Inclusive Education Program

What is the Inclusive Education and when it is applied

Inclusive Education is the required educational assistance to a child that faces special Learning Disabilities in all related fields of its development, especially the psychology, social development and education, including all educational levels, elementary until university.

 

Learning Disability is any difficulty a child faces in comprehending or use of the language, in realization of mathematical calculations, in remaining focused or even in coordinating the body movements.

 

Learning Disabilities are result of neurological variations in the structure and function of the brain. These variations is usually hereditary and affect the capability of the child to receive, store, process or communicate information.

 

In most cases, the Learning Disabilities are recognized when the child starts going to school at the age of 3.

 

According to the American Institute of Health, the 8 most common signs of Learning Disabilities are the below:

  1. Difficulty in reading and/or writing
  2. Difficulty in maths
  3. Difficulty in memorization
  4. Difficulty in focusing
  5. Difficulty in following instructions
  6. Luck of coordination
  7. Difficulty of managing time terminologies
  8. Difficulty in getting organized

Some children show milder symptoms of learning difficulties, such as:

  • Compulsive behavior
  • Attention destruction
  • Difficulty in expressing what the child thinks
  • Unstable school performance
  • Speech difficulty
  • Luck of understanding through hearing
  • Difficulty of handling new situations
  • Difficulty in understanding words or terminologies

SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAM

The Pancyprian Association for Rare Genetic Diseases, support of the European University of Cyprus (Department of Education Sciences) is initiating with a pilot Program for Evaluation Personalized Assistance for children with learning disabilities. It is well-known scientifically, that children with rare genetic diseases could develop learning disabilities in their life. In many occasions these difficulties are not tackled in time due to the multiple health problems that these children present, while often these problems need to be tackled with surgery. Taking the above into consideration and after investigating the needs of children with rare genetic diseases, the “Unique Smiles” Association is happy to announce the new program of the Evaluation and Personalized Assistance.

 

The goal of this program initially is to detect any learning or emotional difficulties that a child / teenager 3-15 years old with a rare genetic disease may have and then move forward to organize the intervention, in order to effectively deal with these difficulties. The intervention will be taking place both at the level of special education and at level of helping them with homework as well as for the inclusion of children and teenagers in a psychotherapeutic intervention. Every child / teenager will receive personalized assistance and will have his own personal intervention program which will be evaluated every six months.

 

Process of evaluation of children that might face learning difficulties:

  1. The parents have to fill in the below form, stating that they would like their child to be evaluated
  2. The form will be submitted to the academic officer, who will be responsible for arranging a meeting with the parents, in order to collect information about the child’s medical-educational background
  3. After the history is taken down the child’s evaluation meeting will be arranged
  4. The number of the evaluation meetings will be decided depending on the child, its disabilities, its personality and its cognitive focus
  5. At the end of the evaluation, a brief report will be prepared which on the one hand will describe the status of the child and on the other hand will include suggestions for improvement
  6. The report will be given to the parents and the parents will then be responsible to use it as they deem fit

The evaluation program is funded by the UEFA Foundation for Children and is offered for free to the members of the Association.

There will be a small charge for schoolwork support based on the families’ income criteria.

 

Annual membership subscription is 30 euros.

 

The scientific officer will organize a meeting between the parents, the school and any other interested parties, such as therapists, in order to create a program of a personalized assistance.

 

The scientific officer of this program is Dr. Anastasia Hadjiyiannakou, Lecturer at the European University of Cyprus.

 

More information at 22 318804, 99 219079, 8:00 a.m – 4:00 p.m.