SYMPOSIUM, 1953 THE EDUCATION OF EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED CHILDREN 7. DISCUSSION SAUL SCHEIDLINGER, PH.D.:* I am very much interested in Mr. Hay's presentation of what I certainly consider a new and interesting approach in a gigantic school system. I have some questions.First, how about specific criteria for the selection of children who are to be a part of these guidance classes? Are these criteria primarily symptomatic and/or based on psychopathological considerations, or are they functional in terms of how these children, no matter what their pathology, function in a classroom setting?This question is particularly important to me, since, as we have heard here, some of the people in institutional settings send their children to public schools and they make reasonably good adjustments. If I am not mistaken, the children that Dr. Red1 worked with at Pioneer House, probably the most disturbed children recently described in the literature, attended public schools with reasonably good adjustments.The next question related to that is that of group balance. Are you going to select a number of children who are considered incapable or relatively incapable of getting along in the usual classrooms and then establish a classroom per se, without considering some of the group dynamic elements, specifically in terms of balance in each of these groups? If this is considered, how do you go about it?Then there is the question of the group process. How does this group process differ from educational procedures employed, for instance, in progressive mental hygiene-oriented schools in the community, private schools in the community, not particularly geared to the disturbed child? I wonder also whether the last statement made by Mr. Hay-namely, that what is learned from the disturbed child can be of help to all childrenisn't in some way crucial. I wonder when the time will come when every elementary school classroom has a piano, arts and crafts work, movable tables and chairs, a teacher who is interested in children and expanding his knowledge by taking special courses, and so on.Finally, would Mr. Hay consider such classes necessary if there were sufficient facilities in the community for the treatment of these children, both through individual and group psychotherapy?* Consultant in Group Therapy, Community Service Society, New York, N. Y.
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706SYMPOSIUM: EDUCATION OF DISTURBED CHILDREN
MR. HAY:The specific criteria were largely symptomatic, first, through maladjustment within the classroom situation.Secondly, there was a careful check from all the available resources, but not adequate enough. I have here a list of inadequacies of the project.One of them is the fact that we did not have full clinical study of every child, and that we did not have a control group matched with these children. We are aware of this, but a...
