Sir, – I understand that Victoria White (September 21st) is the wife of former minister Eamon Ryan and might feel a strong sense of party loyalty when she states that the Green Party, when in government, negotiated permanent funding for Applied Behaviour Analysis schools for children with autism. However, I must point out that there is no truth in her assertion and her statement that “Twelve ABA schools are not only open, but fully State funded”.
A condition for the former ABA schools of being “fully State funded” was that they could no longer practise as ABA schools but instead had to adopt the Department of Education’s (DES) preferred “eclectic model”, a model that has no basis in research.
Ms White mentions visiting ABACAS Kilbarrack. Perhaps she should ask to read the letter that the school received from the DES on July 2nd, 2010, a letter which expressly states that “the school is not an exclusively ABA specific school” and that it cannot advertise itself as such. The other former ABA schools received similar letters.
The ABA tutors who worked in the school were offered a choice of redundancy or positions as special needs assistants, restricted to “non teaching duties” in line with the DES circular 07/02. There is no requirement on the teachers working in these new schools to have any qualifications in autism specific educational interventions. It is optional. That does not look like progress to me.
Might I add that my child attended Achieve ABA. The dispute we had with the Department of Education did not orginate in whether “the school should have a State-qualified principal and teachers”. The dispute originated in the fact that the DES does not have a policy on the education of children with autism, that there is not one piece of research underpinning its “eclectic” or “child-centred” model. All that we wanted was best practice educational and behavioural interventions for our children, best practice that was being delivered at 20 per cent less cost than the State’s unproven model.
We invited the Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn and his officials to visit our school, to see the work that took place there each day. The invite was declined. When Achieve closed its doors on July 29th, 2011, Ireland did lose its last ABA school for children with autism.
That is fact and accurately reported at the time. – Yours, etc,