Story: Western People Newspaper, April 2nd 2008
Hope of progress on autism school in Kiltimagh
EFFORTS to open a special school in Mayo for children with autism could make significant progress next month. Mayo Autism Action has renovated a building which it rents from the IRD in Kiltimagh. Everything has been ready since January and the group is now hoping that an American expert in autism eduction might take up management of the new school in May.
An experienced educational psychologist is to travel from the US to see whether they would be suited to the Mayo job. A spokesperson for Mayo Autism Action (MAA) said that while the appointment had not been finalised, the group was "cautiously hopeful" that progress could be made.
"This person has a lot of experience in running Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) schools on the other side of the Atlantic. The job or the county might or might not suit them, but we should know in May." MAA has already been through a lengthy search for a specialist to run the school and faced a frustrating hitch when funding was delayed and a UK-based professional, who was in line for the job, took another post in England.
With a waiting list of 20 children, even before the school has opened its doors, MAA has raised huge funds and is still waiting to see how the Department of Education will respond.
"The Programme for Government made a commitment to fund 12 pilot projects. They are now considering another 12 applicant schools, that’s the category the Kiltimagh project falls into. A lot of questions have been asked of Mary Hanafin in the Dail, but we still don’t know whether or not we’ll get significant funds," the MAA President said.
"Even if we got government support, we will still need in the order of €100,000 every year on top of that. But, if we got the staff tomorrow, we would be able to get things going."
ABA is a one-to-one model. The school would only require one specialist to get things up and running. The specialist system has a success rate of almost 50 per cent, and one of its aims is to prepare children to join the mainstream education system.
MAA is hopeful that a speech and occupational therapy service can also be provided in Mayo, using the Kiltimagh centre as a base. "It would be great if we could avoid having children travel to Galway for these services. It should be possible to have therapists come here and reach their Mayo clients."
Mayo Autism Action will hold their monthly meeting tomorrow night (Wednesday) at the Kiltimagh centre, located at the back of the IRD building. The meeting begins at 8.30pm and is open to the family and friends of people with autism. This month’s meeting coincides with World Autism Awareness Day.
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