Punishing Children with Special Needs

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Wednesday October 12, 2005 17:50 by Miriam Cotton miriamcotton at eircom dot net

Casualties of the Education of Persons with Special Needs Act

At a public meeting in Co Cork, a parent in the audience inadvertently used the expression ‘his SNA’ in referring to her son’s Special Needs Assistant while asking a question of one of the speakers. It was an incidental thing in terms of the woman's question but it was interpreted as its central point by the CEO of the National Council for Special Education, Mr Pat Curtain, who was there to tell about all the progress being made by the NCSE in implementing the Education of Persons with Special Needs Act 2004.

Mr Curtin was at pains to disabuse the parent of any notion of ownership of this aspect of her son’s education at school. The SNA was not ‘his’ SNA, but the property rather of the education system to be deployed in any way of its choosing. She shouldn't even be using the expression. Neither parents nor their learning disadvantaged children should believe that the relationship has anything to do with them personally. There are no personal entitlements of this kind for our children.

The consequences of this attitude towards the children and their parents are dire. But sad to say it appears to have been the chief preoccupation of the drafters of the Education of Persons with Special Needs Act, 2004 and also of the NCSE since it opened its doors for business last year. Sure enough, one of the fist things the NCSE has focused on is smashing the possibility of consistent working partnerships between SEN children and their SNAs and Resource Teachers. One school principal expressed it to me as follows:

‘We are concerned that when they have to move to secondary school they will find it difficult if they are too attached to the SNA. So we’ve decided to move the SNAs around regularly to avoid any attachments forming’.

For any parent of a child with an autistic spectrum disorder or learning difficulty of any kind, (and aside from the near traumatising effect on them of actually hearing such a thing said) this statement begs the question ‘does anybody within the education system understand anything about these conditions?’ It is staggering that with all of the knowledge available , it is still possible for a single school principal to be in such a state of ignorance about the SEN children in his care. Instead we have a situation where it is national policy, apparently, in order to prevent a child from feeling upset by the interruption of his established routine when s/he moves up to secondary school, to upset the routine on a regular basis. That way, s/he will never be allowed to feel relaxed about it at all. But at least they’ll be used to it.

Here is a quote from an American advice centre (and America is a good place to be if you have a child with a learning disability, in fact) for family lawyers which sets this lunacy in context:

“The presence of ADHD/ASD calls for a high degree of structure, predictability and consistency in all contexts of a child's life. Caregivers must be willing and able to learn about the conditions, to modify pre-existing behaviour management strategies in consultation with professionals and in cooperation with co-parents and educators. The presence of an ASD makes the need for constructive communication between parents and caregivers all that much more important. Of particular concern is the ability of caregivers to agree on critical decisions for the ASD child including academic identification for an IEP and medication.

A caregiver that disregards these supports may well be compromising the child's educational achievement and putting the child at risk for serious secondary social and emotional concerns. The consistency, structure and many decisions necessary in the course of raising a child with ASD are crucial, requiring constant reconsideration and modification.”

None of this professional advice is being applied to Irish SEN children as a matter of course and in any case our legislation is now in direct opposition to it. Anyone who lives with such a child knows the real distress and difficulty they can be caused by something as simple as offering a different breakfast cereal in the morning or by putting the left shoe on before the right if it is ordinarily the other way around. Forming friendships or relationships of any kind takes a lot of time. There are strategies that have to be used just to get the child to refocus its attention from one topic to another. It takes a long time and a lot of patience for the teacher to get to know the child and his or her strengths and weaknesses.

Typical children in primary schools have one classroom teacher for the whole year. They are not made to move around the school from pillar to post for different parts of the core curriculum. But for the people who can least afford this sort of disruption it has been specified as the norm for no other reason than the vindictive and unsympathetic one that SEN children and their parents must never be allowed to feel that they have any right to the SEN resources allocated to their child. An example of the new arrangements is a child who in each week has one class room teacher, two SNAs and two different resource teachers. As well as being complete madness, it is educationally, psychologically and emotionally abusive.

At the public meeting referred to above, Mr Curtin also told us that most of the of the EPSN Act 2004 had yet to come into force. However, one of the first of its provisions to be implemented is a provision which is concerned, not with the rights of children with SEN at all, but with the right of typical children not to have their education adversely affected by the needs of SEN children. Nothing could ever express the contempt for SEN children more than this provision. What is the point of this redundant and divisive clause if not to create resentment between those with and without learning difficulties? There is no question that SEN provision would ever disadvantage typical children. Nevertheless, this has been a tip top priority – ahead even of defining the individual education plan (IEP) even though this is the heart of what SEN children need and is desperately wanted by so many children. Mr Curtin told us that guidelines for IEPs would not be available until probably the end of this academic year.

Is the government determined to make itself the enemy of people with disability in every possible way?