MENTAL HEALTH
Residential Schools for
Epileptic Children in England
By J. TYLOR FOX, M.D.(Camb.), D.P.M. Late Medical
This article
Superintendent, Lingfie Id Epileptic Colony "
"
was included in a symposium on Epilepsy in Childhood which appeared in The Nervous Child {Child Care Publications, Baltimore, U.S.A.) for January, 1947. We cordially recommend that the whole symposium should be obtained and studied by everyone concerned with epileptic children. The articles are designed to show how the educational and medical needs of such children are being met in the States, and an attempt is made to assess the psychological factors in the causation or maintenance offits and the personality changes resulting from them or from the social frustration involved. Further, the symposium seeks to define the scope and methods of psychological treatment and draws attention to an educational and medical problem too often neglected in current medical textbooks. It should be noted that Residential Schools for Epileptics are almost unknown in the United States, and the article which follows was written largely for propaganda purposes.
J.T.F.
At the
|
for Epileptics in Surrey, nursing staff, where all cases of serious illness, have 255 children between the ages of including serial fits, are cared for. There are two t five and sixteen attending our Residential Special resident Medical Officers, and visiting specialist5' I School. They are sent here by Local Education for eye, ear, nose, throat and dental troubles. j Authorities from all parts of England, who pay a As I am now leaving Lingfield after being Medic*}' | medical weekly fee to cover education, maintenance, Superintendent for over 28 years, during which " treatment and time over 2,000 children have passed through the educable" clothing. Only children are admitted, or retained, an intelligence Colony, it occurred to me that a few observation5 quotient of 60 being taken as the lower limit of about the value of Residential School treatment educability. Until April 1945 every child was for epileptic children might be of interest. certified by a School Medical Officer to be suffering from epilepsy so frequent or so severe as to render Some Advantages of Residential School Treatroe"1 him unfit for attendance at a public elementary This subject can first be looked at from the poh1' school; but under the new Education Act the certificate only states that he requires, on account of view of others with whom the child lives, whether of epilepsy, treatment at a Special Residential If he has many or sevefe at home or school. School. As residential accommodation of this attacks, if he cannot get on with his parents ?* brothers and sisters, if he must never go out oi type is limited, we tend to receive a rather high proportion of children whose epilepsy is severe or doors unescorted, if there is no one at home to who present serious behaviour difficulties. On the give him the supervision, guidance and companioj1' other hand we have always received a fair number ship that he needs, it is obvious that his trans#' / of children who are subject only to pyknoleptic to a Residential School is called for in the interest attacks, and others who have fits only at night, of the rest of the household. In many small home I so that unfitness to attend a day school has been the presence of an epileptic child is an rather generously interpreted. There are four intolerable burden, which ought to be lifteC\ homes housing 155 boys, and three homes for 100 Similarly in the classroom, it is questionable girls, classification in the homes being by age. far it is fair to his schoolfellows to submit The school is under the charge of a head master to the distraction and the disturbance of th? ' with ten whole-time assistant teachers, three of rather unpleasant phenomenon, a major epileptic h' do$ whom (domestic science, woodwork and gardening) Given the right type of teacher, much may be In the junior section of the are specialist teachers. to lessen the ill effects and even to develop a ( school, boys and girls work together. Grading spirit of comradeship arising out of sympathy al1 c 0 of the scholars presents a difficult problem to which understanding, but this is asking rather much there is no ideal solution. Age, intelligence, teachers who are in my experience not unsympathe'1 towards epileptics, but would prefer to show the, temperament and attainment have all to be considered, and the best possible compromise adopted. sympathy in some other place than a crowd? \ In addition to the school children, there are 200 classroom. One does not want to multiply ins tit i patients in the Colony over the age of sixteen. tions, and if universal intelligence and These share with the children the use of a large could be assured, there would be much to be s hall fitted up for cinemas, entertainments, religious in favour of the retention of almost all handicapP services, dances etc., and a hospital, with trained children in their homes and at normal scho?
England,
Lingfield Colony
we
,
alm^j
theflj
fu'^
understand!^
|
MENTAL HEALTH but in
an
imperfect
home ^netherof inothers is
^ing
?f an
or
world it
seems
often prejudiced in their midst.
epileptic
clear
that,
school, the happiness and well
by
the presence
The paramount advantage
admission pogical one.
ot
to an epileptic child to a Residential School is a psychoHe at once becomes a normal member
the community in which he lives. In the outside w?rld he has always been regarded as someone sPecial: often, it is true, as someone meriting
sPecial sympathy,
but
just
as
often
someone
to be
father afraid of, and fear may have degenerated nto dislike. The common belief that epilepsy is ,nextricably tied UP with mental abnormality may led to a quite unwarranted assumption that is in some ways not quite "all there",
Jjave
nwittingly,
and
no
doubt
uuds up in the mind of that ^Pression at becomes
he is not
certainty if he is excluded from
a
,
unwillingly, society epileptic child the wanted, an impression an
tendance at school. The penalties of exclusion ay indeed be modified by home instruction, but ?nie instruction is at best a poor thing from the
of view of education in the narrower sense, good at all from the point of view of in the broader sense. In the Residential ??1 all this is changed. In the classroom or e playground any sense of inferiority disappears ,?nce. If there are certain restrictions on his e.g. swimming, climbing ladders or trees e' ^ey aPPty equally to all among whom he r lives. He neither receives nor deserves more or less welcome than any of his fellows. .^e makes a fresh start in life as a normal boy. If is difficult to overestimate the importance of of outlook on the mind of a growing of temperament leading to Abnormalities Co ri difficulties and definite episodic outbursts irit rnen^ disorder of varying grades form an part t"ie ePfeptic picture in many cases, uon t0the other hand many epileptic children are ac^ust themselves happily to their environmem ing mere'y because of the frustration and sense of the n0rity l^at that environment has thrust upon which disappear like snow in sunshine in d s^ential School. Certain it is that many child w^ose conduct in the past has caused a great*1deal of trouble settle down quickly as rea an
Residential Schools for
Epileptic Children in England
By J. TYLOR FOX, M.D.(Camb.), D.P.M. Late Medical
This article
Superintendent, Lingfie Id Epileptic Colony "
"
was included in a symposium on Epilepsy in Childhood which appeared in The Nervous Child {Child Care Publications, Baltimore, U.S.A.) for January, 1947. We cordially recommend that the whole symposium should be obtained and studied by everyone concerned with epileptic children. The articles are designed to show how the educational and medical needs of such children are being met in the States, and an attempt is made to assess the psychological factors in the causation or maintenance offits and the personality changes resulting from them or from the social frustration involved. Further, the symposium seeks to define the scope and methods of psychological treatment and draws attention to an educational and medical problem too often neglected in current medical textbooks. It should be noted that Residential Schools for Epileptics are almost unknown in the United States, and the article which follows was written largely for propaganda purposes.
J.T.F.
