JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

T&T trailing on autism education

by

20140330

Trinidad and To­ba­go is at least "30 to 40 years" be­hind coun­tries such as the Unit­ed King­dom when it comes to ad­dress­ing the ed­u­ca­tion needs of per­sons af­fect­ed by autism.Some af­fect­ed per­sons, one ex­pert ar­gues, al­so need­less­ly oc­cu­py space at the St Ann's Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal.These con­clu­sions come from autism spe­cial­ist, Meghan Lee-Wa­ter­man, who is be­hind an up­com­ing sem­i­nar on autism aware­ness and the avail­abil­i­ty of "ben­e­fi­cial ther­a­pies" in T&T.

"In com­par­i­son to the UK, we are 30 to 40 years be­hind in our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem for spe­cial needs," Lee-Wa­ter­man told the Guardian."In the last decade or so there has been in­creased in­ter­est in de­vel­op­ing train­ing pro­grammes in spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion," she added, "but there is still a need for ex­pe­ri­enced and qual­i­fied teach­ers to run these pro­grammes."

On­ly last week, the US Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) re­leased sta­tis­tics show­ing that autism now af­fects one in 68 Amer­i­can chil­dren.Autism is de­fined by the ex­perts as a com­plex brain dis­or­der char­ac­terised by dif­fi­cul­ties in so­cial in­ter­ac­tion, ver­bal and non-ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and repet­i­tive be­hav­iours.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly," Wa­ter­man-Lee said, "we do not have any sta­tis­tics on the num­ber of per­sons with autism liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go." Knowl­edge of this, she said, was im­por­tant be­cause "the greater the pro­mo­tion of aware­ness, the greater the chance of ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion in terms of ed­u­ca­tion and ther­a­pies.""This con­di­tion not on­ly af­fects the in­di­vid­ual but al­so the fam­i­ly mem­bers as their lives will per­ma­nent­ly be af­fect­ed and changed," Wa­ter­man-Lee said.

"I sus­pect many cas­es of in­di­vid­u­als with autism have been grave­ly mis­di­ag­nosed over the years thus fill­ing up the psy­chi­atric ward in St Ann's," she added. "With bet­ter aware­ness comes the in­creased chance to help those di­ag­nosed and to strive to as­sist them to be­come as in­de­pen­dent as pos­si­ble."

"In a coun­try like Trinidad and To­ba­go," the autism ex­pert said, "there is a great need to pro­mote autism aware­ness as there is a vast lack of un­der­stand­ing about this neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tion which af­fects chil­dren of any and every eth­nic back­ground."World Autism Aware­ness Day is be­ing ob­served on Wednes­day.

MORE IN­FO:

Wa­ter­man-Lee says she hopes Sat­ur­day's sem­i­nar, en­ti­tled "The Miss­ing Puz­zle Piece", will as­sist in rais­ing aware­ness among a wide cross-sec­tion of pro­fes­sion­als and oth­er cit­i­zens on the is­sue of autism.It takes place from 8 a.m. at Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel in St Ann's and in­cludes pre­sen­ta­tions by spe­cial­ists such as Drs Jas­mine Roop­nar­ine and Prith Ba­hadurs­ingh, Anal­isa Wit­tet, Gean Marie Shep­pard, Donel­la Ro­driguez-Laird, Sir­lon George, Jeanne Sab­ga-Aboud and Stephanie Llanos.

�2 In­ter­est­ed per­sons can con­tact Lee-Wa­ter­man at 299-4297 or Ro­driguez-Laird at 678-1793.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored