Page 1399 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 April 2013
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best practice and will deliver the best outcomes. While there are attractions to establishing an autism-specific learning environment, with all of the communication supports in place, some families may well prefer their child to spend more time in a mainstream environment. There is no doubt that the AEIOU website is very professional, and I do not doubt the commitment they bring to early education services for children with autism, but the models of intervention are not clearly outlined.
It is also unclear as to how children at the school would access therapeutic services that they might require. Is it expected that the ACT government would deliver services to a privately run school or would other methods be put in place? Certainly, the Liberal costing of the policy does not include the provision of therapeutic services. Given that the Liberal Party are effectively asking the government to fund a private service provider to deliver early intervention services, I believe some kind of in-depth discussion about the service delivery model would need to be undertaken with government before taking further steps.
It is true that having a single education facility that provides services to the bulk of children with autism has its attractions. Firstly, there would hopefully be a single uniform curriculum that was developed and tweaked to suit over time. Secondly, an institution dedicated to the provision of educational services for children with autism would certainly foster a centre-of-excellence environment where teachers and ancillary staff would be likely to build and maintain a high level of skill and expertise in the area of ASD.
Currently, early education services for children with autism are provided by the education department, with children eligible for nine hours a week at the autism intervention units. They can also supplement this with time at the mainstream preschool. Therapeutic and diagnosis services are provided by a specialist team at Therapy ACT. It would be useful to see how the government fosters the development of expertise not so much in the Therapy ACT team—which presumably has the chance to build expertise and engage in best practice—but in the autism intervention units and the learning support units where staff can come and go and often do not have specific background in ASD.
It can be difficult for parents who enrol their children in a unit such as the AIU to see that a new teacher may have no or little experience in working with children with ASD, especially if there is not a great deal of professional development support for those staff put in that position.
Mr Doszpot’s motion at paragraph (2)(a) calls for the government to develop more effective autism-specific diagnostic services, and he discussed this in his speech. My understanding is that Therapy ACT have an autism-specific diagnostic process that is multidisciplinary and involves home and school visits with specific follow-up to develop programs and support for children who are diagnosed. It requires hearing and cognitive assessments to be undertaken prior to children being referred, and that seems appropriate. One of the things that might improve the assessment process is having a paediatrician or doctor on the team, and the Health Directorate could probably contribute to the team in that way. That is something the government might wish to give further consideration to.
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