THE CEREBRAL PALSIED CHILD

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28930, 25 June 1959, Page 9

THE CEREBRAL PALSIED CHILD

Educating The Handicapped (II)

[By S. C. KNIGHT, Inspector Supervising Special Education]

The Cerebral Palsy School at 314 Worcester sheet lies between the two avenues. Each day some hundreds of people hurry past its high grey fence and no doubt wonder what goes on inside. I like to think of this fence as providing a shelter and firmly insist that it was never designed to exclude the prying eye. For cerebral palsied children are essentially friendly and will welcome even more wholeheartedly than ordinary children the most casual visitor. I would like on this occasion to introduce you as a visitor to the school and try to give you what must be an all too inadequate picture of what is happening to the 25 youngsters who are its pupils. I must warn you, however, not to expect too much, for it was only 10 years ago that the school was first established at the home of Mr and Mrs P. A. Hickling. We are still, educationally, very much in the experimental stage in spite of our fine, spacious building and excellent equipment. Nevertheless we have now the certain knowledge and this makes our work more satisfying

—that the brain condition which affects to a greater or lesser degree the control of muscles need not necessarily impair intelligence as well.

Typical Pupils Let us look then at one of our children. Jane is eight. She came to us at six though we could have taken her at three. She could sit up and crawl a little, but her handicap was pretty severe. She had little control of her finer muscles and was utterly dependent on her mother for dressing, meals and the like. She understood what we said to her but had no speech herself. She was friendly but was easily distracted. Her everyday experience was much more limited than is usual wth six-year-olds. There was no learning in the formal classroom sense. We could have her with us until she reached 18, and we must give her the best possible education. Jane’s problem, like that of all our children, was a dual one—medical and educational. She has progressed because her programme took into Of children aged eight and 10.) account those two needs. Such a

programme demanded fine team work and this was possible because there was present the cooperation and goodwill of the classroom teachers, the specialist therapists, the visiting medical officer as well as that of the parents and the child herself. Moreover, there was the ever ready help of the visiting physiotherapist, who had known her from childhood, and the psychologist who had recommended her admission to the school.

Specialised Schooling The schooling planned weekly for Jane is necessarily very individual and very specialised. The head teacher and her assistants will, in they hope, teach her the ordinary skills of number, reading and writing and will provide her with many real experiences outside the classroom as well. But for Jane each day is strenuous and exciting. She must be taken to the physiotherapy room where she is being taught to use her larger muscles. In time perhaps she will acquire the ever so complicated skill of walking. She will go to the speech therapist and practise again that elaborate process—breath control, lip control, tongue control —without which speech is impossible. Then to the occupation therapist who will teach her those everyday tasks which we take so much for granted—to grasp a block, to use a spoon, to handle a cup, to do up a shoe lace, and to enjoy the lovely thrill of creating in paint and clay. If I have left the impression that life at the Cerebral Palsy School is monotonous and frustrating, I have done both the staff and children a disservice. It no doubt is sometimes that. But if there is often overmuch failure, there is plenty of success, too. Moreover one is left with the feeling that the children are relaxed and contented —that they know how to laugh together. Playtime

Then there is playtime, and you will see that children are children whatever their disability. Already the old car is swarming with youngsters while John is crawling desperately towards the climbing frame. The more mobile are dashing around on tricycles, are playing ball, or are just chatting on the lawn. While staff relaxes, education is still proceeding behind the high grey Worcester street fence. (Jane’s is not an ‘actual case. But there are many like her in our six New Zealand Cerebral Palsy schools. There are some more seriously handicapped while many others will require a relatively short stay at the schools before they proceed to normal schooling elsewhere.)