The need for better special needs schools

This space was created to document my son’s journey while tackling the issues surrounding special needs in Jamaica in an attempt to increase awareness to foster increased support for special needs programmes. My son turn turns six on July 1, and we are excited about his progress and very hopeful for the future. He is speaking much more, with full sentences and conversations.

Keeping up with his age level academically has become more challenging as the he gets older and the work gets more complex. But I’m happy to report that he is learning the concepts and doing well at his pace and has demonstrated the cognitive ability to learn. His self-help skills are also much better.

We continue to have developmental therapy and will be adding speech therapy this summer. We continue to tackle some behavioural challenges such as hyperactivity which is extremely common in premature children. We have also had challenges with finding an effective shadow/teaching assistant.

An even bigger challenge this school year was finding the right school for Amari. We made the tough decision to move him from the school he was attending since he was two years old as their programme for special needs has evolved into a system that was no longer serving his needs. Despite the decision I applaud this school as they are one of the few schools trying to offer a special needs programme, and to be very fair, my child was very loved at this school. My advice for schools aiming for a special needs programme should keep the following in mind, form the perspective of a parent.

1. Do not bite more than you can chew. Enroll only the children with challenges that your resources can handle. If you have the expertise to support a child that is slow or dyslexic or mildly autistic then Enrol as such. Do not take on children with far greater learning challenges or behavioural problems that no teacher at that school knows how to help.

2. Teachers in the typical classroom must put out the best possible effort for children with minor challenges and not use the special needs section as an escape. They should not see it a space to send children with the slightest challenge.

3. If you have a special needs programme then integration of those children in general school activities such as sports day, concerts and other functions is important as they must not feel ostracised. This integration must appear seamless, in that there must be enough preparation that when they are involved there is not a big neon sign saying these are the special needs children. If an entire school population is not prepared to do the work to integrate children with special needs then the programme makes no sense. It cannot be just the teachers directly involved in special education that have the children’s best interest at heart.

4. Have the expertise to create and follow through with an individual education learning plan to cater to the specific needs of each child with special needs instead of the wholesale school curriculum.

These were some of the challenges I had at my son’s previous school that quickly became an untenable situation this school year. We made the decision to move him in the third term but the new school was unable to take him before September. His shadow has been homeschooling him this term to get him ready for grade one.

This raises the issue of a bigger problem: we do not have enough schools in Jamaica to cater to children with the varied special needs challenges. Parents like my husband and I have to sift through the system trying desperately to find the right school. The problem gets worse when you find that the more equipped schools are not affordable for many Jamaican parents. So we find that there are many children lost in the school system with challenges that are treatable but because of lack of resources, are not being addressed. These children will therefore not actualise their full potential and as society we would have failed them.

Sara, mom to five-year-old Amari, is an advocate for children with developmental delays. Amari was born three months early at one pound, and was hospitalised for three-and-a-half months after birth. E-mail her at francis.m.sara@gmail.com.