Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-26-Speech-3-418"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070926.25.3-418"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Madam President, there are millions, literally millions, of children who are not considered disabled but who struggle with a significant and disabling condition in the area of learning, movement and communication.
Our education system in Europe tends to be competitive and rigid. The authorities seem to think this is creating a class of educated, skilled citizens, but this inflexibility – a one-size-fits-all approach – is destroying the potential of countless young people. This is not good enough and creates social exclusion which can lead many children to become disillusioned and even, in some cases, angry adults. In Ireland, 76% of the prisoners in Mountjoy Prison have a history of school failure and what are probably undiagnosed learning difficulties.
To ignore these children and adults is clearly discrimination. I am very proud of this Parliament in the support it has shown for the written declaration, but have one word of caution. The UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child states that every child is entitled to primary education, but special-needs children are only entitled to the help they need according to resources. Before we ratify this Convention and introduce it into our strategies, we must examine it very closely. Otherwise we will bring this fault into our own policies.
Although the number of children diagnosed with dyslexia, dysphasia, dyscalculation, dyspraxia and similar specific disorders is increasingly dramatically – dyslexia alone is estimated to affect 10% of children in the US – many, if not the majority, of children affected in Europe still remain undiagnosed and therefore largely unhelped.
Often, when parents express concern they are ignored or told to stop imagining things. Often, children – even gifted children – are written off as intellectually weak or clumsy by well-meaning teachers and education authorities because they do not have the expertise to tell the difference.
Ignoring these conditions does not make them go away. They just become more problematic for the child, who gets increasingly discouraged and frustrated. The children’s self-image can suffer serious damage and their potential can be squandered.
We have formulated this question and the written declaration to emphasise the enormity of the problem for children with a specific difficulty, for their family and for the community, and to ask the Commission, Parliament and Council to take these children seriously in research programmes, initiatives, guidelines and strategies.
We need to learn more about these ‘dys’ conditions, how to identify them as early as possible, how to intervene effectively. We also need to learn why a child’s developing brain is affected in these ways and how to prevent these ‘dys’abilities where that is possible. We also need to ensure that no-one is considered less important or less valuable because of these conditions.
I would suggest to the Commissioner that many adults also struggle with these specific learning or coordination difficulties but have no name for their condition or real knowledge of it. Many have come up with elaborate compensatory techniques to get by. I collected signatures this summer for a citizens’ petition supporting persons with disabilities and was amazed at how many adults struggle to even write their names.
People suffer in silence with their gifts and talents hidden even from themselves by these hidden disabilities. What is the price society pays? People quitting education and working below their ability because of a problem in one area of learning. An educational psychologist told me that the tragedy of these children is that many of them would have done very well at university, where they could have worked to their strengths, but failed to get the opportunity as they cannot get through secondary school because the more general nature of the curriculum means that their particular difficulty becomes an insurmountable obstacle to the standard assessment system.
I know one young man who has a specific learning difficulty. He failed primary and secondary school and had to leave the school system without a certificate but, on the basis of an aptitude test and the recommendation of teachers, he did get into a small college. Two years later he has proved to be exceptionally gifted in the study of philosophy and has become a popular student leader."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples