On Friday morning we went to the Autism
Awareness and Treatment Center in Accra. It was founded by a woman
named Serwah, and she is a former nurse practitioner and the mother
of a boy who has autism. As we pulled up, I noticed that they have a
nice playground with swings and slides for the children to play on.
The courtyard was rather small, and the building itself seemed small
once we learned that it serves 32 children. I observed in the class
of children aged 4-7 years old. Since it was Friday, there were only
3 children in the class, not the usual 10.
But even with only 3 children, the
aide/teacher in charge had her hands full. They had circle time,
where they placed a mat on the floor and then dumped a pile of toys
in the middle and let the children play with them as they observed.
There was a small amount of interaction between the children and
aides, but it was not as hands on as I have seen other aides be with
children in the US. That is not to say they are not receiving
adequate care, it was just something I noticed, which could have also
been because there were a group of seven additional adults crammed
into the classroom.
On the walls I noticed that there were
small posters that described an activity and how it was improving the
quality of life of the children. Things such as music, playdoh,
dancing, etc. where related to the brain and motor skills. There were
more that I would have liked to see because I was interested in the
different types of interventions they were doing with the children,
if they were doing any at all.
This place is amazing in many ways.
They give resources and hope to parents and children with autism, and
they've been doing this for the past 15 years. Serwah said some
things when she was talking to us that really struck me. The first
thing that caught my attention was when she said that “the need is
greater than the amount of services they can provide”. This seems
to be a common theme in what we have been learning about disability
in Ghana. She also said something along the lines of “we don't need
to worry about the 20% of people with disabilities, we should worry
about training the 80% of people who don't have disabilities”. This
is something that we are taught with the social model of disability,
and I think that this is something that may take awhile for society
in Ghana to embrace.
We also got to speak to the movement
therapist, Yesuko, whose name I am probably misspelling. She was
lovely, and she said something that stood out to me. She said that
the kids at the center “could learn anything as long as we teach
them in the most convenient way for them”. This is something that
should be taught for the inclusion teachers to help them start to
think about how to help someone with autism learn in their classroom.
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