The Organically Handicapped Child—How Can the Family Physician Help?

Carla Horwood; Ernst Wolff

Abstract

The better his understanding of some of the ways in which an organic deficit might affect normal development of the handicapped child, the more able the family physician will be to offer guidance to the family aimed at preventing the development of secondary problems. He can thus be instrumental in helping a child achieve his maximal potential.

First, it is important to take into account how the parents' emotional and intellectual responses to having a defective child may interfere markedly in normal parent-child relationship. Second, ways in which each deficit will limit a child's exposure to stimuli must not be over-looked. Third, one must consider how a deficit may indirectly distort the normal learning patterns when parents do not make age appropriate demands. Fourth, it is important to understand how specific interference in the area of language skills may cause further developmental retardation. Fifth, one must be aware of special problems that an organically handicapped child must face in the society outside of the family. Last of all, in an older child, one must consider the need for a full scale evaluation to sort out primary and secondary factors in the picture.