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THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1977
F.6
worn) SECTION
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onm.;nicatio,,would
The Huron�County Board of Educattogj a child's response to they test w help
TF
and the Huron County Health Unit coulctjh , why it is only used as a rou etch is
probably save each other a lot of work if' i.. device. g getting
both got together on a subject in which;
both are involved, childhood learning THE TESTING`BY NURSES
disabilities. Both arms of the count , ,
public service deal in the area of lear
ning disability, education to a rrtuck Children are asked to catch a ball or
larger extent than health, but if both`cherking g:; chon oge soot whirh are metooha e
worked in a co-operative manner the
checking motor skills. To have
'their fine motor skills checked they draw
children both are trying to help ma
benefit sooner than they do now.. a line inside two other lines or draw a
t'•? circle beside one already drawn.
The co-operation would almos
assuredly save time -which, in turn, Their language questionst are tested by
merely answering
would help the board of education than and rather
special services branch, the branch that than being concerned with the right
devotes itself to overcomin learning--. answers, the nurses want a response
g that forces the child to speak.
disabilities in children. The problem is;;
not one that is a majpr stumbling block, Word association as is checked The part cof
hild
it is merely one (of a lack of corn- language skill assessment. child
munication. Individual workers in both may be asked qut he or toh which the
i
health and education are in favor of answers will show f he or she knows the
working together but collectively the two difference between tall and short or fat,,
and thin.
bodies don't make much of an effort to
work as,one. The health unit does not delve into
Learning disabilities are things that ;:,possible reasons for the child's lack of
are discovered in children as a result of provide
ins programic areas nor does it
special testing, and are part of a science Proide a that will overcome
that is about 15 years old. The Huron ' the difficulty.JIt merely points it out.
board of education implemented the the health. Jasper said that in some of the
student services program in 1971 and nurses give the parents of the
since that time the number of students
the workers in the branch help has
grown tremendously. �,
This year, for ,instance,_ the nine
workers in student services have over
600 students referred to them. Last year
about 450 students were referred.
child a gentle suggestion to spend some
time with their children during the five
months prior to the child entering kin-
dergarten. She said the nurses en-
courage the parent to play with the child,
read to him, draw pictures with him or
just take him out into the world to get
Children reaching school age are first him prepared for school.
tested for learning disabilities in a pre- The severe learning disability made
obvious by the pre-school testing is
school clinic operated by the county,
health unit. Youngsters slated to enter brought to the parents' attention and a
suggestion made as to how to overcome
kindergarten in September have been
the problem. The head health nurse said
going to clinics for the past several
' =;if the problem is one of speech the health
weeks to have their sight and hearing
checked, their motor skills and"their „'unit may recommend visits to a speech
language skills assessed and their teeth . therapist.
checked. The latter is strictly a health. If it is a social problem the nurse may
suggest the child be held back a year
matter but the others are things that
could be vital to a child s abilit to before entering school. The health unit's
progress in school in later years. to in any of thases is rare,
Health nurse Joanne Jasper admits however. The nurses regard their
that the «sccreepi}Ig:.,done,;by. :,the`health .` lmary duty as diagnosing potential
nurses is very rough but points out that obibms.
potential problems will surface as a
result of the tests. She said the children
are given a Denver Test, which is a
tough tool that can give the nurses an
idea of what stage of development the
child is at.
She said the Denver is in no way an
intellectual test, just one to test the
ability of children to grasp reading,
writing and other similar subjects they
will be introduced to at school.
BOARD'S ROLE
The board of education is charged with
the task of solving the problems of the
children entering 4he county school
system. The number of disabilities found
in the past few years prompted the
establishment of the 'student services
branch which is headed up by Mrs. Ila
Kayes.
