PROBLEM CHILD

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 40, 15 August 1930, Page 9

PROBLEM CHILD

HELPING HIM ON

HOW CLINICS OPERATE

STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR

The problem child—the shy, oversensitive boy or girt, as well as the truant and the delinquent, is about to receive- entirely new treatment in the New York public schools. No longer ■will the unruly child be looked upon merely, as a hindrance to his teacher in her efforts'to instill the same amount of factual knowledge into her entire class, writes Dorothy "Woolt in the "New York Times."

In line with the new concept of equal education as an attempt to fit each child equally well for social and intellectual life, an endeavour will bo made to understand'the problem child as an individual. He will not be punished because he is inherently and hopelessly bad. By learning more about him, by investigating his home environment as well as his mental ability, school authorities will discover the reason back of Ms misbehaviour, and, 11 possible, eliminate it, so that he may be mpre happily adjusted to school, and, later, to life. ~ This policy was outlined by Air. George'i1. Byan, president of the Board of Education, who recently said that there is no "length to which tho city will not go in its efforts to understand and provide for the problem child. As » means to this end, he specifically recommended the establishment of behaviour clinics. IN OTHER CITIES. Behaviour, or child guidance, clinics are already in operation in many other cities throughout the United States, but at present only Newark and Minneapolis have incorporated full-time clinics within their public school systems. Both these bureaus study each problem child from four points of view —that of the physician, psychologist, social worker, and psychiatrist—and have achieved successful readjustment in about 80 per cent, of their cases, a high percentage considering the limitations of our present knowledge of mental problems.and their treatment. While the physician and, in more recent years, the psychologist, have been accepted memberß of the school Bystem in many localities, the social worker and the psychiatrist are comparatively new in this field. ' The bringing together of all their information in studying a problem child is the outgrowth, of work among delinquents started twenty years ago in the Chicago Juvenile Court by Dr. William Healy. The more comprehensive methods have been as successfully applied in handling other forms of maladjustment among children, and the, realisation is spreading that better care of problem children in the schools will do much to relieve the burden of courts and charity organisations. HEAVY LOAD. This psychiatric aspect of child guidance is emphasised ]jy tho clinic Newark established in 1926. There the heterogeneous population makes the problems of that city not unlike New York's. Naturally, less than one-third of the 3000 problem children in the Newark public schools can receive the personal attention of the psychiatrist sad director, Dr. Bruco B. Bobinson. 'This means' that the responsibility for straightening out the difficulties of most of the children rests entirely with the visiting teachers, or psychiatric social workers. Fourteen of these teachers are assigned to the various schools, and to them the classroom teacher refers her problem children. As many school problems are a reflection of home conditions, the visiting teacher studies the child in his home so • that she can bring to his classroom teacher a knowledge, ordinarily unavailable'to her, of the causes of his behaviour. The visiting teacher also attempts to relieve situations in the homo that'eanse his problem, in order to prevent it from continuing to interfere ■with, his scho.ol adjustment. So that all maladjustments may be straightened out: as early in the child's career as possible, the visiting teacher spends mtteh" of her time working with children in. kindergartens and primary grades. This avoids complications later on. " While general intelligence tests are given to all the children, a problem child may be referred to one of tho four psychologists for individual cxamiaations that test his special abilities Mid disabilities. This is usually the ohild's first contact with department headquarters in the Board of Education, building. It is the aim of the director to keep the atmosphere in these offices informal in order to put the child completely at his ease. In the waiting room he finds a comfortable chair, and if he does not feel inclined to play with the buildingblocks and games lying on a low table, he can select a book or magazine from the well-filled wall shelves. When the psychologist is ready for him he enters her office and works out a set of tests that are more like games or puzstles than anything else. The results of these examinations may indicate that he should be placed in a grade better suited to his mental age or in a class Specially adapted to take care of a particular disability. PHYSICIAN'S EXAMINATION. But a child whose troubles are more serious'or more unusual may bo referred to the psychiatrist, who has already received a report on tho case from the psychologist and tho visiting teacher. If the child is over 10 his school physician has sent ahead a record of his physical examination, while children under 10 are taken into a small room for a medical examination fry the psychiatrist himself. There a $«al table covered with a Navajo blanket and a black and "white cheeked sheet takes the place of an. operating table. All instruments are stored out of «ight. in a small chest. This examination is followed by an interview in Dr. Robinson's sunny office, where, though there is a large, paper-strewn desk at one side of tho room, he and the child sit back casually ;n armchairs at a table and discuss the problem as the child sees it. At a staff meeting of the psychiatrist, the visiting tacher, the psychologist, and the principal and teacher from the school referring the child to the clinic, the case is gone over and a method of treatment is evolved. These full studies do much to define trends of behaviour and enable the visiting teacher to recognise and care for similar cases without the aid of the psychiatrist. Ontside the satisfactoy readjustment of each problem child, Dr. Bobinson believes that the most important contributon of child guidance is educative. "Our clinic," he said, "has been called by some a department of parent guidance. There is no doubt that it is giving parents, and teachers as well, a better understanding of mental hygiene. Moreover, it is a factfindißK body. Not only are the problems of truancy and delinquency solved by revealing their causes and how the situations which create them can be avoided, but such a clinic helps the city to see its educational needs. DEALING WITH TEUANCY. "In dealing with truancy we have found that 15 per cent, of our children ftsad special educational treatment. .Wiien tn«£ pla£ truant, they, »re show-

ing us that something is wrong. Often on investigation we find that the chile"! has failed repeatedly in the first two or three grades. His classmates tnaso him about it, his teacher regards him as hopeless, /.id his family usually wastes no opportunity to impress him with his stupidity. Naturally lie does not like school when it is the cause of all these humiliating experiences.

"But when ho is brought to tho clinic, tests show that at the back of his failure is some special disability, most often reading. As a matter of fact, trouble with reading should never be the- basis o£ failure in the first three years of school. Fov when a child is placed in a school whero tho material is presented in some other way than by tho traditional reading method, he not only can progress as fast as most of the' children in his old school, but he actually likes school and his self-confi-dence is restored. It is too bad that our children have to show us by truancy that they are misfit, but it is our own fault. Psychological and other tests in the first grade can usually reveal to us which children will be inadequate, and we can avoid a great deal of educational waste by putting them where they belong at that time. "Of course, I do not mean to imply that all'our problems are like this. Wo have many cases of personality difficulties and I think our clinic is helping our teachers to realise more and more that the real aim of education is the development of personality. "This is where the visiting teacher helps by going into the child's home and finding out why he behaves as he does, which his classroom teacher has not time to do; and by recognising these symptoms and knowing how to treat them, for which the classroom teacher has not the training. And I think that we ought to train our classroom teachers to understand these problems and their treatment. The clinic is doing much to educate them, but training should begin in the normal schools.'' •