Thanks purely to the hard efforts over the years of parents of children with autism, some progress had been made in the creation of schools devoted purely to the teaching of children who suffer from the condition.
The method used to teach the children, Applied Behavioral Analysis or ABA, is internationally recognised as the most effective treatment for autism and has thus been championed by parents who have tirelessly campaigned for the limited provisions that are now available.
The Department of Education and Science has recently informed the Boards of Management of the 13 autism specific schools of their intention to essentially bring their existence to an end and to “mainstream” their education with the ultimate effect of severely diluting the quality of the specialised treatment the children need.
I quote from an e-mail sent to me by Alison Lynch whose 9 year old son Sean has been attending the ABACAS in Kilbarrack, an ABA Centre of Autism Schooling, who explains the consequences of the government’s plans very eloquently:
“As it now stands, Ireland has far too few autism-specific schools, which are staffed largely by highly trained ABA tutors and supervisors who often work with children one-to-one. Within the immediate future, if the Department of Education and Science gets its way, Ireland will have none.
“Right now, the Department is making plans to transition ABA centres’ into special-needs schools built on the standard primary-school model, drawing down the number of specialized autism educators and ratcheting up the number of state-school staff — This is crazy; it’s like the government offering to fund heart transplants, provided they are performed by gynaecologists.”
I support the demand by Alison and other parents that the Department carry out a proper evaluation of the projects that have been in place in advance of any further action. These proposed cutbacks must be fully brought to the wider public’s attention and actively opposed in the short time ahead of us before the new school year. I and my party colleagues will back any protest action considered by the parents to this end.
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