Mary D. Sheridan

Speech Defects in Children Aged 7 Years: A National Study

A series of screening procedures applied on a national scale by doctors, teachers, and health visitors showed that between 10% and 13% of British 7-year-old children born in one week in 1958 were reported as having an appreciable degree of speech impairment. Between 1% and 2% had a marked speech defect though hearing normally. This latter group of speech-defective children were more often male and of poor family background, and more were born towards the end of a long family. They were often at a disadvantage educationally and had more clumsiness and defects of vision and visuomotor co-ordination than the rest of the sample. The methods used for screening provided a reliable guide in the selection of children who require further investigation.

Vision Screening of Very Young or Handicapped Children

We can at present offer no more than palliative treatment to many of our psychiatric patients. However, we can sometimes help if we explain our limitations to the patient and encourage him to accept his symptoms and to carry on his life despite them. Those who can do so often find that their lives are transformed. Later their symptoms may disappear, possibly because of a remission of their illness, which would have occurred in any case. There is, however, a hard core composed of psychiatric patients who in the present state of knowledge are virtually untreatable, but who do not need to be confined within a hospital. They are a constant worry to their G.P.s. Many of them have personality characteristics which make them tiresome and unrewarding patients. Even if the G.P. fails to give such patients insight into the nature of their illness he should try to see it in perspective himself. He should no more feel personally responsible for medicines present inability to relieve these patients than he does for medicines present inability to relieve many organic disorders. The doctor must learn to tolerate his patients having symptoms which he cannot cure. Symptom tolerance can be a rewarding exercise for both patient and doctor.

The STYCAR Graded-balls Vision Test

The origin and clinical application of the STYCAR graded‐balls vision test are briefly described, together with clinical findings from tests applied to over 400 normal babies and children under the age of 2 1/2 years, and 850 handicapped children under 12 years of age. By relating ball sizes to Snellen letter equivalents, it has been possible to show that the normal visual acuity of 12‐month‐old infants is at least 3/9 3/9 (i.e. equivalent to 6/18 6/18), and is probably superior to this.

Simple Clinical Hearing-tests for Very Young or Mentally Retarded Children

We should like to express our thanks to the Medical Research Council, who supported this work; also to the Director and his staff at the Road Research Laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, who provided us with accommodation, subjects, and much of the apparatus, and who were unfailing in their help and advice. We are indebted to Mr. E. B. Parkes, the Director of the S.W. Forensic Science Laboratory, and to Mr. K. Jones, of that laboratory, for their help in the analysis of body fluids carried out by Mrs. A. Myers.

School Attainment of Seven‐year‐old Children with Hearing Difficulties

Children at 7 years of agz with impaired hearing were selected from 11,276 children in the National Child Development Study (1958 Cohort) for whom full pure‐tone audio‐grams were available. In addition, 11 severely deaf children were selected on clinical grounds from the remaining 4,220 without audiograms.

Children of Seven Years with Marked Speech Defects

SummaryAn enquiry into the prevalence and associations of disorders of speech and language in a large national sample of 7-year-old children taking part in the NCDS led to the definition of a group of 215 children (144 boys and 71 girls) with normal hearing but marked speech defects. These children were studied in depth in relation to social factors, perinatal experience, developmental history and school progress. The rest of the national sample was used as controls. The group as a whole came from lower-income homes and the children were later members of large families. They had been later in walking and talking, were more clumsy, had more visual defects and demonstrated more emotional disturbance than the controls. Their performance in reading, number work, copying-design and draw-a-man tests was below average. Provisional figures for the follow-up at 11 years showed that more than half of the children were attending special schools or receiving remedial teaching. Some suggestions for improved methods of...

The Intelligence of 100 Neglectful Mothers

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What Is Normal Distance Vision at Five to Seven Years

Of 100 school children aged five to seven years tested with the stycar material at 20ft (6 metres) at eye level in good light, the normal distance visual acuity of the great majority (83) was found to be 6/4.5 in each eye. It is therefore suggested that visual acuity of 6/9, even when occurring in only one eye, should be regarded as sub‐optimal distance vision requiring careful follow‐up or, in some cases, immediate referral to a consultant ophthalmologist.

The Stycar Language Test

The principles and practical application of the STYCAR Developmental Language Test are briefly described. The test, which is one of the STYCAR series (Sheridan Tests for Young Children and Retardates, Sheridan 1973), consists of three widely overlapping testing procedures i.e. the Common Objects Test (one to two years), the Miniature Toys Test (21 months to 4 1/2 years) and the Picture‐book Test (2 1/2 to seven years). The picture‐book includes lists of speech sounds, words and sentences for recognition and repetition, to detect and define difficulties of auditory discrimination, articulation and sequencing of sounds. The tests are designed to provide the examiner with considerable choice in individual application, but differential diagnosis calls for experienced clinical judgement. Since the tests are not intended to produce pass/fail results, descriptive recording and clinical assessment on a three‐ or five‐point scale is recommended.

The Solo-dot Test

Empirical standardisation of ball sizes in terms of Snellen letter equivalents is provided by means of a solo‐dot test applied at 20 ft. (6.1 m.) to 75 children with normal visual acuity (6/6 6/6) aged between five and seven years.