There is still resistance to special education'

Updated on: Wednesday, February 09, 2011

For close to three decades Dr. Jayanthi Narayan has been an embodiment of the country's efforts to reach out to the special children, those with learning, intellectual disabilities and mental retardation.

She is one of the pioneering special education teachers instrumental in bringing greater awareness in the society about issues related to rehabilitating the special children which endeared her to scores of parents and teachers.

Resistance

“I have seen it all from few special programmes, not many accepted in regular schools to a more inclusive education where special children are admitted in regular schools with teachers taught on means to handle them. There is still resistance though,” she explains.

As the founder head of the Department of Special Education at the National Institute of Mentally Handicapped (NIMH), Dr. Narayan in a near two-decade career was involved in setting up a lab school, developing curricula for diploma, degree, post-graduate and later research besides handling cases and holding counselling sessions for parents plus helping draft policy decisions.

Role of parents

Early intervention and evaluation from zero to six can go a long way in handling children with mental and physical disabilities with parents playing a key role.

“While other disabilities can be identified quickly as a learning disorder like Dyslexia or those with specific disability, identifying the ‘borderline cases' (Intelligent Quotient of 70-90) is little complex. Teachers can be trained to handle such children more effectively,” she says.

Hailing from Coimbatore, she got interested in the subject of children's deviant development in her Home Science course before becoming the first registered diploma student in special education in Chennai. Later, she did her M.S. in child development and mental retardation in U.S as also a post-doctoral fellowship.

Evaluation

Dr. Narayan affirms that evaluation of auditory (hearing), motor (writing), sensory (understanding) functions help in tapping the existing potential of a disabled child. For instance, some can draw better than write and some can be adept with computer keyboards.

She quit NIMH as Deputy Director tired of “pushing files” and “losing contact with the children” to become a consultant to governments, international NGOs and developing countries like Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand in training teachers, staff and community based rehabilitation programmes.

She is also doing special screening pilot programme for disabled under the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP).

Honour

A proud moment for the Fulbright Fellow Scholar was when the Distinguished Educator Award was bestowed by her alma mater – State University of New York.

Dr. Narayan who finds happiness in “reaching out” to more disabled people, students and teachers remains as passionate as ever.

There is still resistance to special education'

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