Education for all: Special needs assessment now on wheels

Institute president says they were inspired by mobile courts in Peshawar.

LAHORE:

The Rising Sun Institute for Special Children (RSISC) has set up a mobile assessment unit to identify children with special needs.

The unit will identify children with special needs, including physical, psychological, visual, hearing and clinical.

The institute already offers assessments for children at their facility in Defence.

RSISC Vice President Mahmood Ahmad told The Express Tribune, “We are aware that not everyone can make it to our institute to get their children checked.”



He said the institute had been looking for affordable ways to increase assessment outreach.

He said they were inspired by the mobile court in Peshawar.

“Now that justice can be delivered on wheels, we thought why not assessments for children who need them,” he said.

Ahmad said the institute was operative 25 districts where regular school teachers were trained in helping children with special needs.

He said training teachers helped them identify earning challenges being faced by some children.

He said the assessment bus aimed at helping teachers identify the nature of a child’s learning disability.



He said teachers trained by the institute bring children to the assessment camps set up by the institute where the mobile assessment unit determines the extent of a child’s learning disability.

He said the bus was fitted with solar panels as well as an on-board generator.

He said there was a small physical it area with a collapsible stretcher and a sound proof hearing assessment cabinet.

He said further into the unit, there was an area for vision and psychological testing. He said the services were free of charge.

He said the bus also had a large LCD screen and speakers facing the exterior of the bus.

Development and Communication Manager Ali Farooq said the aim was to engage children waiting for their turn to be assessed.

“You have to make assessments fun and engaging for children as they wait outside,” he said.

He said the unit had assessed around 200 children in Sheikhupura and Lahore since April.

Farooq said the larger issue was about spreading awareness of the problem.

“There are parents out there who have no concept of physical and mental challenges,” he said. “For them, the situation is frustrating because they do not know the exact nature of the problem their child was facing.”

Abdul Tawwab Khan and Perveen Tawwab, founders of the institute, said there was a need was to medically assess the challenges in children instead of labelling them incompetent.

“Children [with disabilities] are called stupid and often suffer humiliation at school and home,” Tawwab said.

Khan said it was important to document strengths and weaknesses of each child and help parents understand the challenge and address them accordingly.

“This can only be accomplished after a child has been assessed and his issues identified,” he said.

He said the bus, costing approximately Rs6 million, was donated to the institute by a multinational beverage company.

He said each bus visit had a team of seven to eight people.

He said the assessment specialists worked pro-bono.

Ahmad said the running costs could go up to Rs50,000 per visit.

He said the institute hoped to make more frequent rounds and reach out to greater areas with a long term goal of increasing the fleet of the mobile assessment unit.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2013.