Caint, a support group for children with speech and language impairments and their families, has recently been established to lobby for improved services and help parents to get information. The group will host a workshop on practical approaches to helping such children on May 16th in Wynne's Hotel, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is £20. Contact: Geraldine Graydon (tel: (01) 282 3584)
"The Eastern Health Board have just dumped him at the special language unit and have done nothing for him"
The desperation and frustration felt by parents of children with special needs is at an all-time high. Special-education provision, they say, seems to be slipping down the tubes - suffering from inadequate funding, insufficient resources and a lack of co-ordination. "I have to travel to five different places with my child," says Noelle Adams. Her son Simon, aged seven, has a learning disorder and a speech and language deficit. "The professionals involved don't liaise with each other. I have to keep telling each of them how he is progressing - basically half the time I'm having to guess. "The whole thing is a joke. One section says one thing, the other disagrees, and my son and I are being shunted from one ill-informed person to the next. It's a an absolute nightmare."
According to Fionnuala Kilfeather, national co-ordinator of the National Parents Council (Primary), this story is quite typical. "The special-education system is a complete maze for parents. There is no co-ordination of services and parents experience great difficulty finding out what is available - and how to access it. "But there also just isn't enough available, and what is there isn't properly resourced."
Simon is at a special language unit where lack of provision is creating a serious problem. "Simon was recommended a place for a year at the special language unit in the Good Shepherd National School (in Rathfarnham, Dublin) by the Eastern Health Board," Adams says. He started last September; in October, the speech therapist left. Following a tremendous amount of pressure from the school and the parents, a temporary speech therapist was finally appointed last week; however, the parents have no idea what will happen when this speech therapist's term is up at the end of June.
"You can see that he has dropped back without ongoing speech therapy," Simon's mother says. "The new therapist says he has now become very self-conscious and afraid to talk for fear of making mistakes."
Gerry Dunne has a seven-year-old son, Stephen, in the same class. "It makes no sense to have a special language unit without a speech therapist. With the language difficulty the children in this unit have, they reach a plateau, absorb what they have gained and move on. "If they don't have intensive speech therapy, they slide back quite quickly. We work very hard with Stephen at home, but we aren't qualified speech therapists so we can't give him everything he needs. This whole year has been a wasted opportunity for the children." The school has gone to enormous lengths to counter any negative effect on the children.
"Their teacher has been superb," Adams says. "She has done as much as she could, but she has had to try to be a jack of all trades for the last few months, which isn't acceptable either. The Eastern Health Board recommended Simon should go to the special language unit, and I would have expected the necessary follow-up from them. Instead they have just dumped him there and have done nothing for him. The whole thing is a bit of a farce."
According to the Department of Education and Science, 0.2 per cent of children attending primary schools have been assessed as having a speech and language deficit; and there are 32 special language classes around the State, jointly run by the Department and the relevant health board. Arising out of this dual responsibility, parents have "nightmare" difficulties establishing who they should contact with regard to their children. At the Good Shepherd National School, the class teacher is appointed by the Department of Education and Science and the Eastern Health Board is responsible for ensuring the children have access to a speech and language therapist and a psychologist.
According to the Eastern Health Board, speech and language therapists are in very short supply nationally, and there have been difficulties recruiting a suitably qualified psychologist in the area where the school is based. "When we sent Stephen to the school we expected a psychologist would work with him on an ongoing basis, monitoring his progress. We expected regular reviews and a full assessment at least once a year. In fact, he hasn't seen a psychologist once since he's been at the school," Dunne says.
"A psychologist at a school like this is an absolute must," Adams adds. "These are children with special needs. They need ongoing assessments of their progress and to establish whether or not they need to stay at the special language unit. Simon hasn't been assessed at all, so we have no placement for him for next September."
THE NPC
says the special-education service should be completely overhauled. "We have parents coming in all the time in a bad way because the system is dreadful," Kilfeather says.
"We should have a multi-disciplinary approach, with a team that includes parents and the children where appropriate. It should be based on each child's need's rather than what suits the system. "Special education isn't a gift. Each child is entitled to as good a start as possible in life."
