Reply 1: No, general practitioners do not have adequate skills or training to identify or treat children or adults with learning problems. Their training does not include any techniques to assist those with problems. They do not recognise the importance of general nutrition, allergy detection and treatment and how the well being of the individual effects their learning skills. They do not believe these factors effect brain activity and functioning.

Reply 2: No, your normal G.P. does not have the expertise to deal with children with learning difficulties. Unless the G.P has an interest in the area of learning difficulties, they would find it difficult to identify the disability early enough, especially if the disability was physically identifiable.

Reply 3: No, a G.P. does not have adequate skills in identifying children with learning difficulties. I question the training process the G.P’s undertake. Is the area of learning difficulties in their training? It appears they must have an interest in the subject and undergo further training specifically in the areas of learning difficulties independently from their original course.

Reply 4: No, General Practitioners do not have adequate skills to identify and assist children with learning difficulties. First of all they aren’t trained to identify such learning difficulties. Secondly, G.P’s find it difficult to diagnose medical problems let alone medical problems. My experience with G.P’s over the past two years have proven to be unproductive. I am only told that my Son will grow out of his speech, language and behavioural problems.

Reply 5: In my experience, I have found that G.P’s do not have the time or do not take the time to look past obvious signs like infections. As far as problems concerning learning difficulties, the most a G.P will do is refer a child to an optometrist or an audiologist. There are so many children in our schools, both Primary and Secondary, that have either potential or actual learning difficulties that specialist care is desperately needed. G.P’s do not have the skills or the training or the time to adequately meet the needs of these children.

Reply 6: No G.P’s do not have the expertise to meet the needs of children with learning difficulties. From my experiences in the past, my youngest son showed unusual behaviours from the age of 6 months. I asked my G.P and I was told that my son would really hurt himself one day and never head butt the floor again. This was an unacceptable response. Prior to Kindy, I noticed that my son would not respond to people when being spoken to. The Paediatrician determined it was selective hearing. As is apparent even this so called specialist had no idea what the problem was.

Reply 7: No. I believe that most are well intentioned but lack the most up-to-date knowledge in this area. I also think they are reticent to suggest or discuss alternatives to conventional intervention. With my child we used conventional speech and physiothreapy and attended early intervention programs since he was six months old. Now we use a low allergy diet (wheat, gluten, dairy and junk free), homeopathics, SAMONAS Sound Thearpy, Neurofeedback / EEG biofeedback, the Bowen technique, craniosacral massage, gymnastics and swimming. I has only been since we combined all of these did we have any level of success in helping our son to progress. For instance, after two and a half years early intervention, speech and physical therapies our child could not say more than five words or even confidently stand on a child’s stool. In the six months since starting alternative (non-conventional) therapies in combination with conventional ones, he now has over 30 words, recognises colours and shapes, jumps from a height and is interacting with other children and is able to better initiate play etc.

My point is that all of this occurred through our own research and word-of-mouth. None of it came from our GP. We now see a wholistic GP who commented to me on our last visit: "nothing works in isolation- you have to explore and try everything and do therapies in unison to have any real impact on these types of children".

Reply 8: As a practising GP and a mother of two children with learning disabilities, it is my experience that GPs do not have adequate training and skills to identify and assist children with learning difficulties. There are very few , (and only those who have a special interest) who have studied outside the medical. Furthermore, GPs do not have the time because they are forced to work fast (because of low medicare rebates and increasing practice expenses) and are not able to spend the time needed to assess and manage these complex problems comprising many factors including diet and nutrition, auditory and visual processing (sensory integration), retained primitive reflexes, and the subtle effects of closed head injury to name but a few.

Reply 9: No, I don’t think doctors have the training to diagnose these problems. My own GP could see there was something wrong but had no idea how to help.

Reply 10: No! They are not educators. They do not work with children and deal with emotions, behaviour and learning or even spend time with them to understand their learning.

Reply 1: From my experiences, G.P’s are not really concerned with learning difficulties and dismiss it as a school problem to be fixed once the child attends school. Their attitude seems to be that he/she will catch up and grow out of their problems- which of course, they never do.

