A FINE Gael backbencher is organising a nationwide campaign against her government's education policy on autism. Regina Doherty, a Meath East TD, will write to the parents of 4,000 autistic children to ask them to act against the approach taken by Ruairi Quinn, the education minister.
"I will be asking parents to put pressure on the government to change their policy," Doherty said. "I don't believe the department even has a policy on autism. It is giving a pretence of delivering a service, nothing more than that."
Doherty is representing parents in favour of implementing applied behavioural analysis (ABA), a specialist teaching method, in schools.
Quinn was strongly in favour of ABA while in opposition.
In February 2008 he called the previous government's rejection of the teaching method "an issue of major concern", saying the department's decision was "more to do with institutional rigidities and conservatism within the civil service than a real and open evaluation of the effectiveness of the ABA method".
In July, the Achieve ABA school in Donaghmede, Dublin, was forced to close after the state refused a request for funding. Daniel O'Mahony, a parent who helped set up the school, said the government had betrayed the trust of voters.
"Fianna Fail created this mess 10 years ago, but I'm flabbergasted Ruairi Quinn hasn't done anything to change it," O'Mahony said. "They told us they would support us. The only reason we kept the school going for the last year was because we were waiting for the new government, because they said they'd help us.."
Instead of ABA, Quinn is supporting the previous government's decision to create special classes for autistic pupils in mainstream schools. Doherty has claimed teachers of these classes are not properly qualified to carry out their duties. "The teachers are not being given any special training, apart from a three-day inservice course. You cannot become qualified in this very specialised teaching method in three days," said Doherty.
"These children are not getting the education they need, and they will start to regress.
When that happens, boards of management are going to be sued by parents for failing to provide their children with an education."
Doherty said she believed Quinn was still in favour of ABA, but had been conflicting views from his civil servants.
"I think he's getting bad advice from his department, and you're only as good as the advice you're getting," she said.
A spokeswoman for the department denied that it had no policy on autism. It said it was not accurate to say that teachers in special classes are not qualified to teach autistic children, because they were all qualified primary teachers.
"The department ... provides a comprehensive programme of continuing professional development," she said.
2 comments:
I'm so glad somebody is finally speaking out against this outrage. ABA has been proven to be an extremely effective intervention for helping individuals with autism achieve their potential. I am currently working in an ABA school in the UK and completing a masters in ABA as I know this the most effective approach to teach people with autism. I chose this over teaching as my interest is not in mainstream education but in teaching children with autism. If I chose to do my postgrad in education, my knowledge in working with autism would be extremely limited, as is the knowledge of many mainstream qualified teachers who are working in so called "ABA" units. The government is completely diluting the science and it's an absolute disgrace. It is extremely disheartening to know that unless I complete a dip in education or pgce my qualifications and expertise will not be acknowledged and utilised in my home country.
Mary O'Rourke once said there was a "linger animosity" towards ABA in the Department of Education. As an ex-Minister for Education, she would know.
Minister Quinn didn't take long to u-turn when the civil servants O'Rourke was talking about got his ear. Hopefully, more TDs like Regina will be willing to speak out against the way many children with autism are being denied their right to an appropriate education.
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