Speech Therapist and Teacher of the Deaf in these centres, assessing and advising with such problems of disturbed behaviour. ‘Tn addition I would also like to mention that I feel it would be helpful in the future, after the family doctors take over the school medical inspections, to use the special training that school medical officers have received in Developmental Paediatrics. They could be seconded to family doctors to undertake sessions of Developmental Paediatrics for pre- school children where the family doctor is agreeable to this.” And now from the East Cumberland Child Guidance Clinic, we have the report of Dr. Blair Hood, Educational Psychologist: Dr. Blair Hood writes: “The work of the East Cumberland Child Guidance learn has continued during the past year without any dramatic changes. Of course a dramatic change is a rare occurence in child guidance nowadays, since the techniques for helping a child who has a behaviour problem have remained relatively