British Expert On Needs Of Handicapped Children

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27405, 19 July 1954, Page 6

British Expert On Needs Of Handicapped Children

When Mr James Lumsden, the British Ministry of Education’s chief Investigating officer on handicapped children, reviewed in a national broadcast last evening his visit to New Zealand, he said: “I have seen in my short visit that you have faith in your New Zealand children, faith that it is worth making the most of them—bringing them up to be as good as they can be. The handicapped are children like the rest. They are worthy not only of your sympathy—that costs nothing—but also your practical efforts to provide speciall' - suitable education for them. The great majority can be made selfsupporting if they get this; but not if they don’t. But even if there are some who won’t be able to earn their living, haven’t we an obligation towards the weaker members of the community?” . Mr Lumsden described the difficulties and requirements of the blind, the partly sighted, the deaf and partly deaf, the epileptic, the physicallyhandicapped, the speech defective, the delicate, the backward, and the maladjusted. ‘‘You’d think anyone would recognise the children in these 10 groups as needing different and skilled handling —different from normal children; but it isn’t so always,” Mr Lumsden said. “Lots of them are overlooked. It’s partly because some parents are ashamed to own up to having a child that is different, and don’t let him go to school at all. They seem to think that it must be their fault, and they try to hide it. I want to scotch that idea. Very, very few of these children are defective because of anything their parents have done, or because of heredity. They are inevitably a source of worry and anxiety and etxra work to their families, but they needn’t be a tragedy unless their parents make them so. If they will admit their handicap, know where to go for advice and help, and let their children attend a suitable school, they can have much of the pleasure most of us have in our normal children.” Mr Lumsden related his discussions in New Zealand about co-operation of the family doctor, school medical officer, consultant specialist, psychologist, and teacher to advise parents on aid to such children. ♦ Facilities Needed

“But it is no use for the team to give good advice if there aren’t enough places where it can be carried out, and that means sufficient special schools and classes. To have these means spending money, and there’s never enough of that unless people really want what it will buy,” said Mr Lumsden. “There’s a need for buildings and equipment, and trained staff, and transport or boarding houses, for you can’t have very specialised facilities on everyone’s doorstep. And even where you in New Zealand have special facilities already they are not adequate. “Your blind and deaf schools are there, but they badly need modernising and up-to-date equipment. That is recognised by everyone who sees them, but plans for improvement haven’t yet been put in hand. Facilities for giving special education to the partially sighted, who need assistance to see print, special lighting, small classes, and so on. are in many parts of New Zealand quite inadeouate. “Again it is very different • to* get proper teaching for a child who is not really deaf, but is so hard of hearing that he can’t get on in an ordinary school. Special classes are needed to give this training. I have seen the first such class which has just been set

pp in Wellington, but it’s not yet equipped. Others will be needed, and also boarding houses to enable children from the country to attend. Arrangements are already in hand to train teachers who know how to use electrical aids.

“For crippled children you have the long-established Wilson Home in Auckland, but one hospital school for the whole Dominion cannot be regarded as enough. “The new discoveries in how to deal with spastic children have already led to the establishment of a hospital type research centre at Rotorua, and the opening of some small day centres in other places,” Mr Lumsden said. “It is difficult to expand this service for

lack of trained staff, especially physiotherapists and occupational therapists, but while more are being trained the existing places are learning better just which spastics can be helped and which can’t. Mentally Handicapped . “I haven’t time to say much about the mentally handicapped,” Mr Lumsden said. “For many years there have been in New Zealand a few special classes in ordinary primary schools for children who can be taught to read and write and count sufficiently well by the time they leave school to make them able to lead normal, self-support-ing lives as wage-earning citizens—but only if they are in small classes, specially equipped, and with teachers . who specialise in this kind of work. I have seen some good classes of this kind. But there aren’t nearly enough, and to provide more will cost mone" for the classes must not be more than half as targe as ordinary ones. You are opening new schools in great numbers. I have been discussing how you can plan them to make provision for special classes in the plan instead of having to add them afterwards.

You have barely begun to provide services of diagnosis and treatment for the maladjusted, and have as yet no special schools and hostels for country children. To do this you will need many more clinically-trained psychologists, premises for clinics, and a new kind of school. “Lastly, there are the very seriously backward children who are called in New Zealand the intellectually handicapped, and I note that you have in recent years brought them into the open and are setting up centres for them too, even though they will not be econmnically self-supporting when adult. Wat is a sign that a developing social conscience which has produced the' English welfare services and your social security is active with respect to this group of the population too.” said Mr Lumsden.