Examination of Witnesses (Questions 616-619)
MR MIKE
COLLINS, DR
SUSAN TRESMAN,
MS VIRGINIA
BEARDSHAW AND
MR DAVID
CONGDON
1 MARCH 2006
Q616 Chairman: Can I welcome Mike Collins,
Susan Tresman, Virginia Beardshaw and David Congdon. Can I start
with an apology. So many people want to give evidence to this
Committee on these hearings that we do have to cram a lot of you
in, I am awfully sorry about that, and on a Wednesday we then
start budging right into Prime Minister's Questions, so you do
get squeezed, apologies. It is going to be pretty much rapid fire
and rapid response, is that all right? I am sorry about that.
Starting with David, tell me which is your organisation and why
you have asked to give evidence.
Mr Congdon: David Congdon, Head
of Campaigns and Policy at Mencap. We have a long history of campaigning
in the field of equal rights for people with a learning disability.
We wanted the opportunity to get our message across that we believe
in a mixed approach to education and inclusion is the long-term
goal but both mainstream and special schools have a role to play.
Ms Beardshaw: I am very pleased
to be giving evidence to the Committee representing I CAN which
helps children communicate. Our special focus is children who
find that extremely difficult, children with communication disabilities.
Having a communication disability means you have got problems
in using and understanding words, discriminating between speech
sounds, using words to convey meanings or using language in a
social context. An important point here is that many children
have speech and language difficulties as a primary disability
but this is a pan-disability issue because many children who have
disabilities, like Down's, autism, dyslexia, have an element of
communication disability which has a knock-on effect on their
learning and literacy capacity and also on their behaviour. Behavioural
difficulties in many, many, many instances have a communication
route.
Mr Collins: Mike Collins, Head
of Education with the National Autistic Society. We have over
14,000 members. We have a variety and a range of services for
parents, including advocacy, supporting them to tribunal and so
forth. Also we work with local education authorities at a strategic
level in developing specialist provision within authorities and
directly with teachers through training. In the last year we trained
over 5,000 teachers in responding to the needs of children with
autism in mainstream schools.
Dr Tresman: The British Dyslexia
Association is the leading membership organisation representing
those with dyslexia and those who support people with dyslexia.
The membership spans individuals, organisations, support groups
and an extensive network of local charities, small charities.
The national helpline and the website take in excess of tens of
thousands and a million hits respectively and that is free and
confidential advice at the point of service.
Chairman: Thank you. I hope my team has
noticed the self-denying ordinance of the Chairman.
Q617 Mr Chaytor: Could I ask about
the question of what might be called the invisible disabilities,
in particular the scale of these and the question of how good
are we at recognising them and responding to them. How many children
are identified at the primary phase of education? Maybe, Mike,
if you could kick off from the Autistic Society's point of view.
Our interest is in the emergence of autistic spectrum disorders
as a serious area of concern over recent years.
Mr Collins: When I was nine years
old the boy at the desk next to mine actually had Asperger's syndrome
but we did not know anything about it at the time. He went on
to the grammar school and I went to the secondary modern, which
says something. There are particular groups across the autistic
spectrum that are beginning to emerge. The classic Kanner type
child, very obvious with socio-learning difficulties, may well
also have Down's syndrome and so on. The invisible children in
the autistic spectrum have been the Asperger's, those who appear
odd, eccentric and so on in their school careers and perhaps have
been subject to bullying throughout their school careers and felt
quite socially isolated. The other group that concerns me greatly
from my work with authorities in our own school are those children
with autism who exhibit very passive behaviours; if you do not
engage with them, they do not engage with you. From the point
of view of teachers both in special schools and mainstreams these
children are no trouble and they can be often overlooked and their
needs are not met. This is the group that particularly concerns
me and I know increasingly concerns teachers.
Q618 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
identification of needs, what needs to be done to improve the
early identification?
Mr Collins: The key is training.
Children's services and diagnostic services are now much more
aware. There are national standards and instruments and so on
which will assess children. The key is the interpretation of that
information, what is the impact of the condition on the child
and, therefore, how do we need to respond to that condition to
give them every chance of success. Whilst health professionals—there
are still a few—are getting better at that, where the next
tranche of major training needs to be placed is for teachers,
particularly those in mainstream. Primary schools are beginning
to get there but some children are not picked up until nine, 10
or even later and they suddenly arrive at secondary school and
their world collapses. The key there is training, particularly
for SENCOs because usually they are the first line of contact
teachers with concerns about children.
Q619 Mr Chaytor: What is your estimate
of the total number of children with Aspergers, particularly the
proportion of those who are not identified until the end of their
primary school careers?
Mr Collins: Because they are not
identified we cannot count them.
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