The Sunday Mail
Overson Musopero
Young Voices Disability Rights Advocacy Project
Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder which is mainly characterised by deficits in social behaviour, verbal communication, unusual and restricted repetitive behaviours. It is a lifelong developmental disability. The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) (2009) shows that 1 person out of 88 people is autistic (1.1 %) of every population. Autism is common among children especially males.
Children with autism cannot learn in mainstream classes with their peers who are considered to function within the normal range.
Their behaviour, psycho motor skills, differences with their nuero-typical peers and delayed speech skills make it difficult for children with autism to access education at mainstream classes.
Autistic children need special individualised educational programmes to assess their improvement on individual basis.
Since children on the autism spectrum have delayed speech skills and they cannot communicate verbally they learn using basic sign language.
They need special education coupled with simple sign language that caters for their delayed speech and poor psycho motor skills. They should be taught using TEACCH approach in which their teachers use sign language, picture icon based language and augmentative devices to teach them.
Children with autism need to be taught by kind and special education trained teachers as they take time to understand concepts and sometimes they display some discouraging behaviours.
They need more attention and maximum supervision during classes.
However, in Zimbabwe there is no current statics of children with autism.
The country relies on the statistics of the Centre for Disease Control which is 1 person out of 88 is autistic in every population.
Basing on this statistics, it shows that there is quite a number of children with autism but the current educational atmosphere in Zimbabwe is not friendly for children with autism.
It is the parent’s responsibility to find better ways of educating the child.
Hermeneutically, children with autism are not included in the quality education provision.
They are viewed as they do not deserve education.
The provision of education to children with autism is equated as to wastage of resources or feeding a dead body.
This is judged from their mental differences with other children.
Parents found it difficult to educate their children with autism and most of the children stay at home without going to school.
This is because their education is very expensive and difficult to access at mainstream schools.
The mainstream schools have no integrated educational programmes.
They have no special facilities and trained staff members to cater for the education of children with autism.
Therefore their parents are forced to look for expensive and private schools like Hellenic Junior and Senior Schools because their children are rejected from many schools because of the autism condition.
From a policy angle, it is prudent that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education treats the formulation of the Inclusive Education Policy as a matter of urgency so that children with autism can be accommodated in mainstream schools.
The government is not paying rigorous attention towards the establishment of favourable and conducive facilities for the provision of quality education among children with autism.
Therefore there is a need to review the education curriculum so as to explore the world of children with autism and unlock their potential.
Authored by Overson Musopero (Social Worker and also the Vice Chairman of the Young Voices Disability Rights Advocacy Project, Harare Group. He can be contacted at: [email protected])
