Asperger’s training? ‘Watch Big Bang’
WATCHING TV show the Big Bang Theory was suggested as a training method for a school staff member who was dealing with a child with Asperger syndrome, MSPs have been told.
The show is a popular American sitcom focusing on a group of highly intelligent but socially inept “nerds”. One character in particular, Sheldon Cooper, played by actor Jim Parsons, is often singled out by viewers as behaving in a manner consistent with Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum.
Sylvia Haughey, an additional support for learning instructor and an education officer with trade union Unison, told Holyrood’s’s Education Committee: “Recently, I was in a school and asked a member of staff working specifically with a child with Aspergers ‘what training have you had in Aspergers?’”
The reply she got to this question was “Oh, I was told to watch The Big Bang Theory,” she said. “That’s the level of training we’ve got now in schools.”
Ms Haughey, who has spent 34 years working in the supported learning sector, said staff would previously have been given training from professionals such as psychologists and speech and language therapists.
Across Scotland, more than 170,000 school children – some 24.9pc of all pupils – have been identified as having some need for additional support – a total that has risen by 153 per cent since 2010.