Professor Sue Buckley:

Yes, but one of the arguments we have put to the UK Government, which overlaps with the Senator's question on special education, is that we do not at present know where children with Down's syndrome are going because they are not listed on the census document. We argue that, as a starting point for research, we know where they are and whether they are in mainstream or special needs education. They are particularly hidden in mainstream education. There is no obvious way of finding them. We cannot even start research unless we know where to find them.

In regard to the Senator's comments on mainstreaming, people would argue that the academic gains occur because typically the teaching for numeracy and literacy is more structured. A review paper recently published by a Dutch researcher examined this issue across children with Down's syndrome in various settings. The better academic outcomes occur largely because the contrast with special education classrooms is significant. The drift towards inclusion for everybody creates a tendency in special education classes towards children who are even more disabled. I did not tell the committee that I have a 44 year old daughter with Down's syndrome. When she was in school, everybody with Down's syndrome went to a school for severe learning difficulties. The population was much more able than it would be today. There can be a significant contrast between these environments both in terms of the intensity of opportunities to receive appropriate literacy instruction and because students are immersed in a more stimulating spoken language environment. Our results suggest it is due to a mixture of these factors. The way in which teachers speak to the students is very different in a small class of eight to ten very disabled children. The child-to-child conversation in such a classroom may be quite limited but the adult-to-child conversation would also be different. The entire spoken language environment and the pace of the curriculum are different. There are not many studies and none involves large numbers of children but the issues of better spoken language and better reading and writing emerge in all of them.

Socialisation is a slightly tricky issue.