Guyana’s special needs schools lack the capacity and basic knowledge of strategies to address autism.
And so the National Centre of Educational Resource Development (NCERD) yesterday hosted a one-day autism workshop targeting teachers from special needs schools and Ministry of Health Rehabilitation Assistants. NCERD partnered with the recently established Guyana Greenheart Autism Therapy Centre (GGTAC) in this exercise.

The workshop was facilitated by Dr. James Ellis, a Senior Director of Consultation Services with Melmark, New England, a non-profit, community based organization dedicated to serving children and adolescents within the autism spectrum disorders, with acquired brain injury, with neurological diseases and disorders, dual diagnosis, and severe challenging behaviors.
Ellis is affiliated to the GGTAC and the partnership with NCERD allowed for resource sharing on other platforms.
In an invited comment from Dr. Kala Ramnath, the force behind the Centre and mother of a five-year-old autistic boy, said that the workshop provided not only an overview of autism, but also common learning characteristics of children with autism.
The workshop also addressed the use of instruction-based principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), a methodology with the most research support of all instructional methods for children with autism.
Additionally, the interactive session focused on research done relative to autism; relationships and children with autism; and sign language, reading, writing and motor imitation.
“We hope that at the most these teachers can take back some knowledge to their classrooms.
According to her, special education needs teachers often fall “at the bottom of the pile” and do not always get the resources and training that , are needed.
Ramnath observed sustained programmes and interventions are key to ensuring long term effectiveness.
“We hope that, at the GGTAC, we can set up mechanisms to move response to autism forward,” she said.
Ms. Karen Hall, National Coordinator of Special Needs Education, agreed with the need to advance the response to autism in Guyana.
“The exposure to new training will help teachers to do rudimentary assessment so that red flags can be spotted earlier and interventions can be made,” she said.
Hall explained that Guyana, over the years, has not proven to be good with “hidden disabilities”.

“We need workshops like these that boost our capability to deal with autism,” Hall posited.
She stated that because NCERD has established a unit, the Special Education Needs Unit, it has a better platform from which to address education and disability.
“Now efforts are more focused,” Hall opined.
She added that the collaboration with the GGATC has been good and said the expertise of the facilitator, Ellis, was invaluable.
Speaking to Ellis, he pointed out that the workshop is a starting point for many of the participants and he noted that, hopefully, it sparks more interest in understanding autism.
He added that while the participants are knowledgeable about autism, the workshop is building on that existing resource to propel response.
“If we can keep the momentum going then we can make significant progress,” Ellis said.
One idea for advancement, the facilitator pointed out, is a pilot classroom.
Ellis explained that the classroom will more or less be establishing a programme of services for children with autism which can then be used as a model for other special schools or institutions that address special needs education.
“When you are trying to make change and introduce a new methodology or teaching specific to a child with autism, you have to start small. The pilot project will basically look at starting with one school with the resources that other schools can emulate,” he said.
Ellis said in Guyana the awareness is not where it should be, but noted that workshops and partnerships can change that.

In Guyana, like many other countries, autism is a novel concept among the majority of its people. But, for a handful of households who have had to deal with an autistic child, it is an integral part of everyday life.
Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others.
It is defined by a certain set of behaviors and is a “spectrum disorder” that affects individuals differently and to varying degrees. There is no known single cause of autism
Autism is also called Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD).
All these are characterised by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills, social interactions, and restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior.
For children with autism, specialist individual education, therapies and structured support can make a difference.
It is known that there are biological or neurological differences in the brain, but the nervous system has remarkable plasticity and one part can take over and compensate for malfunction in another part.
Early diagnosis and treatment programmes are crucial for the improvement and progress of a child with autism, and the general contention is that with assistance, autistic children are able to learn to maximize skill and achieve their full potential