The Mentally Handicapped Adolescent. The Slough Project of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children: an Experimental Step Towards Life in the Community

182 Pages·1971·20.22 MB·English

by  Eileen P. Baranyay and H. L. Freeman (Auth.)

Frontispiece. National Hostels and Training Centre, Slough.
The
Mentally Handicapped
Adolescent
The Slough Project of the National Society
for Mentally Handicapped Children
An Experimental Step Towards Life in the Community
EILEEN P. BARANYAY, B.A., Ph.D.
With a Foreword by
PROFESSOR GUNNAR DYBWAD
AND DR. ROSEMARY DYBWAD
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright © 1971 The National Society for Mentally
Handicapped Children
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First Edition 1971
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Foreword
IN THE vastly expanding literature on mental retardation there are
still far too few reports on innovative service projects in sufficient
detail to be useful to programme planners. This history and analy-
sis of the Slough experiment is an exception.
During the period from 1964 to 1968 we were privileged to visit
some thirty-five countries in different parts of the world, providing
consultation on services for the mentally retarded. Without any
doubt the visual aid which we used more frequently than any other
teaching tool was a series of slides from the National Hostels and
Training Workshop in Slough which we carried along on all our
travels. Obviously the uses to which we put this material and the
lessons we drew from it differed widely depending not only on the
country but on the particular institution or service we were visiting.
The great value of the slides and the interpretations to which they
could be put was that they dealt with basic issues in mental
retardation, basic life problems of the mentally retarded, and basic
answers to these problems. Thus they could be used successfully in
a wide range of situations.
It seems to us that Dr. Eileen Baranyay's book has the same
merit of broad usefulness. In this detailed account of the Slough
Project she has furnished us with a careful documentation of its
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viii / Foreword
inception, its growth, and the problems encountered along the way.
Particularly significant and instructive are Dr. Baranyay's com-
ments regarding the problems in administration, problems which
may well be inevitable when a membership organization such as the
National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children undertakes a
demonstration project of this complexity. Indeed, it is astonishing
that the Society managed to keep the project on an even keel for
so long a period.
Too often the attempt is made to cull data from an undertaking
that has not been in existence long enough to permit evaluation.
This is not so in the case of Slough, although one must regret, with
Dr. Baranyay, that funds had not been available to set up, from the
beginning, a rigorous on-going evaluation scheme including, in
particular, follow-up of those who "graduated" from the training
programme. Still Slough did not so much seek to explore new fron-
tiers as to substantiate the pioneer research of Tizard, the Clarkes,
O'Connor and, in particular, Gunzburg, whose guiding hand
during the initial stages of the project contributed decisively to its
level of achievement.
One point which springs most clearly from Dr. Baranyay's
account is the overriding importance of social training in any
rehabilitation scheme for young people with severe intellectual
defects. (This in no way contradicts our long-standing feeling
that the great majority of such persons would have benefited from
more adequate medical attention in early childhood to their
secondary physical handicaps.)
Dr. Baranyay quite correctly notes that at Slough the least
progress was made by the most severely retarded. This, however,
should not support their exclusion from future projects but,
rather, should point to the need to develop for them a somewhat
different type of group living and social and vocational training.
Our own repeated observations of the programme over a period of
4 years definitely support the presence at Slough—on an ex-
perimental basis—of some profoundly retarded individuals. While
they were not able to participate, and thus to benefit sufficiently
from the programme, they, none the less, proved as prejudicial the
view held by so many that this most limited group among the
mentally retarded would have to be cared for in the traditional
institutional setting.
Foreword / ix
Perhaps that is what was most appealing about Slough. Even
though it may not have reached all it set out to achieve, it clearly
pointed out that there was a rich future way beyond its own
circumscribed immediate objectives.
Professional workers in mental retardation around the world are
indebted to Dr. Eileen Baranyay for this documentation, and to the
National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children for its
initiative in carrying out this significant demonstration.
GUNNAR AND ROSEMARY DYBWAD
Preface
THE following pages contain a review of the aims and achieve-
ments of the Slough Project of the National Society for Mentally
Handicapped Children. It is not a strictly scientific treatise but
endeavours to investigate the workings of the scheme and to
convey something of the atmosphere of Slough by including
details of trainees at work and leisure. The indefinable quality
that marked Slough in action and that was remarked upon by
many who visited it, also led the writer to undertake this account.
Apologies for any shortcomings must be made to those who
were directly involved in the Project. It is hoped that in spite of
inadequacies this analysis may increase that concern for the care