Reply 2: No, children with learning difficulties are not considered important in health issues. Their problems are unseen and often considered to be non-existent or over exaggerated by parents.

Reply 3: G.P’s, when pressured to, make referrals to an ear and eye specialist, speech therapist, occupational therapist etc. There is often a six to twelve month waiting list for an appointment. This is not satisfactory and these children need much more than the conventional treatments.

Reply 4: No, as far as I am concerned, I have wasted 3 years of my son’s schooling. I have done my own research and made my own enquiries into helping my son with his learning difficulties and all through "unconventional therapies".

Reply 5: I feel that most are probably not aware of what services are available and if they are aware of them, the parents are sceptical that these methods don’t work because they are shunned by the medical profession.

Reply 6: No, they probably do not know what services are available and what the latest information is in treating these children.

Reply 7: Some do- but they do it poorly and in a haphazard, off the cuff manner. When our GP diagnosed my son with mild asthma, she gave us a script for Ventolin and Intal Forte medications. She didn’t discuss the role of diet or that homeopathics could improve his health and reduce the occurrences of his asthma. Now- on a low allergy diet and with homeopathics, my son’s reliance on Ventalin is down to about 3-4 times per year rather than every day.

We were well informed from the time of his birth that our son would probably have learning issues. But there are many families out there who have no idea and a GP would be the first place they would go. As GPs are in this critical position, they need to be up to date and honestly inform parents of all the options available and do so in a non-judgemental way.

A system of disseminationg information needs to exist as GPs work across many areas- aged care, family planning, men and women’s health, baby, child and adolescent health. So yes, they do play a role, but they need assistance to do it well and to do it wholistically. For instance, each Area Health Service needs a regularly up-dated list of professionals in that area who offer speech therapy (with listed areas of specialty eg stroke, stutter, dyspraxia), physiotherapy, occupational therapy, homeopathy, neurofeedback, sound therapy, craniosacral/Bowen therapy etc. Parents will then at least be presented with all the options and alternatives for helping their child reach their capacity.

Reply 8: While GP’s have an important role in identifying children with learning difficulties and are in an ideal position to refer them to the appropriate services, they rarely do so. This is because they are largely unaware of the existence of these services or because of the lack of appropriate services in certain geographical areas. For example, in Western Sydney there are only a handful of child psychiatrists in private practice and only a couple of developmental paediatricians. While there are a couple of developmental paediatricians at the New Children’s Hospital, most paediatricians lack the expertise to accurately diagnose learning difficulties. There is far too much emphasis on ADD/ADHD and medication. "Unconventional therapies" are dismissed within the medical profession as being time-consuming and frustrating for parents. Assessment of visual processing and auditory processing and the subtle effects of closed head injuries are neglected. While most GPs have heard of ADD, not many have ever heard of Irlen Syndrome, central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) or neurofeedback as an effective, non-invasive and drug-free alternative to medication for ADHD. I am in the process of investigating such "unconventional therapies" because I did not believe that medication could offer any real help.

Reply 9: GPs seem to have no understanding of what to do when presented with a child that has no obvious medical problem yet can’t seem to be able to function normally. They usually dismiss the problem and end up telling the parents not to worry.

Reply 10: No, as their assessment is by listening to educators and parents. They are

not aware of all services provided, only the conventional ones that will only serve a small percentage of the child’s real needs. They need to look beyond these services and into services that will really help, for example exercises to help the brain to process both hemispheres – brain gym, primitive reflexes. As a school teacher (Year 4, 10 years of age) and as a mother, general practitioners only guess and send you off to this service and then to another. The children get older and older and they still fail. The medical and traditional education systems have no real answers for any of these children.

Reply 1: This could be very helpful only if adequate facilities and training are available to check newborns for potential problems.

Reply 2: Yes and a register would be a good idea so information relevant to the area of disabilities, eg. services could be distributed to these families.

Reply 1: Centres, which are easily available, and adequately resourced are essential. Staff members who are trained in the areas of disabilities and learning difficulties would be of great assistance to families.

