The Irish Examiner 14 May 2002
DR OLIVE HEALY says autistic children in her school are making astounding progress, but the government doesn't want to know about it.
"No one has bothered to inspect the programme, no one seems to want to know what results we've had. It's as if they're not interested in what's taking place," she says.
Behind the walls of the Cork CABAS school in Glasheen, something remarkable is happening.
Children are arriving with autism but, through education known as Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), many are going onto mainstream schools and being de?classified as autistic.
The tailor?made education is based on the concept that if a child is not learning, the problem lies with the teaching method - not the pupil.
Since the school started in 1999, the first child has gone into a mainstream school and is due to lose their 'autistic' diagnosis.
Dr Healy, school director, says another eight children are due to follow suit. But they're not miracle workers, she says, and there are some children who will always have to deal with the problems of their condition.
"Not everyone will end up in a mainstream classroom. Others are lower down the autism spectrum and haven't yet learned to use vocal language. But they can go on to communicate through a picture?based system and their frustration disappears."
Despite the progress this education offers, the Government has been fighting parents who want tailor?made teaching for their children all the way to the courts because of the education's cost.
Even the CABAS school, which now caters for 30 young children, was set up and extended only after threats of legal action. "It's only with sheer reluctance that they're giving the go-ahead to these schools. They are being settled in the corridors of the courts."
