Talking Sense Volume 47 No 2 Summer 2001
Patricia Gibbons describes how three Asian children with dual-sensory-impairments are finally getting the education they deserve.
Patricia is Teacher of Children with Multi-Sensory Impairments, which is part of the Manchester Service for Children with Multi-Sensory Impairments.
Tibra, a little blonde Asian girl of four, was discovered quite by chance. Susan, a teacher of the deaf, noticed that Tibra was playing alone on the periphery of the nursery. Working with another child, she decided to scoop up the little loner to join their games. And it wasn't long before Susan's observational skills had alerted her to the likelihood of Tibra having a severe visual impairment and, possibly a hearing loss too.
In the flurry of assessment activity that followed Tibra and her two younger siblings, Irfan and Saima, were found to have severe myopia and nystagmus as a result of albinism. All of them also had moderate hearing loss. No one could explain why Tibra was four before these investigations took place.
Tibra transferred to the special school for visually impaired children. But after twelve months, her parents' decided they wanted to keep all the children in the community, attending school with their neighbours. This led to a complicated support package being set up for all three children, involving teachers from both sensory services, later replaced by a teacher for deafblind children, plus a full time support assistant attached to the school.
The battle for support
This worked well until Tibra went to High School. At her Review Meeting it emerged that all the contingency funding was already allocated, and none was left to provide a support assistant to follow Tibra to High School. So the first term was spent proving her need. We had to shadow lessons, listing areas of difficulty - that she couldn't read the blackboard, take dictation, or read the small print in the textbooks. Tibra had to risk failing in order to receive the intervention she needed.
All of Tibra's High School experience, and the beginning of Irfan's, was undermined inconsistent support. Twice, whilst the teacher of deafblind was ill, the support was lost - there was no-one else available to argue the case for specialist support and, crucially, no system in place to justify and ensure the provision. Lack of cover meant that Irfan didn't receive any suitable support for twelve months.
A co-ordinated approach?
A five year campaign was waged in the Local Education Authority for more streamlined provision, and these children were the most high-profile candidates. It was not until the LEA needed to conduct a review of SEN provision that we were able to bid for a proper Intervenor Service. Several children were identified in the bid, including these three able mainstream pupils and a number who have deafblindness associated with severe learning difficulties and some who have profound and complex additional needs.
We reasoned that in order to promote full and effective inclusion within the most appropriate type of classroom, deafblind children need require consistent, specialist Intervenors. A professional team like this can work best when it is based in a Sensory Impairment Service, rather than in the child's school. This encourages co-ordinated approaches, proper systems for allocating and maintaining provision, and access to suitable training, resources and equipment (which can be too expensive for individual schools to supply). We had plenty of evidence of the difficulties that can occur when there is no proper system. Our argument was finally accepted and our Intervenor Programme began in September 2000.
A success story
One school year on, what have we achieved for Tibra, Irfan and Saima? All three children each have 15 hours of specialist Intervention designed to maximise their access to the curriculum. They also each receive specialist teacher support for tutorials, language work, monitoring and guidance, and roughly 10 hours in-class support, mainly note-taking. Liaison with teachers, and modifying and enlarging materials are also important. Text books, work sheets, maps, exam papers are all enlarged to N18, but produced in A4 format, with colour printing and professional covers. All three children have been taught to touch type (with appropriate enlargement of the icons and fonts), and use suitable magnifiers.
Saima has completed her first year of High School and passed all her exams with marks above 65%. Irfan, having been without support for so long, has at last begun to show his true ability. His maths and science teachers in particular have noticed a difference in his attitude and quality of his work since he began to receive support. His school has realised the benefits of producing work in the modified format, and teachers are at last beginning to bring work for modification in plenty of time before the lessons. Tibra has successfully completed her first year of a GNVQ course in IT and Business Studies, combined with Basic Skills, and is talking about the possibility of Higher Education.
At last, we have a system which will provide continuity, flexibility and highly trained and experienced members of the team - backed up by a Resource Department and supported by Teachers of Visual Impairment and Deafblind. And Tibra, who has recently become a Peer Counsellor at school, commented to Kerry, her new Intervenor, "Don't worry... You'll soon get used to everything."
