'Converts a child of the current dom element to the specified type.'

def _fill_instance_child(self, xmldoc, element_name, return_type):

    xmlelements = self._get_child_nodes(xmldoc, self._get_serialization_name(element_name))
    if (not xmlelements):
        return None
    return_obj = return_type()
    self._fill_data_to_return_object(xmlelements[0], return_obj)
    return return_obj
