Just like elsewhere
\nin the world, Romania has seen an increase in the number of children diagnosed
\nwith mental and developmental disorders such as autism and attention deficit
\nhyperactivity disorder, known as ADHD. However, this is rather an empirical
\nstatement, because there are no conclusive or recent statistics on this. In
\n2012, there were 7,179 people registered as being diagnosed with autism
\naccording to statistics provided by the Health Ministry, but specialists say
\nthat the real number is much higher. In September 2015, the Save the Children
\nnon-governmental organisation estimated, based on data from the World Health
\nOrganisation, that out of approximately 3.8 million Romanian children, 760,000
\nsuffered from a mental disorder, of which 13% of anxiety and 5% of ADHD. Also,
\none in 500 children were diagnosed with a form of autism and pervasive
\ndevelopmental disorders. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
However, even more
\ndifficult than drawing up real statistics is the daily life of such children
\nand their families, in particular the inclusion of the former into the school
\nsystem. The education law has provisions granting support and ensuring the
\nintegration of these children, who are referred to as children with special
\neducational needs. There are also pieces of secondary legislation establishing
\nthe forms and types of support services. They benefit those children who,
\nfollowing an assessment, received a school and professional guidance
\ncertificate issued by an educational resource and support centre. On the basis
\nof this certificate, children with special educational needs can enrol into any
\npublic school, where they should benefit from psychological counselling and
\nalso have a support teacher to help them integrate and acquire the necessary
\nskills. As usual, everything looks better on paper than in reality. Robert
\nFlorea, a coordinator with the Educational Resource and Support Centre in
\nBucharest told us:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, at
\nleast in Bucharest, support teachers are scarce. They can only spend one or two
\nhours a week with each child. For instance, such a teacher has 4 to 6 hours a
\nmonth allocated for a child that has a certificate attesting the fact that he
\nor she has special educational needs. From our point of view, this is
\ninsufficient. The support granted to these children and the educational methods
\nthey benefit from could certainly be improved.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the
\nadministrative and staff issues are not as big as those triggered by the very
\ngroups of children that children with autism or ADHD are supposed to integrate
\ninto. Maria Teodorescu is a teacher and counsellor at a middle school in
\nBucharest and supports the inclusion into regular classes of the children with
\nspecial educational needs. Maria Teodorescu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The psychological
\nand pedagogical component should be better developed for these children to
\nbenefit from proper treatment. But what is needed most is for parents to better
\nunderstand that at some point their children are children with special needs. A
\nnecessary thing is the efficient cooperation between the support teacher, the
\nschool counsellor, the elementary or secondary school teacher and parents. For
\nthese children to be accepted by their classmates, teachers should organise
\nactivities that should show the other pupils what tolerance means, because some
\nof them do not know the significance of this word.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Apart from learning about tolerance,
\nchildren and parents alike should find out about the behavioural disorders
\ncaused by ADHD. Anemari Nec\u015fulescu, who has a boy diagnosed with ADHD, shares
\nher experience: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Children with behavioural disorders need attention,
\nas they find it difficult to concentrate and focus for a long period of time.
\nThis is why they disturb the class, for example. They speak without being asked
\nand don’t wait for their turn, they become agitated and disturb their
\ncolleagues. A teacher alone in the classroom with 29 pupils or more cannot
\nhandle the situation. Integration should be tackled from the perspective of
\nparents of normal children, who do not know anything about these disorders and
\nwho, in most cases, are afraid of what they don’t know. And this leads to
\nrejection and stigma.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
When mutual understanding fails, the situation can
\nbecome extremely tense, especially when, against the background of
\nmarginalisation and increasing frustration, a child with ADHD can become
\nviolent. This autumn, at a secondary school in Ploie\u015fti, the parents of most of
\nthe pupils protested against keeping in school a child who had been diagnosed
\nwith ADHD and who they say had a violent behaviour. This reaction is not
\nunfamiliar to Anemari Nec\u015fulescu: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I have had to deal with a primary school teacher who
\nwas not prepared to handle the temperament and the medical issue of our son,
\nwho, at the time, had not yet been diagnosed with ADHD. We did not know that
\nour son suffered from ADHD, all we knew is that the teacher kept calling us to
\nschool to complain about the problems created by our son. He was not violent,
\nhe only disturbed the class. The teacher complained about these problems in
\nfront of the other parents, many of whom became very aggressive, called our son
\n‘handicapped’ and asked us to take him away from that school. We were open to
\nhave our son assessed by the school counsellor. We submitted an application and
\nhad the child assessed because we were looking for solutions. We moved the
\nchild to another school where we had the support of the director, because we
\nwanted our son’s right to education, as stipulated in Romania’s Constitution,
\nto be observed. We also hired a therapist for our boy. We agreed with his new
\nteacher to give him tasks whenever she noticed that his frustration was piling
\nup: to clean the blackboard, to dump the garbage can or to do small errands.
\nThese tasks make him loosen up, relax and he returns ready to pay attention to
\nthe class.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Following mediation between parents and school
\nrepresentatives, the situation at the school in Ploie\u015fti calmed down and the
\npupil who disturbed the class is now back in school. Also the integration of
\nAnemari Nec\u015fulescu’s son is working well for the time being. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just like elsewhere in the world, Romania has seen an increase in the number of children diagnosed with mental and developmental disorders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":142118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[43582],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-142117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-special-needs-children"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n