Cerebral Palsy and the Role of Caseworker: Current Programs to Service Children in New York City as Shown by Eight Cases Referred to the New York Hospital for Special Surgery September, 1962 Through September, 1963
Abstract
The metropolitan services for the cerebral palsied children between the ages of birth to eighteen years and the role of caseworker were brought to the writer's attention while assigned as a student caseworker at the New York Hospital for Special Surgery and more specifically through work in the Hospital for Special Surgery Cerebral Palsy Clinic. In 1954, Alice Ching presented a dissertation stating the needs for services for the cerebral palsy patient and of the resources available in New York City. Today, nearly a decade later, metropolitan services have been added to and improved. These services help the estimated 500,000 to 600,000 patients affected by this condition in the United States. It was in the mid 1800's that Dr. John Little described the condition which we now call cerebral palsy. Little's Disease, as the condition was called, inaccurately described the children affected as being spastic and feeble minded. As recently as 1940, physicians felt that such children would never sit up, use their hands, or walk. They were termed as spastic paralytics; in fact, some physicians believed that the cerebral palsied child had no mentality. Although a much full understand! of the cerebral palsied child has evolved since then, further research and more and better trained personnel are needed to serve the one cerebral palsied infant born every fifty-three minutes
Subject Area
Disability studies|Health care management|Social work
Recommended Citation
Valluzzo, Jacqueline, "Cerebral Palsy and the Role of Caseworker: Current Programs to Service Children in New York City as Shown by Eight Cases Referred to the New York Hospital for Special Surgery September, 1962 Through September, 1963" (1965). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30308721.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30308721
