Cameron's classification system, 1955

Three underlying assumptions:

1. The child is a maturing, developing organism.

2. This maturation and development is taking place in relation to an external (and internal) environment, to which the child is reacting and adapting – some of these reactions and adaptations becoming established in the child.

3. The child is an individual pursuing his/her own aims and purposes.

Four questions to be posed when the child shows disturbance:

1. Is the child potentially normal and capable of meeting the demands of the environment?

2. Is the environment meeting the needs of the child?

3. Is the environment making normal demands on the child?

4. How is this particular individual child in all his/her complexity as a human being meeting his/her situation?

Developmental categories:

1. Physiological maturity or development.

2. Physical handicapping or ill health.

3. Intellectual status.

4. Intellectual handicapping – specific and general.

5. Emotional maturity.

6. Variant of personality type.

Reactive categories, i.e. reaction to his/her environment by the child:

1. Primary habit disturbance – of eating, elimination, sleeping.

2. Secondary habit disorders – gratification habits, tension habits.

3. Motor symptomatology – speech disturbance.

4. Disturbance in personal relationships – dependence, jealousy reactions.

5. Conduct disorders – delinquency.

6. Educational or work disturbance.

Individual characteristics and responses:

1. Psychic symptoms – e.g. fears, phobias, minor obsessional traits.

2. Somatic symptoms – e.g. headaches, stomach aches.

3. […]