Giving assessment reports to parents.

Reactions of 25 parents to receiving copies of written reports concerning developmental assessment of their children were assessed. All parents wanted to have a written report.

A developmental approach to physical disability in childhood.

The reasons for advocating a developmental approach to physical disability in childhood are stated. Relevant characteristics of the developmental periods--antenatal, neonatal, early infancy, late infancy, preschool and school age--are described. Diagnosis, treatment and prognosis are then discussed in this developmental context.

A study of school children who had identified virus infections of the central nervous system during infancy.

Forty-nine children who had a virus infection of the central nervous system (CNS) when under 1 year of age were studied. One child had died during the initial illness and three of the survivors were severely disabled. The other survivors, more than 5 years after the initial illness, were all attending normal schools. These 45 children, together with 45 matched controls, were examined. We confirm the findings of other studies that virus infections of the CNS in infancy may cause severe disabilities in some cases, and may depress intellectual abilities in others, even though they appear to have recovered fully. Many of the children who had a virus infection of the CNS in infancy had adverse birth and social histories and so were exceptionally vulnerable, but these factors did not account fully for the findings, and when their influence was included in the analysis, the index children still had a mean performance IQ (WISC) 6 points lower than the control children (P less than 0.05), whereas there was less than 1 point difference between the verbal IQs. Attention is drawn to the problem of virus infections in neonatal units.

Children in wheelchairs.

Three hundred and seventy-five families replied to a questionnaire about the use of their disabled children's wheelchairs. Many problems were found, such as difficulty in folding the chair and placing it in the car boot and difficulty in using pulbic transport. These families need adequate guidance to anticipate and deal with the problems. Provision of a wheelchair does not solve the mobility problems. The parents are faced with the task of transporting both the disabled child and the wheelchair whenever they want to use their own car or public transport. Ease of folding and lightness are important criteria for wheelchairs carried by cars. Parents need careful guidance about selecting suitable cars and also need to be shown how to lift the chairs without endangering their backs. Such advice should be provided by every wheelchair clinic and assessment and rehabilitation certre.

Delivery of wheelchairs to disabled children.

In a follow-up study from a children's wheelchair clinic the delivery times for 120 wheelchairs ordered during 1973--7 were analysed. Delivery delays were considerable: only 22 of the 120 chairs were delivered within one month and 69 within three months, while 21 took over six months to arrive. Factors such as the type of chair ordered, the need for modifications, and the centre handling the transaction did not influence delivery time. Administrative delays may be an important contributory factor.

Problems in diagnosis and management of children with cerebral palsy and deafness.

Problems in the diagnosis, management and educational placement of 10 children with cerebral palsy and deafness are reported. Serious inadequacies revealed by the study include delays in diagnosis, poor co-ordination of decision-making between services and frequent changes of school--all leading to unsatisfactory progress by these children.