Ms Teresa Griffin:

Deputy Jonathan O'Brien raised issues relating to deficits in resources and the monitoring of outcomes for children. The issue of the cap on psychological assessments was also raised and I understand the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, has a limit of two assessments for every 100 children in a school. Its approach tends to look at the whole school and put structures in place on that basis. I think NEPS assessments are limited as outlined but I will come back to the committee later if I am mistaken.

On the different services in mainstream schools and special schools, from an educational point of view, we allocate teaching and special needs assistant, SNA, resources to schools in line with pupil-teacher ratios that are set down for special classes, whether in mainstream schools or special schools. For example, the standard pupil-teacher ratio in a special class for children with autism is one teacher and two SNAs for every six children but this can increase depending on the children and many special classes have three SNAs. In other words, staffing of one teacher and two SNAs for every six children is the baseline and individual care needs are also taken into account.

It is difficult to measure deficits in the monitoring of outcomes for children because, as our policy advice has said, outcomes are not routinely measured. We recommend that where additional resources are applied outcomes must be measured because we would like such information. Through additional services implemented by the Health Service Executive, HSE, in conjunction with voluntary organisations like Atlantic Philanthropies in Limerick and an initiative in Tallaght, we have become aware that where services are put in place 18% of children that need early intervention speech and language therapy will be discharged from the service. In other words, the service that was put in place saved those children from multiple disadvantages later in life because the early acquisition of language is very important and children who do not acquire language early will be at a significant disadvantage when they start school.

The last time we examined the matter of waiting lists was in preparation of our policy advice paper last year. I think 23% of applications under the assessment of need process were met in the timeframe set down by the HSE, but perhaps the HSE witnesses here can confirm that. This led to significant delays in children accessing resource teaching hours. The impact on our services can be seen in the understandable frustration of parents who know they must have a disability diagnosed before additional teaching supports can be accessed. We allocate resources twice a year and huge frustration builds as deadlines for our assessment and allocation process approach. The frustration stems from the fact parents are on a waiting list and know if they miss the deadline they must wait another six months for the allocation of resource teachers.

The lack of therapeutic services in certain parts of the country sometimes means a recommendation for an SNA service is made where speech therapy is required but the resources are not available. When we turn down an SNA this also leads to frustration. If parents are unwilling to allow a child to leave a specialist setting when he or she is suitable for a mainstream setting because of a fear of losing therapy services we must open more special classes. This is counterproductive in terms of the inclusion setting and it affects our services.