BACKWARD CHILDREN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22223, 25 September 1935, Page 17

BACKWARD CHILDREN

Sir,—Your correspondent Isabel M. Cluett stresses the need for the establishment of a home for backward children where, under expert medical care and sympathetic treatment, mentally crippled children may receive preventative or curative treatment in the early stages of their trouble. The recently-formed Institute for the Care of Backward Children is making good progress, receiving children daily and definitely finding improvement in practically all cases. There are over 20 on the roll, but only those resident in the city can benefit. We have received letters of inquiry from the Far North, from the Waikato and Rotorua districts, showing the need for a more comprehensive scheme. The institute realises the necessity, and also the great possibilities of helping all children, but this cannot be done effectively until, as Mrs. Cluett suggests, a suitable home is provided. Florence M. Waddinoham, Honorary Secretary. Sir,—Mental and medical scientists the world over are emphatic in their statement that about 50 per cent of all cases of nervous and mental disorder might be prevented by the simple and timely application in childhood and adolescence of knowledge already available. Children suffering from incipient goitre come under the true classification of backward subjects. Dr. Herbert Rubin, United States, states that sub-thyroid and sub-adrenal individuals exhibit in their physical developments, as well as in their mental status, all the earmarks of backwardness and instability. Government publications have made it plain that goitre is rapidlv increasing among the children of New Zealand. According to Bulletin No. 45, 1934, published by the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the total incidence of goitre in the five years 1928 to 1933 in boys of five years roso from 15 to 47 per cent; in girls of five years, from 9 to 38 per cent; in boys of 12 years, from 28 to 58 per cent; in girls of 12 years, from 34 to 65 per cent; and in the last-named year (1933), the proportion of girls of 15 years found to be suffering from goitre was 77 per cent of those examined. Mother Machree.