Despite Special Olympics euphoria, the allocation of special-needs assistants in schools has been cut back, reports Sylvia Thompson

Just three months after the outpouring of good feeling towards people with learning disabilities during Ireland's hosting of the Special Olympics World Summer Games, a group of children with special needs are suffering from cuts in the education budget.

As other four- and five-year-olds settle into their fourth week of school, many new pupils with Down's syndrome are having to cope without the special-needs assistants who help them fit in with their complex new environments. Others remain at home as school principals and boards of management search for solutions. Their parents are outraged by the Department of Education and Science's refusal to grant them help in spite of psychological assessments stating their need.

Ann and Michael Cooney's six-year-old daughter, Michelle, is a case in point. A psychological assessment by the Midland Health Board classified her with a mild to moderate level of Down's syndrome and said she required a special-needs assistant for 15 hours a week, with five hours of resource teaching. Instead, Michelle, who goes to Tang National School in Ballymahon, Co Westmeath, was granted three and a half hours of resource teaching a week and no special-needs assistant.

"Michelle is enjoying school and is very capable of learning with the proper supports in place (Michelle is above the intellectual ability for a special school). But she is not able to function properly: she is not able to cope in the playground, and she needs help with things like going to the toilet, so that she doesn't lock herself in and dresses herself properly afterwards, washing her hands and changing her jacket and shoes," says Ann Cooney.

Cooney's anger is directed at the Department of Education. "To withdraw this facility in such a blunt way is a kick in the teeth. Just three months after we hosted the Special Olympics we are faced with this act of blatant inequality. If I were to keep either of my other two children home from school they'd be at my door, but if I kept Michelle at home and said nothing, nobody would come near the house.

"What makes this action more brutal is that it has been done at such a fragile stage in their education. The implications are that the teachers are stretched in a number of ways - both in their time and their resources - and these children can't achieve to the level of their ability either socially or educationally."

Liz and Neilus Byrne have two children who started at Abbeydorney National School in Co Kerry this year: six-year-old Paul, who has Down's syndrome, and five-year-old Carina. "We were expecting a full-time special-needs assistant, as recommended by a psychological assessment, for Paul, who is still in nappies, but instead he was only granted a special-needs assistant for 10 hours a week and three and a half hours per week with the resource teacher," says Liz Byrne.

Such is her concern for her son's safety in class that she returns to the school each day to pick him up at 11.30 a.m., when his special-needs assistant's time with him is over. "Paul is easily frightened, so if, say, a row broke out between children he might run out of the classroom onto the busy road outside the school, and he has no sense of road safety."

Keen to point out the positive side of Paul's place at a mainstream school, she adds: "He is mixing well with the other children and doing his best to conform. He doesn't speak, but a mainstream school offers him the best chance for his speech to come on. In a special school there would be no incentive to speak. He's quite a sociable child. There is great support locally for him, and I can't praise the school enough [for its efforts\]. But I do feel if he got the full 20 hours with a special-needs assistant he would have a more normal day with the other children in the classroom and learn more."

Maree O'Connor of Down Syndrome Ireland echoes Cooney and Byrne's comments. On a break from her job as deputy principal in a primary school, O'Connor also has a child with Down's syndrome. Nine-year-old Labhaoise, who is in third class at Caherleaheen National School in Tralee, Co Kerry, has had a special-needs assistant for two to three years.

"The Department has reneged on us. And things have suddenly regressed after all the progress of the last four years," she says. "There were certain criteria for a special-needs assistant to be allocated to children, depending on their physical needs, their care needs and their safety needs. Now the Department is interpreting these needs more narrowly. They aren't saying that they have been directed to make cutbacks, but they are reinterpreting the criteria for allocation of special-needs assistants.

"We've been told that a review of schools found the system was being misused and that some schools had an excess of special-needs assistants. But our answer to that is why victimise the children with the most needs, such as the children with Down's syndrome starting in junior-infants classes, where an allocation of special-needs assistants could never be termed a misuse of the system?

"We in Down Syndrome Ireland are calling for an automatic entitlement to a special-needs assistant upon entry to primary and secondary school. We have no problem with that being reviewed as the child goes through the system."

The recent Junior Certificate results of Patricia Carney, who has Down's syndrome, show how well some children with special needs can do in the mainstream school system.

"She is going round feeling like a star," says her mother, also Patricia. Her daughter, who got two As, two Bs and a C, had the support of a classroom assistant at St Joseph of Cluney Secondary School in Killiney, Co Dublin, for two years.

"The cutbacks now will make it impossible for schools, because they don't have the resources and everyone is overworked. If a child with Down syndrome goes to mainstream school, the resources should be there for them," she says.

"I remember hearing a psychologist talk about children with Down syndrome years ago, saying things like they won't initiate conversation. I was appalled. Given the opportunity, these children will really reach their potential. I have five children and they all have different abilities. All children should be given the opportunity to reach their potential."

John Carr, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, says primary-school teachers share the concerns of Down Syndrome Ireland.

"If children need full-time support from a special-needs assistant, then this must be provided. The focus must be on the needs of the child rather than on other considerations. The INTO is aware that applications from a number of children have been refused and others have not yet been responded to. This is placing boards of management, parents and teachers in an impossible position. These resources are necessary to support the education and integration of the children."

The Department of Education says it received 863 applications, 71 of which have not yet been dealt with, for special-needs assistants, resource teaching hours or both for children starting primary school this year. The Department does not specify what percentage of children received the special-needs assistants they requested. The Irish Times was told, however, that decisions cannot generally be appealed "unless additional information becomes available".

Applications for special-needs assistants and resource teaching hours for existing pupils have yet to be processed. These allocations will not be made until the Department completes a census of special-needs pupils and allocated resources later this month. The treatment of junior infants with special needs augurs badly for the future allocations.

When children need more help

Special-needs assistants were introduced by the Department of Education and Science in 1998, to help pupils with disabilities in mainstream or special schools.

Primary schools currently share about 3,800 full-time and 1,000 part-time special-needs assistants, who cost the Department about €100 million a year.

According to the criteria the Department uses to assess special needs, assistants may be allocated when pupils have a significant medical need or

impairment of a physical or sensory function or when their behaviour makes them a danger to themselves or to other pupils.