Madam, - I refer to a report in your edition of September 22nd which relayed the findings of the School Inspectorate report into the educational provision for children with autism ("Qualifications urged to teach autistic children").
This highlighted the fact that, in the Department of Education's eyes, everyone teaching a child with autism should have a recognised teaching qualification. It also noted in the 11 units where ABA (an evidence-based teaching method) is used, few staff have a formal teaching qualification.
The inspectorate and the Department are missing the point. A teaching qualification is suitable only for those teaching a child who has the communication and cognitive skills to follow the national curriculum.
However, where those skills are deficient in the child and there are multiple behavioural problems, a qualification in psychology, for instance, could be - and in our experience is - much more appropriate.
Furthermore, all the children in the pre-integration classes in the ABA units access the curriculum.
In a questionnaire published in January 2006 the Irish Primary Principals Network found the following, on the subject of qualified teachers who are currently teaching children with autism: with regard to specific training for teaching children with autism, 70 per cent of principals had to skip the question because their staff had received no training and half the principals surveyed stated that they would not set up a class for autism again.
This clearly demonstrates two things. Firstly, the principals and their staff recognise that a formal teaching qualification in itself is not adequate to enable the effective evidence-based teaching of a child with autism.
This point is reinforced in the recommendations of the inspectorate report, which state that a qualified teacher teaching children with autism should have an additional 450 hours of specialised training.
Secondly, schools with autism units are not being properly resourced to maximise the learning potential of these children. In the ABA centres, 99 per cent of the tutors employed have an appropriate primary degree with the more senior staff being educated to Masters and/or PhD level.
Moreover, there are intensive internal training programs in place and the work of each staff member is measured day by day.
The Government's Task Force on Autism recommended in 2001 that the Department of Education and Science make available a range of approaches and therapies to meet the unique needs of each student with autism and that such provision should include, as appropriate, a choice or combination of home-based, mainstream or specialist settings.
Nine proposals for ABA units have been submitted to Minister for Education Mary Hanafin in the past year and have been greeted by a roaring silence.
We call on the Minister and her Department to recognise the evidence of the education being delivered in these units and to respond positively to these proposals. - Yours, etc,
CORMAC RENNICK, Chairman, Irish Autism Action, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.