The Disabled Schoolchild by Anderson Elizabeth M

Author:Anderson Elizabeth M. [M., Anderson Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, People With Disabilities, Health & Fitness, Children's Health
ISBN: 9781317326519
Google: cVFACwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-12-22T02:51:39+00:00

These are very interesting findings although the differences between the groups fail to reach statistical significance. For the control group, the location of the school is clearly unrelated to overall social adjustment; the proportions of well-adjusted children in each kind of school are almost identical. For the PH children, however, the picture is different. In both London schools and village schools about half the children fall into the well-adjusted and half into the less well-adjusted groups. In the urban schools, however, over two-thirds of the PH children are in the well-adjusted group. Moreover, the urban schools had a much higher proportion of neurologically abnormal children (56 per cent) than either the London (29 per cent) or the village (25 per cent) schools, yet despite this a higher proportion of children were well adjusted. How can this finding be explained? It may be relevant that several of the nineteen urban schools lay in areas where the local authority had a very positive approach to the integration of PH children and was prepared to spend time and money (for example, through the provision of a special welfare assistant) to achieve this. It is also the case that although the classes were not smaller the urban schools, many of which were in new towns, often had better amenities than did either the London or village schools, and provided more satisfactory conditions for teachers. This may have meant that they had more time and energy available to help the PH children to 'fit in' socially and to meet their parents. Whatever the reason for this finding, and although the numbers involved are admittedly small, one implication is that the situation in London (or in cities whose schools face similar problems) is not necessarily a good guide to what is happening elsewhere as regards social integration and should not form the sole basis for major policy decisions on this issue.

To sum up this whole section, the findings suggest that the two factors most closely related to overall social adjustment were firstly the presence or absence of a neurological abnormality, particularly when this is cerebral palsy, and secondly intelligence level. Social class, size of family and the location of the school were also of some importance and PH girls tended to be better adjusted than PH boys. Being physically handicapped per se was not, however, an important factor.

Finally, some case history material is presented which highlights the relative importance of the factors. A list was made of the PH children with the highest and lowest social adjustment scores, on which type and severity of handicap, intelligence level and social class were all included (see appendices 1.4 and 1.5). The fourteen children with the highest overall social adjustment scores had a great variety of handicaps ranging from mild to severe, but only one child had a neurological abnormality and all but three (of the thirteen tested) had IQs above 90. These children tended to be girls and to come from social classes I—III.

When the seventeen children with

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