The Denver test takes about 15 Mrs. Kayes said recently she was
minutes to complete which in itself is a aware of the pre-school testing the
problem according to Jasper who says county health unit does, but was not
that some children won't even respond to aware of where the results of the tests
the nurse until she has talked to them go. She said as far as sh 'ktittty the files
that length of time. She said there are a of the children wer6 put away in the
number of circumstances that can affect county health offices and could be had
benefit from grant
K. Kellogg Foundation of
ek Michigan ,has awarded
rant to the University of
or the establishment and
of an outreach program in
velopment. Indirectly the
Huron will benefit from that
the next three to six years.
revisions of the grant the
will provide funds over a
period to assist in the
ent of an innovative rural
ntprogram.
he fourth year the university
01. ate for funding of the second
e program which will reflect
Kellogg Foundation support
sed financial commitment by
es"
posed program, which will
development at the local
level reflects expansion of
eity's base of activities in
Iopment. This expansion is an
step in helping rural people to
broad range of community
lems and activities as well as
their resources more ef-
gram is limited to com-
4der 50000 with emphasis on
der 25000. Specific programs
on local response but could
m ecology to employment
ices to housing culture to
ItY of Agriculture,Biological
Veterinary Medicine. Arts.
aces, Family and Consumer
d physical Sciences will
become involved in the
program will"focus ori two
tiegreasonably.. close to
eton has been -selected to
a =traditionai.;trtral county'
sphere- of influence of a
ti
44
metropolitan centre. The second county
will represent a rural county on the
rural -urban fringe undergoing rapid
urbanization. Non county has yet been
selected for that side of the program.
As the program matures it may be
expanded to other geographic areas.
Because the specific process -oriented
objects of the outreach program will be
selected by the participating com-
munities the university says the slated
ovjectives are very general in scope
The program will help rural people
look at their communities and assist
them in the development of themselves
and their communities proyide a
framework for integrated development
help communities obtain information
trainleadership and develop the human
resources and provide better com-
munications between local people
universities _and the public agencies
interested in rural needs.
University officials notes that in
Ontario rural action programs tend to
focus on single aspects of development
such as housing taxation recreation
agriculture or small business. They hope
the project will __help the existing
framework of agencies and govern-
ments to approach the total group of
In the period between January and
July this year the operating guidelines
for Huron set certain objectives.
—VI attempt will be made to meet some
of the needs of the intermediate, county
wide sector; In Hay or Stanley Township
the opportunity to observe, and possibly
contribute to, the secondary' planning
process is to be examined. The provision
of resources at meetings (in the form of
information on the sObject matter) and
between meetings (in; attempting ,to
meet a select number of needs identified
at the weekly meetings) has been
suggested.
The project also hopes to contribute,
where possible, to improving the ef-
fectiveness of the secondary planning
process, especially in the -areas of public
participation, serving some needs not
catered for directly in the planning
process, and delivery and quality of
information provision for rural - par-
ticipants in the second planning precess
workshops.
In any municipality in Huron, project
organizers will examine the possibility
of meeting a select number of needs
identified by local people.
They, will alae hold session with the
County Planners and others deemed
appropriate to determine the ' most
suitable public participation vehicle for
the outreach program in the rural
community which is to be the focus of the
program's activity in the coming year.
The idea of broadening the secondary
planning process in Turnberry Township
is to be considered as a strong option.
On their memorandum of un-
derstanding with Huron County the
objectives are set out as follows:
"To mount a rural development
program in Huron County by making
available the many and varied resources
of the University of Guelph to the rural
citizens of Huron County, the project to
be conducted in concert ,;with " the
citizens, and with existing public and
private. agencies."
"To achieve through the involvement
of agencies and rural citizens in Huron
County, knowleege of how the,University
can ze made more effective in helping
people.toich the quality of rural life,",;
"To provide expanded opportunities
for education in the form of information,
training, action and supportin response
to commonly felt, needs, interests and
concern in Huron County residents at ,the
general county level and at the selected
ocal 'commtnity'•leVel,"
Huron County Councillors voted to
give the project their support when they
met for their February >meeting two
weeks ago.
ti
only by special request or special cir-
cumstance.
