MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1916, Page 2

MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

TREATMENT OF CHILDREN, (from Our Own Correspondent) Wellington, April 23. Reports that are reaching the Education Department suggest an urgent need for additional facilities for the treatment ot mentally defective children in New Zealand. The importance of this matter lias been recognised for some time, and the Department is increasing the accommodation at the Otckaike School, where defective boys are received, and is arranging for the establishment of a special school for defective girls at Richmond, Nelson-. Hut there is. reason to believe that even when these works have been completed the primary schools will contain children to whom full justice is not being done by the present education system. The children indicated are not defective in the sense of being inpapable of learning, and they are not in need of reformatory treatment. They are merely slow-witted or dull of intellect, and they require instruction of a specialised character, such as cannot be provided in the ordinary schools, or in classes, where the great majority of the pupils are nprmal. Just what is to he done with these children is something of a. problem. The,, first step towards a solution may be the establishment of special classes in the centres, where children could bo transferred on the recorneuin<htio» of teachers and inspectors.