The Right to Education bill has been passed by the Lok Sabha and has been hailed as landmark bill for the Indian education system. However, the bill has grossly overlooked the issue of education to “children with disabilities”, particularly those with Autism. The bill does not provide any right to education for such children as it excludes children with such disabilities from mainstream education. The Spastics Society of India is reportedly opposing the bill and staging dharna and protests to include the disabled children also to benefit from the right to education bill.
Activists have been claiming that autistic children were not covered under the draft legislation and had approached Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi in this regard.
The problem of education of autistic children is much more complex. Autistic children do well working one on one, but the idea of mainstream education is to make the children study in a group, which is a difficult task and needs lot of training of the professionals. Due to increasing efforts of parents and some special schools, lot of schools have become aware of the disability per say. There are some schools which are actually willing to help but they are not equipped. There is a severe dearth of special educators, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists.
As compared to other places, Bangalore has a reasonable number of integrated schools and therapists, but due to overcrowding, approachability is becoming difficult, and the charges exorbitantly high. Moreover, integrated schools prefer Dyslexic and Mentally Retarded children rather than Autistic because lot of awareness, training and funding is there for these disabilities only.
There is a therapy called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), which has proven to be very effective in Autism worldwide. But we find very few ABA therapists in India, as ABA is not taught in Indian universities. The therapists who are available are all trained abroad and hence their charges are very high.
I understand that the awareness about Autism is now growing in the society. TV serial like “Aapki Antara” on ZEE TV is also contributing to the growing awareness. However, it is a common knowledge that the government and educational institutions have so far done very little for these children. Surprisingly, Autism is not even included in “Persons with Disabilities Act” though Income Tax Act recognizes Autism as severe disabiity and allows deductions under section 80DD. Further, the National Trust Act also recognises Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities. However, it mainly covers the care and protection of such children and not the right to education.
Though the rights of children under the Persons with Disabilities(PWD) Act have been protected in the Bill to some extent, it does not cover cerebral palsy and autism. According to official view on the issue, the PWD Act not only covers physical disabilities but even mental and loco-motor disabilities; and only after the Act is amended to incude cerebral palsy and autism, these grievances can be addressed.
I am a mother of 7 year old autistic boy staying in Bangalore. As everyone may be aware, Autism is a severe disability affecting communication and social abilities of a person. My son has some behavioral issues too, due to his anxiety of not being able to communicate, which is quite common in autistics. Hence, getting admissions in school is a big problem for my child. In the last academic year, we had enquired 13 schools in Bangalore and faced denial due to his disability.
I have given up my career to take care of my autistic son as he requires 24 hours of vigilance. My husband has also compromised on his career for staying in Bangalore. Due to which we are even finding it difficult to manage our household well along with all the therapies. We have another normal child, for whom we need to have money, so that he is educated well.
Don’t I deserve to have my children educated well, as per their potential? Is any body listening?
Anupriya Sinha, Bangalore
Tags: Autism, autistic children, disability act, right to education
Your article raises two distinct issues:
1. Unless the Persons with Disabilities Act is modified, the Right to Education Bill will not accrue any benefit to autistic children.
2. There is a severe dearth of special schools and trained teachers to impart education to such children.
These issues have to be brought to the notice of government, educationists, NGOs and others to create awareness and convince planners and administrators to address to the problems of autistic children. It is known that one in every 150 is an autistic child. If not addressed urgently, the problem is likely to assume a gigantic magnitude.
– Dr P R Prasad
Hi,
My approx 5 yr. old too has autistic problem, particularly in communication. We are afraid too about her education. I strongly support your views that such kids should be encouraged rather than any direct/indirect denial of education opportunities. I agree that we must try to highlight these issues through NGOs to the policy makers/govt.
Its matter of life and career of kids, afterall.
regards,
Sanjay Kumar Thakur
Hi,
My son Utkarsh who is 10 years old , is also having Autism. Nice to know that at least people in India are getting aware about Autism. I have moved to United States 2 years ago and very well see the difference in attitude of people about autistic kids. Let’s keep this conversation going.
