Group Proposes Learning Centre School for Children with Autism
Adedayo Akinwale
In furtherance of its advocacy for children with learning disabilities, a group, Autism Care and Support Initiative (ACSI) said it planned to set up a learning centre school for children with special needs especially autism.
The Director, Dr. Julia Ejiogu, made this known in Abuja at a three-day workshop titled ‘Summer Camp for Teachers and Professionals in Special Education’, with the theme ‘Educating the Special Educator- an Introduction to Evidence Based Practices’.She said the essence of the workshop was to help sensitise teachers, professionals and individuals who work and teach children with special needs to be able to run an inclusive classroom, manage behaviour and also to be able to direct their curriculum in a way that children with autism would have great educational outcome and live more independent lives.
“We have fund-raising activities that is up coming, we want to build a learning centre school, it is going to be targeted at children who have mostly autism, but we can accommodate other children with special needs. We also want to be able to train more therapists, we want to train more teachers; those are our two goals when we set up a learning centre.”
Ejiogu regretted the huge challenges in teaching children with autism in Nigeria, adding that “they don’t have many people who are skilled in individualised learning, so all special needs children are lumped in one classroom, and so needs are not being met, children who are visually impaired and children who are hearing impaired, children who have learning challenges, they are all put in one group.”
She stressed that without an individualised education plan or an individualised way of teaching children with autism, they would be lost in the crowd, thereby making it difficult for their goals to be met, adding that the organisation is partnering an organisation from the United States and has forged a partnership with the National Universities Commission (NUC) to promote inclusive education in the country.
While insisting that enrolling children with autism in general education classroom is good, Ejiogu noted that evaluating children with autism with other students negate the principle of inclusive education.
One of the participants, who is a teacher, Ms. Akudo Nzeshi, said she learnt that inclusive education is important, adding that no child should be left out of education because of his status. She pointed out that children with learning disabilities should be included in a normal classroom setting for them to socialise with their peers though they often distract the class.