Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 476: To ask the Minister for Education and Science his policy in regard to the provision of ABA education for children with autism. [16720/09]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department's policy on educating children with autism is an inclusive policy of all autism specific interventions including TEACCH, PECs and Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) to ensure that each child can draw down from a number of different approaches to ensure the optimum individualised educational programme for him/her. It draws on the strengths of teachers who are trained in educating and developing children generally and who are given additional training in autism-specific approaches. It ensures that children with autism have the best opportunity to be either partially or fully integrated into mainstream settings and be educated in the community along with their siblings, while at the same time offering autism-specific individual programmes and supports for each child. Educational intervention for children with ASD needs to be child-centred and individual – tailored to meet the needs of each child – rather than matching the needs of a child to one particular version of one intervention.