It's time to provide for handicapped children

It's now 15 years since the publication of The Education and Training of Severely and Profoundly Mentally Handicapped Children, which recommended "that teachers, paid and supervised by the Department of Education, should be made available to severely and profoundly mentally handicapped children." It went on: "There is no justification for excluding this population from access to the accumulative expertise of teachers."

Today, these recommendations have only been partially implemented, with the majority of children still receiving no input from Department of Education teachers.

The Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Mental Handicap

(1965) set out national standards for the care, training and education of people with a mental handicap in Ireland. In those days, the needs of children with multiple disabilities were not as well understood as they are today. It was generally accepted that these children, because of the severity of their disabilities, were not in need of formal education. The report recommended daycare units, staffed by people trained and experienced in the care of the mentally handicapped, for all children with severe and profound disabilities who were unable to benefit from academic training.

This brought about a major improvement in the circumstances of these children, as it enabled them to stay within their own communities and with their own families, rather than having to live in institutions. No specified guidelines for the training and development of these children were provided for staff in these units; but with the help of other professionals such as psychologists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, staff in some units put time and energy into developing individual training and education programmes for the children. For children with multiple disabilities, learning is much more challenging than for children with lesser forms of learning disabilities - not only because of their more limited capacity to learn but even more so because of the extent and variety of additional disabilities that nearly always accompany these severe forms of mental handicap. Such disabilities include extensive physical handicaps, visual and hearing impairments, epilepsy, emotional disorders and, for some children, complex ongoing medical problems.

Nevertheless, it has been shown that these children, even those with the most complex problems, can learn and benefit from education and training - provided the environment and the methods for training are appropriate.

According to the 1996 National Intellectual Database, there are 1,245 school-aged children with severe and profound disabilities living in the State. At least 500 others, for one reason or another, have not been included in this database. Department of Education teachers are involved with fewer than one-third of these children. Most of the teachers are finding their contribution both challenging and interesting. Many have found that the traditional classroom methods of teaching are rarely appropriate for children with multiple disabilities and that these methods have to be exchanged for more inclusive and integrated approaches, where teachers work side by side with people from other disciplines, sharing the responsibilities of the children's education, training and care.

At a time when the Irish economy is booming as never before, it is surely an indictment of our sense of values that the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society are still being neglected. It is sincerely to be hoped that the resources necessary to ensure these children's education and overall welfare will be made available without further delay.

Dr Sinead O Nuallain, consultant paediatrician

Education & Living

Editor: Ella Shanahan Production: Hugh Lambert and Harry Browne Cover illustrations: Cathy Dineen

Email: education@irish-times.ie