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 A while back, my ex-colleague wrote about her thoughts on finding out that her little girl might be autistic. When she wrote that piece, she was still my colleague. She has since left her job so that she could focus more attention on her only child. And just yesterday, I read about how the Lien Foundation and KK Women's and Children's Hospital (Department of Child Development) had just launched an early detection and intervention programme targeting children with developmental needs. Preschoolers who have learning difficulties and who are attending PAP Community Foundation (PCF) kindergartens located in the Punggol-Pasir Ris GRC would now have access to an individual education plan, therapy lessons and in-class support sessions. And most importantly, these would be held during school hours.
Though I feel glad for my ex-colleague, and am heartened to read about this initiative by the Lien Foundation and KKH, I feel a tinge of wistfulness, even regret. I am perhaps one of the few (and foolish, some would say) parents who still feel that toddlers and preschoolers should be left to play and craft their own spontaneous learning experiences as much as possible. That they be spared typical childhood routines of tuition, enrichment class etc. until they reach primary school, and even then, only if it is deemed absolutely necessary (though the context of ‘necessary’ keeps shifting). And since each child learns at a different pace, a Harry-Potter reading six-year-old shouldn’t be compared to one still stumbling over Dr Seuss (though giggling all the way).
Hence, when my older boy struggled with ABCs while his kinder peers were already reading sentences, I didn’t think too much of it. He will catch up, we all thought. Come four years and many therapy sessions later, we know that he has dyslexia and a host of other learning issues. However, the ball only started rolling when he was identified in Primary 1, and then began a long and often-painful journey to work out what he needs to help him cope. Today, many ‘what ifs’ hound me each day when I see him poring over his homework. Should I have been more ‘kiasu’ ? What if we had detected his problems sooner? If we had addressed his needs earlier, would he be struggling so hard now in mainstream school?
I would not want other parents to walk in my shoes and to be saddled with these ‘what ifs’. Worse still, for them to not even know that their children might have a problem, or to not even care that they do. Since the pilot of the Lien Foundation-KKH programme was launched in July last year, more than 900 children in PCF schools have been screened and about 90 have been identified for therapy. For me, a time when every preschooler – whether in PCF or any other kindergarten – is screened for learning difficulties could not come too soon.
On a final note, I have an issue with the headline of the ST online article, ‘Early help for problem kids’. Why say ‘problem kids’ when you can say ‘kids with problems’ or better still, learning challenges? One alienates, the other invites empathy. And these kids – speaking for my own and the others out there – need all the help and support they can get.
What do you think of this article? Do you have a child with learning difficulties? Do share your thoughts with us.
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