At the
|
for Epileptics in Surrey, nursing staff, where all cases of serious illness, have 255 children between the ages of including serial fits, are cared for. There are two t five and sixteen attending our Residential Special resident Medical Officers, and visiting specialist5' I School. They are sent here by Local Education for eye, ear, nose, throat and dental troubles. j Authorities from all parts of England, who pay a As I am now leaving Lingfield after being Medic*}' | medical weekly fee to cover education, maintenance, Superintendent for over 28 years, during which " treatment and time over 2,000 children have passed through the educable" clothing. Only children are admitted, or retained, an intelligence Colony, it occurred to me that a few observation5 quotient of 60 being taken as the lower limit of about the value of Residential School treatment educability. Until April 1945 every child was for epileptic children might be of interest. certified by a School Medical Officer to be suffering from epilepsy so frequent or so severe as to render Some Advantages of Residential School Treatroe"1 him unfit for attendance at a public elementary This subject can first be looked at from the poh1' school; but under the new Education Act the certificate only states that he requires, on account of view of others with whom the child lives, whether of epilepsy, treatment at a Special Residential If he has many or sevefe at home or school. School. As residential accommodation of this attacks, if he cannot get on with his parents ?* brothers and sisters, if he must never go out oi type is limited, we tend to receive a rather high proportion of children whose epilepsy is severe or doors unescorted, if there is no one at home to who present serious behaviour difficulties. On the give him the supervision, guidance and companioj1' other hand we have always received a fair number ship that he needs, it is obvious that his trans#' / of children who are subject only to pyknoleptic to a Residential School is called for in the interest attacks, and others who have fits only at night, of the rest of the household. In many small home I so that unfitness to attend a day school has been the presence of an epileptic child is an rather generously interpreted. There are four intolerable burden, which ought to be lifteC\ homes housing 155 boys, and three homes for 100 Similarly in the classroom, it is questionable girls, classification in the homes being by age. far it is fair to his schoolfellows to submit The school is under the charge of a head master to the distraction and the disturbance of th? ' with ten whole-time assistant teachers, three of rather unpleasant phenomenon, a major epileptic h' do$ whom (domestic science, woodwork and gardening) Given the right type of teacher, much may be In the junior section of the are specialist teachers. to lessen the ill effects and even to develop a ( school, boys and girls work together. Grading spirit of comradeship arising out of sympathy al1 c 0 of the scholars presents a difficult problem to which understanding, but this is asking rather much there is no ideal solution. Age, intelligence, teachers who are in my experience not unsympathe'1 towards epileptics, but would prefer to show the, temperament and attainment have all to be considered, and the best possible compromise adopted. sympathy in some other place than a crowd? \ In addition to the school children, there are 200 classroom. One does not want to multiply ins tit i patients in the Colony over the age of sixteen. tions, and if universal intelligence and These share with the children the use of a large could be assured, there would be much to be s hall fitted up for cinemas, entertainments, religious in favour of the retention of almost all handicapP services, dances etc., and a hospital, with trained children in their homes and at normal scho?
England,
Lingfield Colony
we
,
alm^j
theflj
fu'^
understand!^
|
MENTAL HEALTH but in
an
imperfect
home ^netherof inothers is
^ing
?f an
or
world it
seems
often prejudiced in their midst.
epileptic
clear
that,
school, the happiness and well
by
the presence
The paramount advantage
admission pogical one.
ot
to an epileptic child to a Residential School is a psychoHe at once becomes a normal member
the community in which he lives. In the outside w?rld he has always been regarded as someone sPecial: often, it is true, as someone meriting
sPecial sympathy,
but
just
as
often
someone
to be
father afraid of, and fear may have degenerated nto dislike. The common belief that epilepsy is ,nextricably tied UP with mental abnormality may led to a quite unwarranted assumption that is in some ways not quite "all there",
Jjave
nwittingly,
and
no
doubt
uuds up in the mind of that ^Pression at becomes
he is not
certainty if he is excluded from
a
,
unwillingly, society epileptic child the wanted, an impression an
tendance at school. The penalties of exclusion ay indeed be modified by home instruction, but ?nie instruction is at best a poor thing from the
of view of education in the narrower sense, good at all from the point of view of in the broader sense. In the Residential ??1 all this is changed. In the classroom or e playground any sense of inferiority disappears ,?nce. If there are certain restrictions on his e.g. swimming, climbing ladders or trees e' ^ey aPPty equally to all among whom he r lives. He neither receives nor deserves more or less welcome than any of his fellows. .^e makes a fresh start in life as a normal boy. If is difficult to overestimate the importance of of outlook on the mind of a growing of temperament leading to Abnormalities Co ri difficulties and definite episodic outbursts irit rnen^ disorder of varying grades form an part t"ie ePfeptic picture in many cases, uon t0the other hand many epileptic children are ac^ust themselves happily to their environmem ing mere'y because of the frustration and sense of the n0rity l^at that environment has thrust upon which disappear like snow in sunshine in d s^ential School. Certain it is that many child w^ose conduct in the past has caused a great*1deal of trouble settle down quickly as rea an
