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It is a place that is breaking the mould in the field of children's education. Manzil, in Sharjah, caters to children with special needs even while encouraging normally growing children to study along with them.
- By Qadijah S. Irshad
- Published: 00:00 December 15, 2005
It is a place that is breaking the mould in the field of children's education. Manzil, in Sharjah, caters to children with special needs even while encouraging normally growing children to study along with them. While Manzil hopes to achieve greater integration, others question this endeavour.
You may have come across many instances where a child with special needs is placed in a mainstream school where he is tutored along with other normally growing children as an experiment in integration.
But a new centre in Sharjah is attempting something quite unorthodox. Manzil (which in Urdu means destination) has upturned the norm and, in an experimental basis starting early this year, has encouraged admissions for normally growing children who will study along with a majority of children with special needs in the same classroom.
Run by Ayesha Saeed Husaini, an educational psychologist working towards a doctoral thesis from the University of Sheffield, UK, in the field of integration of individuals with special needs, Manzil is the culmination of a dream - which ultimately aims to seamlessly integrate children with special needs into mainstream society.
Manzil has adopted the Early Intervention Programme (prep-school level) that Husaini, director of Manzil, along with assistant director Dr Robyn Hooper, has developed.
"This reverse inclusion of mainstream children in a special needs school has not been done before in the UAE, at least to my knowledge, and we thought it was time someone did," says Husaini.
The Early Intervention classroom at Manzil has seven children but it would be difficult at first glance to recognise who among them are the five children with special needs.
When I arrived at the centre all the seven children were completely absorbed in one of the most beautiful experiences of childhood - playtime.
Laughing, shouting and running about, they seemed so integrated. And that's whenI realised my first mistake - I was trying to look for signs that would tell some children apart from the others.
Like many others, I too had been harbouring some preconceived notions about children with special needs. It was cold comfort to me that I mean extremely well towards all children.
And it is precisely this kind of 'pre-thinking' that the people at Manzil are trying to change.
"Manzil is the culmination of a journey of special needs children, their parents, volunteers and friends of a group called the Special Families Support Group," explains Husaini.
"It is a non-profit centre dedicated to providing quality education and social development programmes for children with special needs so that they can realise their full potential and integrate into the community.
"Our Individualised Educational Programmes (IEPs) focus on functional and emotional needs, and ensure the provision of a learning experience that is broad, balanced, differentiated and appropriate to the needs of each individual, whether it be children with disabilities or typically developing children," she says.
"Since it is difficult to place students with disabilities in the mainstream, we provide exposure at a preliminary level in Manzil. We are not a school.
But before children [begin regular] school, they can attend a centre such as Manzil that caters to their needs and gives them the exposure that can be advantageous [to them] in the long run.
"By introducing this concept of reverse integration (till such time as integration is possible), which [basically] is accepting a minority of typically developing children into a special needs class, we are not only providing a normally developing child the opportunity to grow into accepting a person [with special needs] from a very young age, but also a wonderful opportunity for the children with special needs to interact with their peers from a very early age."
But is it easy? How would such a programme work? What would be the mutual benefits for a normally-developing child as well as a child with special needs in such a classroom situation?
And is there a possibility of an adverse outcome for either?
What are the psychological and social effects on a normally-developing child, especially at such a young age?
Husaini calmly tackles my questions one by one.
"What is the aim of any school with really young children?" she queries, before providing the answer herself: "To help them develop their motor, cognitive, emotional and social skills.
"We put all of this together to [create] a wholesome personality. It is the same aim whether it is a child with special needs or not. Children with special needs move at a different pace, that's all,? says Husaini.
"In a mainstream school, they would have a specific curriculum and they are fit in a classroom of 20 or more students with one, or maybe two, teachers.
"Here, we have a curriculum, which is an adapted version of the British National Curriculum, but the programme is made to fit into our plan in ... a way that every child's needs are taken into consideration. Also, we have individual goals for each child."
The teacher-student ratio at Manzil is extremely healthy. Each child get complete individual attention, she says.
"In a mainstream school too [the children have] goals," Husaini says.
But in Manzil, the programme followed is such that it takes into consideration the fact that one child's goals may be completely different from the other's," she says.
"For instance, in a mainstream class of 20, by and large children would have common goals of literary, numeracy, etc. If they don't reach the required levels, the children are either retained in the same class or asked to explore other options.
"At our centre, the programme for every child would be very different. Because it is an IEP-driven course, the educators run with the child's pace. This means each child gets a lot of individualised attention and a curriculum plan that is tailored exclusively for him/her."
