The need to further support the special needs children has again been elevated to the front burner, just as an expert made a passionate appeal to governments at different levels to consider this critical segment in order to boost the moral of the future generation.
Speaking on a live radio programme over the weekend in Port Harcourt, Dr. Doris Ezunwa made the disclosure, stressing the need to also step up awareness about autistic children, with a view to mitigating the challenges associated with their care.
According to her, lack of education had been responsible for lack of adequate attention given to the special needs in the society. She expressed optimism that, given the right atmosphere and necessary education, special needs children can live a normal life and be properly integrated into the larger society.
She noted that giving care and therapy to the special needs, some of whom are autistic requires hardwork and resources. According to her, this remains the reason for governments at the federal, state and local levels to rise up to the challenge of giving priority attention to these set of children.
Dr. Doris equally advocated for the need to spread special need centers across the country to bridge the gap of inadequate care for the special group. In this vein, she canvassed for the establishment of such centers in the local communities in order to sufficiently address the issues associated with ignorance on the part of the society, especially those whose perception of the special needs were negative.
The expert also called for support for women with special needs children to help them cope with education of their children, while calling on professionals in the special needs management to encourage training and retraining of therapists and care givers in their centers.
She argued that establishing therapy centers up to the community level will help cover every one in need of such services. She reasoned that only this way that abilities in disabilities can be discovered.
She also saluted women professionals for being in the forefront of taking up the challenge to cater for the special needs. She called on women to stay focused on their goals, “because women are the future of the country,” urging them to spend more time with their children in order to build a strong family.