Ashish Mishra
woodbridge (NJ)
ashishkrmishra@gmail.com
I totally support your vews regarding right to education for Children with Autism. On top of that a special educator does not mean he or she will be able to manage an austistic child. One must have special knowledge about Autism/Asperger’s syndrome.
Kapil sssssssssssssibbal is coming out with lots of new ideas in the field of education but no comment on Autistic children.
– Krishna Roy
hello, i m here again, waiting for the next post
Hi
i strongly reflect your thoughts positively. i have a son who is 8 yr old thou’ he is communicative we are still looking for the school. i think indian universities must come forward to have this subject in their curriculum so that more no. of therapists will come out, because the no. of therapists for the students is very less. i hope we all raise our voice for our children to get their rights appropriately.
rgs
kavitha dhiwakharan, bangalore
Hi,
Exactly u reflected mine & of so many other parents. I’m a parent educational advocate / consultant in Autism field moved to b’lore last yr. I encourage you to join my yahoo support grp called bangalore_specialkids & benefit (I’ve been running it for ~an year, to help parents of children with autism), so u can contact more than 25 parents by sending AN email. As this is something that WE ALL have to do together, to be able to make any differeence.
So, hoping to see u in the grp soon & we will take it fwd further.
Best,
Amrutha
punctilious post. simply one detail where I contest with it. I am emailing you in detail.
[...] parents and individuals for their positive and constructive responses to my previous post “Education of Autistic Children“. All agree that the related issues should be addressed unitedly and at all [...]
Hi All,
I’m also interested in creating some changes in the education system available to kids with special needs. Please do visit this yahoo group, where I’m member for the past 1 year and there are around 1500 members discussing various isssues about kids with special need.
Thanks
Hello
As a parent of 5 year old autistic kid i totally agree to your points. Yes we pay through our nose for education, ABA etc and still compromise on quality and value. This means serious loss for our kids. I will like to suggest and put a point that we have also started with Homeopathic and Biomedical treatment in India ( from a US doctor) and we are seeing some postive results. You can call me on 9742256059 to know more.
Thanks
Manu
It is good to know that this problem is understood by some people. My only son of 10years old is autistic. I have been staying in Bhubaneswar since last 8 years. My wife has tried her best to do something for his education. Thanks to Kids World which is helping my son for education. But, this school is upto 5th standard. there is no other school here after that. I may also be ignorant whether there is any tax benefit for such child. Kindly help me.
Hi, I am a parent of a 15 year old boy diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and after having faced a lot of discrimination by regular schools both at Mumbai and Bangalore, we found solace at Chennai (where my husband and me got transferred). I have now left my Public Sector assignment since I did not want to relocate to any other city having seen the ground realities. At Chennai, I find that not only are schools more open, but they are also more than willing to accommodate. The awareness levels is also high. I was lucky that my son got admitted to Lady Andal School in Class V which treated both my son and we parents with a lot of dignity. After faring well in academics and also getting prizes for his academic performances, I have now shifted him to NIOS pattern to take off the burden of studying too many subjects in Class X. He is doing fine, but most importantly he is treated well at school and even if there are behavioural issues (which as you will agree will never cease) the school is ready to listen, discuss, counsel and sort out rather than take an aggressive stand. However, we still have a long way to go wherein parents like us must join together to ensure they have an enriching life and most importantly an economically and socially independent life after us. I am interested in working towards employment of adults with special needs especially with autism/ aspergers and if you could give some suggestions shall be grateful. I would first like to work on the database of adults, meet them, assess, find out where they can fit in and work with corporates. I think this will in the long run also benefit the self esteem of our children. Any suggestions are welcome.
[...] earlier two posts by Anupriya Sinha - “Education of Autistic Children” and “Education of Autistic Children - Govt Initiatives” - it was pointed out [...]
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