Illness experience of a group of normal children.

The illness experience of a group of 126 normal children included in an eighteen-year growth study comprises the subject matter of this report. With medical emphasis shifting gradually toward development as opposed to pure pathology, it becomes of increasing interest to define what are the usual experiences which can be expected for the normal child receiving ordinary care. Such medical surveys may help prepare young parents for a certain minimum of expected ill health in their youngsters; they also may serve to illuminate the areas where preventive efforts are most needed. The purposes, population, and methodology of the Berkeley Guidance Study have been described by its director, Dr. Jean Walker Macfarlane (i). The 252 children of the Study were selected on an arbitrary ordinal basis from the Birth Certificate Registry of Berkeley, California, beginning January I, 1928, and closing June 30, 1929. The sample is drawn from families which are representative of the families having children in the city in which it was selected, but it reflects a considerably higher educational level than that of the United States at large. The subgroup of 126 children under consideration here is the half which was selected for "guidance" as against a group of the same number, matched for significant socio-economic factors, which was followed as a "control." According to ordinal position among siblings, the distribution of children when the families were completed was as follows: singletons, 17 per cent; eldest, 32 per cent; second, 26 per cent; third, 17 per cent; fourth, 6 per cent; and fifth and sixth, i per cent each. All family members of this Guidance Group were given a continuing opportunity for periodic discussion and counsel with the staff psychiatric social workers and psychologists. The interviews covered many aspects of personal life, including the medical. But the only medical advice given