of the mentally handicapped in the community which was exem-
plified by the National Society at Slough.
Thanks are due to many for their interest and co-operation.
The National Society has given support throughout not only in
making available the necessary material and supplying excellent
photographs, but also, through the General Secretary of the Society
(Mr. George Lee) and his staff, giving generously of time for dis-
cussion. Mr. James Cummings and the staff at Slough have shown
endless patience in dealing with questions and in general discussion
over a long period. The regional officers of the Society have given
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xii / Preface
valuable assistance with the follow-up of trainees. The National
Association of Mental Health afforded encouragement throughout
especially at the final stage. Thanks should also be given to that
cross-section of visitors who spared time to revive their memories
of Slough and provided useful comment. Many parents generously
assisted the survey by affording first-hand information, while the
trainees themselves were at all times co-operative and friendly.
(Throughout the study fictitious names have been used in all
situations concerning the trainees in residence.)
The time given to useful discussion by many with experience
in the field of mental retardation has been greatly appreciated. It
has not been possible to enumerate these, but particular mention
should be made of the support so readily given by Dr. M. A.
Charrett, Area Medical Officer of Health for South Buckingham-
shire and Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Slough,
and of the time generously afforded by Dr. Kenneth Rouse, Head
of the Department of Psychology, Goldsmith's College, University
of London, in providing constructive criticisms. Finally, the
facilities afforded by Dr. H. C. Gunzburg, Consultant Psycholo-
gist, Monyhull Hospital, in the shape of his research findings and
relevant publications, were greatly appreciated.
London EILEEN BARANYAY
I
Slough in Prospect
AN INEVITABLE consequence of a strong personality, we are told,
is the support of ardent admirers and the hostility of strong oppo-
nents. In this light, the National Society's Project at Slough
must have had singularly strong characteristics. The Project was
concerned with community care of mentally retarded adolescents
with IQs between 30 and 50 as measured by the Terman Merrill
Revision of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Critics of the
Project include those who see it as near perfection and those who
regard it as of questionable value. For a balanced judgement,
therefore, a right sense of perspective must be sought. There
is greater likelihood of obtaining this if Slough is looked upon
as "a child of its time,\ Viewed from that angle, the aims of
the planners can be more fully appreciated and also the extent
to which these aims have been realized.
To understand the particular concern of the National Society
for Mentally Handicapped Children for community care of the
mentally handicapped adolescent at this particular point in time,
it is necessary to review the contemporary scene. A variety of
forces combined to promote the desirable social climate for the
emergence of the Slough Project.
Philosophical, psychological, and sociological developments
1
2 / The Mentally Handicapped Adolescent
have jointly effected a change of attitude towards the problem
of mental handicap. Few will query the statement that each
generation must define afresh the nature, direction, and aims of
education: as a philosophy underlying work with the mentally
handicapped, these words have deep significance. Changes in
circumstance and knowledge have afforded opportunities for
research and experiment in the sphere of mental handicap.
Many of the important discoveries concern the mental growth
of the individual and are usefully referred to by Bruner(1) as
"Profound reorientations in developmental theory in the last
generation—changes that have been hastened by studies of normal
and pathological growth, by analyses of effects of different types
of early environments, by studies of the development of language
and its impact on thought.'' Bruner further indicates that not only
have we somewhat clearer understanding of the process of learning
but that, most obviously, the rate of the society in which we live
forces us to redefine how we shall educate a new generation.
For the mentally handicapped this reorientation of thought has
opened up possibilities of development of potential and fulfilment
of personality to a degree previously inconceivable. Pioneers of
research in the area of mental subnormality such as Earl, O'Con-
nor, A. M. Clarke, A. D. Clarke, Hermelin, Hilliard, Kirman,
Gunzburg, Tizard—amongst others—have laid the foundation
of a progressive outlook in contrast to the finality of earlier unen-
lightenment. Acceptance of the theory of the interrelatedness of all
aspects of personality—physical, intellectual, emotional, and social
—has given weight to the teaching of Earl(2) that we need to
regard the severely subnormal as a person, not merely as repre-
senting a cognitive deficiency.
A wider interpretation of the term "education" and greater
understanding of the forces that influence the learning process
have come about as the result of recent research into the crippling
effects of emotional and social deprivation. A corollary to this
has been the evidence of the compensatory benefits that can be
obtained by "replacement therapies" as, for example, by an
enriched environment. Dr. Kellmer Pringle(3) makes reference to
this as follows: "That rehabilitation and recovery can take place
during late adolescence and adulthood has been convincingly
demonstrated in recent years, notably by the work of Clarke and