From “cabbages” to “kings”* in one month: or, with the deaf‐blind, you never know till you try

In 1974 L. G. Stewart wrote a paper on the problems and needs of severely handicapped deaf persons and suggested programmes that were needed to meet these needs. He entitled his paper “We have met the enemy and he is us”. He concluded that we have not met the needs of severely handicapped deaf persons, largely because we have not tried hard enough. Though Stewart was writing solely about deafness, this situation can be said to be true of sensory handicap in general. Kropka and Williams (1980) wrote that research into the blind and partially sighted had brought to light hitherto unsuspected service deficiencies for this “hidden” minority, as well as for the hearing impaired minority investigated earlier (Kropka, 1979). It was concluded that fine grain analysis of specific sub-groups within mental handicap institutions would highlight the under-estimation of the number of people involved and the lack of suitable programmes for them.