Children with disabilities at risk of not achieving potential

An organisation representing pre-school has backed Children’s Ombudsman Emily Logan’s call for proper supports for nearly 4,000 children with disabilities, saying they otherwise risk not achieving their potential.

Early Childhood Ireland is seeking a €36m investment from the Department of Education to provide special needs assistants (SNAs) for children attending early education services. It also wants increased and timely assessments so children with additional needs can fully benefit from Government investment in early childhood care and education.

“We know from the latest Pobal survey that 45% of all services had at least one child with a diagnosed special needs, and almost 4,000 children with disabilities were reported in these services,” said Early Childhood Ireland chief executive Teresa Heeney.

She said children with additional needs who have not been assessed will be walking into pre-school services next Monday, but that Ms Logan is right to say that supports for such children vary because of lack of Government policy and investment.

“These services are expected to cope and will do their best,” said Ms Heeney. “But without the requisite supports and attention, these children will simply not be able to achieve their potential.”

Ms Heeney said it is not right that children with additional needs are missing out, and it is a big issue for the organisation’s 3,400 members, catering for more than 100,000 children in pre-schools and crèches.

Ms Heeney said a funding strand should be incorporated into current schemes to provide specific supports that would enable pre-school providers directly employ SNAs or access other specialists like speech and language therapists. The organisation has sought meetings with Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan and Children’s Minister James Reilly, and says this issue will be top of their agenda.