‘Integrate the problem child'

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32941, 13 June 1972, Page 18

‘Integrate the problem child '

The practice of isolating children with special problems in institutions was condemned in Christchurch yesterday by an American educational planner, Dr F. R. Link.

Dr Link, who is a senior member of a national curriculum development unit in the United States, said that in the last decade there had been moves in the United States and in Britain away from the institutional care of children. Where children had special needs, researchers had found that these could best be met

in conditions as near as possible to normal community living. “Cutting them off from their own age-group and the rest of the community is certainly no answer,” she said. BACKWARD TOO Referring to backward children. Dr Link, who is in Christchurch running a course on social studies for teachers, said that in the United States more and more of these were being integrated into the ordinary schoolroom. “These children can be taught the social skills. They learn much of course from mixing with children without so many problems. Once they are given the chance to cope in an ordinary school setting then they have abase on which to work. “But isolation away from others? Definitely not."