Imagine if you saw your young child staring at a boy at the shopping mall in a wheel chair or if she came back home asking questions and making odd remarks about the child with autism in her class. How will you correct her and explain the right behaviour to her? Here are three things that I believe will work. 1) Tell your child that there are no two people that are the same in this world. That just like different people have different skin colour, different hair styles and different names, we are all unique and different, and that some children catch colds easily, others don’t and some people can’t use their legs properly, while others need glasses for their eyes. It is just one of the many ways that we are all different. 2) Use characters in books, movies or TV they can relate to – for example the child with a learning disability in Sesame Street, or the dyslexic child in the movie “Like Stars on the Earth”. Show them that people with disabilities are just normal people who need your love and attention, who want someone to say hello to them like everyone else. 3) Ask them how they would feel if someone stared at them and made odd remarks about them – use this as an opportunity to teach them the golden rule: treat others as you will like to be treated, and treat them even better than they may treat you.
Why CLC?
Inclusive Education
At CLIS, we recognize that every child is unique and different and that children learn at a different pace. Our approach to education is inclusive. Firstly, we work with all our children in small class sizes and are able to determine the appropriate pace at which each child learns as we challenge and stretch them to learn. Our teachers are careful not to emphasize differences in cognitive ability in ways that may affect the children negatively. Also, our inclusive Autism Education Programme is foremost in Abuja and perhaps Nigeria, as our children on the Autism Spectrum are able to interact and learn with children in the traditional classrooms in a manner that exposes all the children to the reality of diversity and supports the cognitive, social and language skills of all our children.
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