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You and YoursÌý- Transcript 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 |
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TX: 20.10.04 - Autism Series Ìý PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON Ìý |
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THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT.Ìý BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 91Èȱ¬ CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. ROBINSON Government policy is to include children with special needs into mainstream schools and the idea is to offer them extra support in the classroom. But many people believe that children with autism often need such high levels of specialist help that mainstream school simply isn't the best place for them. This week in our series on autism we're reporting on the options for education. Our reporter Carolyn Atkinson has been to the Helen Allison School for Autistic Children at Meopham in Kent. It's run by the National Autistic Society and at £30,000 per year it's an expensive option meant for the most severely affected children. So parents often find themselves battling with their local authorities about just how severe their child's autism is. Ìý Carolyn began the day with the PE teacher Mary Bentley. Ìý ACTUALITY - PE CLASS So good morning everybody, we're going to do our morning exercise. And what do we start off with? Lining up behind Mary. So come on. Ready? Right we're going for a walk. And off we go. Ìý BENTLEY It actually took me three years to teach them to line up and I was so proud of them. It had taken three years but it's very difficult for an autistic child to think of others - going behind somebody and having someone else behind them is very, very difficult for them and it's also the nearness of other people. They'd done something that I'd been striving for, for such a long time and all my support workers thought I was really quite potty when I said - Oh look a queue. Ìý ACTUALITY - PE CLASS Stop and it's one, two, up we go. Ìý DAWN HILL I'm Dawn Hill, the mother of Michael Hill. Michael is a very able autistic boy and has good academic abilities but his autism is quite severe and his understanding of the world is very impaired. So he comes to Helen Allison to help particularly with his social skills. He will attack other people, other children, other adults, throw furniture, he runs away - anything really to get away from things that he doesn't like. Ìý ATKINSON He was in a mainstream nursery, why did you decide that a mainstream school was not ideal for him? Ìý DAWN HILL We felt that in mainstream Michael wouldn't learn anything because he wouldn't be listening to things being taught to him and felt that the children around him wouldn't learn either because of his disruptive behaviour because of that. So we felt that nobody would learn and there would be sort of 30 children being impaired by his disability. Ìý ACTUALITY - PE CLASS Okay. Now let's have class 2 lining up please, class 2. Who remembers they're in class 2? Ìý ATKINSON From your experience was there a sense that you should give mainstream a go? Ìý DAWN HILL There's a lot of pressure to give mainstream a go because the idea is that in theory every child can go into mainstream but in reality there are children who just cannot go into mainstream. Ìý ACTUALITY - PE CLASS One big long line. Lovely. Ìý ATKINSON What do you like about coming to school here? Ìý MICHAEL HILL Seeing my friends. Bradley, Charlie, Samuel, Theo - many more. Some are in my class, some are around the school. Ìý ATKINSON And what lessons have you been doing this morning so far? Ìý MICHAEL HILL Morning exercise and English. Ìý ATKINSON And what's your favourite lesson? Ìý MICHAEL HILL Maths. Ìý ATKINSON I gather you're very good at maths. Ìý MICHAEL HILL Yes. Ìý ATKINSON What do you like about maths? Ìý MICHAEL HILL Adding stuff up, the fact it's important - got playtime. Ìý DAWN HILL Oh that's a good bit isn't it - are you going to go to playtime. Ìý MICHAEL HILL Yeah I hope it's indoors though but I don't think it is. Ìý DAWN HILL No it's nice and sunny today, I think you'll be outside on the climbing frames and on the bikes. Ìý ATKINSON Helen Allison School has 70 day pupils of which 23 board in the residential part of the school. One hundred staff are employed to run day classes and on top of that another three teams of staff work a 24 hour rota to look after the residential pupils. Deputy principal Pat Smith says children, if able, sit SATs and some exams which they choose from a wide ranging curriculum of vocational and academic subjects. Ìý SMITH We have a timetable like you would see in every school and it's got all the subjects that you'd expect to see in every school but the way in which it's delivered is different, it's differentiated for each individual, which obviously you can't do if you've got 30 in a class but you can if you've got five, six, seven, eight. Ìý DAWN HILL He gets lots of visual and practical backup, so if for instance they were learning about bread then they would go out to a field and see the wheat growing, they go into a bakers and see it being made, probably help make the bread and then they would do bread tasting sessions. Ìý SMITH Our children they've probably already tried two or three other alternatives before they come to us. Sometimes they've had long spells at home with no education because their parents have been struggling to try and find where would be the right place. So for our students this is the right sort of setting because it matches their needs, it matches their profile. Ìý DAWN HILL There are cases of children that try mainstream school and it doesn't work and the child's self esteem is low because they failed in mainstream and everybody's upset because it hasn't worked out. Then the placement at a special school is looked at only to find that there is such a shortage of placements in special schools that there is actually nowhere for them to go and they're stuck and you don't know what to do with them. Ìý ROBINSON That's the Helen Allison School in Kent. Well tomorrow we hear from the parents facing prosecution for taking their autistic children out of mainstream classes to teach them at home and we talk to the Education Minister Lord Filkin. And don't forget if you need more information on our series on autism or want to hear any of the reports again you can always visit the website, details later. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 91Èȱ¬ is not responsible for external websites |
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