An Education Center for Mental Handicapped Children
Correspondence
Dear Sir,?The editorial in the spring issue of this Journal stressed the need for provision of more lr*stitutions for defectives.
Without in the least minimizing this need, I want to point out that the strain on institutions could be greatly relieved if more and better day centres could be provided for children classed as ” ineducable A number of occupation centres have been set UP during the last few years. But occupation centres suffer from several grave defects, which render their educational value for the handicapped child almost illusory.
The first is overcrowding ; the second, lack of really suitable accommodation ; thirdly, the shortage of trained staff, and lastly, and in my ?pinion the most severe, is the impossibility of grouping the children, after proper examination ai*d diagnosis, according to their prominent disability.
My extensive experience with these children has convinced me that successful special education can only be built on a proper diagnosis of the child’s deficiency. After years of observation and study I ^ to-day able to distinguish clearly a few types ?f defects, which I describe as visuo-motor and auditory-autonomic. There are also mixed types of two or more defects, but in mixed types, one or the ?ther defect is usually predominant and determines the method which has to be employed in educating the child.
Different types of defect demand a different educational approach and a different method. The training of mentally handicapped children would y^ld far more satisfactory results if this fact, which ls more or less dimly recognized by all special teachers, were properly understood and acted uPon.
The national Association of Parents of Backward Children, which started a few years ago with the Purpose of organizing all parents of retarded children, and which is affiliated to the Nationa Association for Mental Health, has set, amongst its other aims, that of starting an ” experimental school ” for young mentally handicapped children where they will be grouped according to their special disability.
In this ” school ” we hope to prove that educacational success with children depends on the choice of the right method for each type, and that their mental development, once the appropriate method has been devised and elaborated, proceeds just as easily as the mental development of blind and deaf children, for whom, as everybody knows, different educational methods are used, whereas to educate them both by the same method would certainly be doomed to failure and would clearly appear foolish to everybody.
Acting on this conviction, a co-operative venture has been started by some parents, belonging to the A.P.B.C.; they have opened, in London, an educational centre for young children who are unable to speak, in the Methodist Church Hall at Kensal Rise. The parents share the expenses of accommodation, teaching and equipment. Now they look forward to being able to start on the same basis one or two more classes for children with other disabilities. It is only a very small beginning and it puts a very heavy financial burden on the parents. But they hope, if the venture proves a success, that the Health Authorities can be persuaded to take an interest in the new ” school “.
English tradition shows that all social and educational progress has been initiated by voluntary effort, and later taken up by the state. In continuing this tradition we hope to introduce a new era in the education of mentally handicapped children.
Yours etc., Lise Gellner. 128 Harley Street, London, W.l.
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