The student services head feels that
the board of education should get the
material gathered on the children im-
mediately after the clinics are finished.
She said the people in her department
would tabulate the results of the testing
and would probably be able to spot
potential problems a child may have and
test them to see if the diagnosis is
correct. If it is the child will be put on a
program to solve the problem early in
the school years.
"It's much easier to catch the
problems early," she said. "If we don't
then we have to unlearn, then re -learn to
cure the bad habits the child will have
picked up."
She said that children diagnosed with
learning disabilities respond very
quickly if the problem is discovered
between kindergarten and Grade 3. She
said 85 percent of the children have
overcome their problem by Grade 4 if
they are put on a program early, while
older children take much longer.
Learning disabilities are not han-
dicaps that are physical or mental. They
are weaknesses a child may have that
needs to be strengthened through special
programs: Mrs. Kayes pointed out that
people are taught to learn by reading
from left to right. She explained that
some children can't follow a line from
left to right without having their eyes
wander making it almost impossible for
them to learn to read.
"They're not dumb," she said. "They
have a learning disability."
She said the science of learning
disabilities is a vast one and that
professionals in the field and teachers
given the task of implementing
programs' to help children out are
learning things every day, She added
that the number of children who have
problems, which may well be of a social
nature, is increasing annually making
the teacher's job more of a challenge
every year they take on a new class.
"It's a heck of a lot of work," she said.
The referral of a child begins when a
problem is suspected by the teacher. The
child is referred to student services for
examination. Student services gives the
student extensive tests designed to test
learning abilities and as a result of the
tests, diagnoses the problem.
A lengthy report is then prepared by
student services and reviewed with the
child's teacher. A therapeutic program
is then set up which is carried out by the i
teacher to ho efullsolve the rob
Education feature
by Jeff Seddon
and allow the child to overcome the
disability by using his or her strong
skills to complement weaknesses.
LACK OF STAFF .
One problem the people in special
services have is a lack of staff to go back
to the children to see how the program
worked. The huge number of referrals
keeps the nine people in services hop-
ping and leaves them no time to evaluate
past work. Mrs. Kayes feels that trained
teaching staff can alleviate that
situation and points out that the number
of teachers that are making use of
student services in the proper manner is
increasing each year.
"Some teachers refer the child to us
because they can't handle him or her,T
said Mrs. Kayes. "Some feel there is a
genuine need for assistance and come to
us to try to help the child."
The small problems each faction of the
county public service bodies face are
ones that they themselves have to- deal
with but the problem of sharing in-
formation each gathers for the same
purpose is one that should be worked out
together.
Mrs. Jasper claims that the health unit
offers the results of the pre-school clinic
to the kindergarten teacher in May
adding that communication is not good
then because the. teacher will not see the
class until the following September,
meaning most of the material will be
forgotten by that time. The ideal place
for the information is in the hands of
student services but they may never see
it.
•
The field workers sometimes don't
•have 'that- problrem: -On -art- indivt'thial
basis staff from student services and
staff from the health unit have splendid
working conditions. The school nurse is
quite eager to offer information student
services may make use of and vice versa
but the way things operate now the only
one suffering from the administration
breakdown is the child.
The problem may be due to a simple
"nobody thought of it" problem. Health
knows that education could use the
material and education knows that
health has it and never asks for it.
Whatever the reason• the situation
should not be allowed to continue. If one
body is working with children at any
level of school the other should be made
aware of the` results of the work if the
nformation will be helpful to it in any
way, shape or form.
p Y p lem
y°it used to be. Mark Hotchkiss demonstrates the use
of•'tttcoal oii lamp to Carol MacEwan. The students of
Victoria. Public School have beef actively studying early
Canadian history in conjunction with the ISO th birthday of -
the founding of the town of Goderich. (staff photo)
tb