Spectacular Decrease In Deaf School Pupils

Press, Volume C, Issue 29565, 14 July 1961, Page 12

Spectacular Decrease In Deaf School Pupils

Control of maternal rubellau (German measles) in the 1 early months of pregnancy 1 has brought such a kpectacu- I lar reduction in congenital deafness in New Zealand that < numbers are now dropping 1 sharply in schools for the 1 deaf. < Mr H. Pickering, principal 1 of the School for the Deaf at ’ Sumner, said yesterday that i the rise and fall of deafness t from this cause coincided 1 with his own time in New s Zealand. When he arrived from Eng- i lard in 1940, the Sumner i School for the Deaf and a small one in Auckland had i a total roll of 120. Between 1 1938 and 1943 a widespread < and persistent outbreak of 1 German measles occurred in New Zealand and from 1944. i cases of deafness from this 1 cause began to enter the i schools for the deaf. By 1955, the Sumner and I Auckland Schools for the ; Deaf each had rolls of 180 to i 190. and a Roman Catholic i school in Feilding had i another 50.

“Even allowing tor the : increase in population it will i be seen that the numbers ot these pupils trebled.” Mr Pickering said. Improved methods of detecting deafness in children had no bearing on these figures, because the new techniques had not then been introduced. Roll Now 86 Now, in 1961. the Sumner roll has dropped back to 86. exactly 100 fewer than six years ago. In the “boom” years the spread of pupils had i been very lop-sided as the , bulge of rubella-deafness : cases passed through the , classes. Now pupils aged : four to 17 years were fairly evenly spread. Mr Pickering said, and the Health Department con- ' firmed, that the spectacular decline in deaf pupils could be attributed directly to eon- : trol of German measles in expectant mothers. As a matter of routine most of 1 them now have injections ( which, it they do not prevent . German measles, at least delay their appearance until , after the critical early months , of pregnancy. This treatment has also eased the incidence of eye and heart troubles in ; babies. "It is an odd fact, which I ’ hope we can now forget, that ' German measles is one of the 1 most trivial illnesses in itself ! and yet it had the most ! serious consequences for !

unborn babies,” said Mr Pickering. “The economic loss to the country must have been considerable.” This improved situation has enabled the Sumner School for the Deaf to contemplate, for the first time, better use of its accommodation. In the past most pupils slept, ate. worked, and played in the main building. Three years ago a senior boys’ dormitory block was burnt out, and since then senior boys have lived at the former naval and immigration hostel. Tasman, at Lyttelton. The authorities have long realised that it was not idea) for the pupils to spend most of their days and nights in the cne building. Now that tenders have been called for a nursery cottage for four-year-old to six-year-old children, the next stage wiU be a separate two-room teaching block for infants, and then two blocks of new classrooms to take the rest of the school. When all this is done, the main building will be remodelled into better living accommodation for senior pupils.