A STUDY OF EUROPEAN SPEECH 
DEFECTIVE SCHOOL CHILDREN IN PRETORIA 

L. WEISS, B.A. Log. M.A. 

THE SCOPE OF THIS STUDY: 
63 schools with a total school population of 

33,482 children were studied. These excluded all 
special schools and all schools not administered 
by the Transvaal Education Department. Among 
these children, 1,513 were found  to have speech 
defects  severe enough to enable teachers to 
diagnose the children as having "something" 
wrong with their speech. This figure  represents 
4.5 per cent, of  the school population studied. 
FINDINGS 

1. Among the speech defective  children studied 
38 per cent, were Dyslalic, and 28 per cent, 
were Dysphemic. 

2. The ratio among the sexes was on an 
average 2.2 boys to 1 girl increasing to 3 boys 
to one girl among the Dysphemics. 

3. Some interesting differences  were found  in 
the incidence of  speech defectives  children in 
different  types of  schools. It was found  that the 
largest incidence occurred in the Afrikaans 
Medium high schools, 5.2 per cent, while the 
lowest incidence of  only 2.2 per cent, occurred 
in the English Medium high schools. The results 
though very interesting and giving us much food 
for  thought, are not completely reliable, since 
surveys were in most instances done by school 

teachers, and since there are very few  English 
Medium High schools in Pretoria. 

The discrepancy in the primary schools was 
not as great, the Afrikaans  school with 4.8 per 
cent, and the English schools again lower with 
3.7 per cent. 

Dual medium schools cannot be compared as 
only three schools were available for  study, 
although it can be stated that the incidence of 
spaech defectives  was higher than among any of 
the other types of  schools. 

4. It was also found  that youngest children in 
the family  had a significantly  higher incidence of 
speech defects,  than children in other positions. 
RESULTS OF THERAPY: 

This included only a few  schools, where children 
were treated once or twice a week, for  a period 
from  6 to 10 months. Response to therapy was 
on the whole very gratifying,  92 per cent, of 
the children showing definite  improvement, includ-
ing almost 50 per cent, who were completely 
rehabilitated in such a short time. 

May I conclude by stating my firm  belief  that 
the Speech Defective  school children must be 
helped, and that we can help him to attain his 
rightful  place in the community by helping him 
while he is still at school. 

RIDE 

& a I e t g f) 
The  Greatest  Name in Cycling 

O N TERMS 7s. 6d. WEEKLY FROM ALL RALEIGH CYCLE DEALERS 

R
ep

ro
du

ce
d 

by
 S

ab
in

et
 G

at
ew

ay
 u

nd
er

 li
ce

nc
e 

gr
an

te
d 

by
 th

e 
P

ub
lis

he
r 

(d
at

ed
 2

01
2)