Husaini makes another important point: Manzil, she says, is an ideal situation where a mainstream child has the opportunity of being exposed to children with special needs and learns to accept them at a very early age.
A typically developing child sees the differences that exist in the world. This widens the child's perspective and he becomes more sensitive to the fact that there are people who live life at a different pace.
This exposure, says Husaini, is very important to enable a child to have a well-rounded personality. Whole-hearted acceptance of differences in others is one of the most important qualities a children should grow up with.
Having said that, I bring her back to an earlier doubt. Is there a possibility of adverse effects?
"Yes, there can be adverse effects," admits Husaini. "In terms of speech development, for instance, the whole group is mostly non-verbal. But our highly-trained staff try to compensate for that by paying extra attention to the normally developing child," she says.
What are the experts' views on this kind of unorthodox approach?
Some question the wisdom in this programme of reverse integration.
"[Integrating] children with special needs with mainstream children has been done over the years and is an excellent concept, but I don't think it's a good idea to do the reverse," says Professor Adnan A. Fadhli, director of Rashid Psychiatric Clinic, Bur Dubai, and former head of the department of psychiatry, Rashid Hospital, Dubai.
Prof. Fadhli, who runs his own school for mentally challenged individuals in Iraq, says such a programme is not only impractical but could be "detrimental for the mainstream child".
But Dr Raymond H. Hamden, clinical and forensic psychologist, Comprehensive Medical Centre, Dubai, has a different opinion.
In progressive education, if the idea of combining children of different backgrounds, religions and social strata is supposed to be beneficial for children, why not in the level of intellect, he asks.
"We know that the educational facility should introduce children to information [as well as] exemplify an environment that prepares them for the real world.
"Institutions that are flexible in their student body - representing many nationalities and people from different religions, even political backgrounds - foster an atmosphere for harmony and cooperation. So this also holds true for students who exemplify various intellectual ranges of functioning.
"Children who are slow learners would benefit from programmes for children considered to be average or higher in their intellectual functions. Children who are in this progressed intellectual area will also learn to be patient and accept differences in others," says Dr Hamden.
"However, it is important in such a programme for professionals to make certain that all students benefit from academic presentations in the same classroom. This is done through multi-level teaching within the same class, which is a new teaching technique taught
to most teachers whose education was gained through modern thinking and training programmes," he adds.
Individualised Educational Programme
The Individual Education Programme or IEP, is an educational programme tailored to the individual child, taking into account his/her capabilities and limitations and setting forth specific goals for the child's learning and personal growth.
This seems to be one of the biggest strengths of Manzil. The other is the high teacher-student ratio.
Manzil has a staff of 21, of which 16 are teachers. With 32 students in the classrooms, the teacher-student ratio is a healthy 1:2.
"IEP is an educational plan that is created by pooling the knowledge and experience of both parents and teaching staff to set goals for students keeping in mind each [child's] unique needs," says Lieta Cordoz, head teacher of the Early Intervention section.
"It can be looked upon as a map of where the child is going and is very measurable. Parents get fortnightly reports with their child's achievements recorded. What is not achieved is rethought and restructured to suit the child's abilities," she says.
What do the parents feel?
"It's a great idea ... and very charitable to say that we should make our children part of the world [of special needs children] instead of vice versa.
"But when it comes to ... admitting your child into such a school at the most impressionable age (when they pick up mannerisms and speech patterns in a flash), I think most of us would back off," says Habiba Shuaib, mother of a three-year-old.
"Even if I agree with the concept and want to admit my child into such a programme, I wouldn't be comfortable telling people where my child schools because people would definitely think (my child lacks in some area)," says Ruzbekh Sabbaghi, an Iranian living in Dubai.
"I can't see how it would be beneficial to a mainstream child," says R.B. (name withheld by request), a teacher at a special needs school in Dubai and a mother of two.
"I would love to see the reverse happening - taking in children with special needs in a [school with a] regular curriculum so that my children too would have an opportunity to move with them and learn acceptance at an early age.
"But where special needs children are in a majority in a classroom, I think it would hamper the growth of the mainstream child," she says.
Commenting on the exemplary attention each child at Manzil enjoys, she says, "Even if such a situation exists (of a 2:1 ratio), it's a tough call. From a teacher's point of view, I would say that such a school would need to have very experienced teachers who have been trained specifically for this task where they have to merge two extremely different situations into a singularly effective one.
