A Galway school that teaches children with Down Syndrome has hit out at the Government over the lack of a home tuition grant that would enable many children to receive vital speech and language intervention.

At present, the grant is only accessible to children who are on the autism spectrum, which has resulted in thousands of children with Down Syndrome being left without this intervention or having to pay for it themselves.

Speech and Language Pathologist, Deirdre Muldoon of ELI Schools, which is based in Oranmore, said the lack of a grant for those with Down Syndrome was blatant discrimination.

“Early intervention is pivotal to these children in order to ensure their communication skills. The results of our work in ELI preschools in Galway and Dublin have been significant; we have seen a large percentage of the children with Down’s Syndrome go on to graduate from ELI and attend main-stream educational settings.

“Children with Down Syndrome present with particular difficulties in language that the ELI preschool language curriculum is designed to help them overcome. Children with Down Syndrome present with difficulties in learning and retaining vocabulary, so the repetitive nature of the language used in teaching at ELI helps them as they are continuously exposed to everyday words in a functional and playful way.

“Children with Down Syndrome are slower to learn the syntax and grammar of language; the small group intervention, along with individual plans for each child, ensures that any weakness that the child presents with is identified and remediated in a functional, language rich environment. In addition, children with Down Syndrome are visual learners and the ELI preschools provide early learners with sign language or pictures to assist them in learning to communicate, often before first words emerge,” she said.

Ms Muldoon highlighted the plight of many parents who have to wait for up to three years to even have their child assessed by the public health system.

“Many parents that come to us report a two to three year waiting list for their children to obtain an assessment or service via the public health system. This delay is disgraceful and in the case of a child with Down Syndrome, it is extremely important that they receive language intervention in their pre-school years. I have encountered many parents who are simply exhausted by the health service and are seeking help from our schools so that their children don’t have to wait for years before receiving the support and language intervention they need. The state system currently leaves children with speech difficulties severely disadvantaged particularly in the case of children with Down Syndrome,” she concluded.

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