"But even so, the odds are stacked high. How far can you integrate 'normal' kids in a special needs class? Sometimes it would take months to teach a child with special needs a task that you would take a day to teach a typically developing child. How would the teachers be able to strike a balance?
"Even if the programmes are individualised for each child, how well can the teachers cope? [Also], will it not be detrimental for the development of the child [who is between three and five years of age], because as Maria Montessori [an expert in children's education] established, this is the age when children's minds are like sponges.
"Take vocabulary, for instance. This is the age when children learn a large percentage of their vocabulary. Most children with special needs have speech problems.
"A child needs interaction, he needs to hear things and much is learnt from his peers at this age. He needs role models and others he can emulate," says R.B.
Whose turf is this anyway?
"Why do we have to give challenged people space in 'our' world, welcome them into 'our' environment and feel so good about it, when this is as much their world as ours?" retorts Husaini.
"It's very hypocritical. First we marginalise them and now we want them to enter 'our' system? Why can't we go into theirs? Accepting them in their system and co-existing with them in their situations while the best is provided for us is true acceptance.
"In my opinion, it is not a question of reverse integration. It is simply including all children into our programme as long as we can cater to their needs. Our experience so far shows that the typically developing students are showing progress in all areas of development.
So what is the controversy all about?" she would like to know.
Going beyond the controversy
While the debate continues, a very important aspect has not been touched upon so far. How exactly does a child with special needs benefit in such an environment?
Says Rubina Anis, educational therapist at Zulekha Hospital, Sharjah, "The most damaging fallout of not mainstreaming a child with special needs is a loss of self-confidence and the feeling of being left out.
"Mainstreaming a special child would be the ideal option in any situation, but where that option does not exist, this programme would be a great opportunity for them to interact with normally developing children in their daily lives."
Through this interaction, says Anis, children with special needs enjoy having role models from a very young age.
"It is very important, however, that such a programme should have highly trained staff who would be able to give individualised attention to each child - regardless of his/her mental capabilities.
"With programmes like IEP, where each child, including normally developing ones, can learn at his/her own pace, such an interactive programme would not only be viable, but be beneficial to both groups of children, as long as the mainstream child is not held back," she says.
Ask the parents who have reason to smile
"Pranav is spastic. It does him a world of good to see how normal children function because they set a benchmark for him," says Deepa Vijay, mother of a special needs child at the Early Intervention Programme at Manzil.
"Most children with special needs try to imbibe the mannerisms of each other. So children who are articulate and respond faster to instructions [from teachers] are a great boost for these kids,? she says.
"We want to send our children to mainstream schools, but it is not always possible. Often, parents object to having special needs children [in mainstream classrooms] because they are afraid their children might pick up certain mannerisms from them ...
"Also, mainstream schools are sometimes not equipped to give specialised care for our kids. At Manzil, we have the combination of both, specialised care and interaction with the normal world, which is the best of both worlds," says Vijay.
She firmly believes that interacting with typically developing children is vital for children with special needs.
Typically developing children do so many simple things we take for granted, like listening to someone who is speaking to them or going to the bathroom when he wants to or not screaming and shouting for no apparent reason. A child with special needs would have to be trained continuously to master these simple tasks.
"This constant association with mainstream children of their same age is something we hope would benefit our children," says Vimal Balachandar, mother of Dhruv, another child with special needs who is also at Manzil.
Teachers at the Early Intervention Programme agree with Balachandar. "The typically developing children respond better to instructions and serve as great examples to the others.
"We even realised that in some situations, children with special needs actually respond to children their own age better than they do to adults. So, it is definitely more beneficial to them we would say," says Lieta Cordoz.
***
While the controversy takes it course, the five children with special needs and the two typically developing children continue to coexist in absolute harmony that is punctuated with peals of laughter, fun and picking up cues from each other.
As their class teacher Lieta says, they behave and feel like they are "just [like] other children".
Just as both Jordan and Mahek (another typically growing child at Manzil) will grow up and go through life as well as most normal individuals do, the children with special needs too will grow up and go through life in a way that their unique situation allows them to.
But no matter where Jordan and Mahek go, the world is circular and one day they may walk into a room and meet Dhruv and Ateeb.
And instead of seeing the differences between them, they would know to go beyond them and appreciate the different pace at which each of them lives their life.
There is place, and pace, in this world for all of us and we can learn to respect and acknowledge that.
Perhaps that is what people like Dr Robyn McLeary-Hooper, Ayesha Husaini, Deepa Vijay and Vimal Balachandar are trying to convey to the world - the earlier we learn to go beyond our differences the better the world will be for it.
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