Reply 2: Early Childhood services should be more productive and easily accessible so new parents can talk to qualified and experienced staff members. Regular information on the ‘normal’ development progression of children including the relevant signs to look for, the dangers of immunisation etc. needs to be made available.

Reply1: Yes, nurses would benefit from having additional qualifications in relation to the children with learning disabilities and also to know where to refer to apart from conventional avenues.

Reply 2: Yes, but these qualifications need to include nutrition information, neurological functions and other relevant areas. They need to look at all areas of the ‘general well-being’ and be willing to receive advice from other health professionals.

Reply 3: This question strikes me as absurd! Of course, they need to have relevant qualifications and be regularly in-serviced.

Reply 1: Knowledge of what to ask. Relevant documentation, surveys, development checklists, concerns.

Reply 2: Nurses do need training in knowing the right type of questions to ask and be actually able to give informed feedback and offer ‘help’. At present this is not the case, simply because facilities are understaffed and nurses are not supported sufficiently in the health system.

Reply 3: "Skilfully elicit"? Are you serious? This isn’t ASIO- this is just caring about those in your care. If nurses and medical professionals approached families with genuine interest and concern- rather than judgement, then the need to learn some tricky ways of getting a response would be unnecessary. For instance, questions such as "Are you concerned about your child’s speech development?" "What are your concerns about your child’s fine motor development, have you tried…., are you doing….?" would not be considered "skilfully eliciting". It’s about working with parents, not about making them feel it’s their fault for their child’s lack of development, and for professionals to have an open mind to all the different forms of therapy available to these children.

Reply 1: Health nurses who deliver home visiting services firstly need to display empathy and sensitivity which cannot happen if they are unaware, untrained and lack up to date knowledge about learning difficulties.

Reply 2: Additional time for visits, greater staff numbers, better training are required. Nurses at present are ‘over worked’, ‘over stressed’, ‘ underpaid, under trained and often faced with filling the gaps in the health system with limited resources and time. It’s impossible to support families adequately.

Reply 1: Schools should not only be encouraged but should place a greater emphasis on formal transition to school programs. The program would assist in really knowing a child before they start Kinder and the concerns of the parents. Pre-school services should also inform the classroom teacher about every child, not just with ones who have learning difficulties. A lot of the time students in Kinder are not diagnosed as having learning difficulties until half way through the year, unless they are physically or mentally handicapped or have other obvious disabilities. The subtle deficits are rarely diagnosed early because they do not know what to look for. Pre-schools should voice any concerns before the child starts. The teacher should then observe the child in the pre-school setting on a number of occasions.

Reply 1: The Kindergarten program does include a greater emphasis on formal learning and thus a greater failure rate, earlier in school life. There is a trend to send students to school later, starting them when they are 6 or nearly 6. Students are seen as older and are bored and have many behavioural and emotional problems. Parents want them to read and write quickly and ask at the end of Term 1 why aren’t they reading? There isn’t any time for the student to have the transition to school which should be enjoyable and secure. Parents and teachers want their child/student to come out of Kinder on a high reading level (e.g. Level 19) and the students are pushed to get to that level even if it means they miss out on some basic skills for later learning.

Reply 1: Younger children in Kindergarten are expected to follow the same curriculum as the older children. No attention is paid to individual readiness to start school. It’s all about budgeting and funding and teacher/student ratio.

Reply 1: Of course K-Y2 Teachers need specific training in the developmental domains in early childhood. They need to be able to provide suitable learning activities for each child at their developmental level. This obviously has to be taught during their training. Opportunities must also be available for a review and update of literature and practices after their university course.

Reply 2: Absolutely! As a teacher myself I feel we don’t ever really know enough. The occasional in-service is not enough. It should be part of our training, possibly as a separate subject. This issue is too important to leave out of our training. We also need continuing education which the department does not want to pay for.

Reply 3: Definitely Yes. Upon discussion with my son’s teacher, I have learnt that she is unaware of different therapy techniques eg. diet, sound therapy and neurofeedback etc., which could assist my child with his learning and is therefore unsupportive, even though she is not able to help him.

Reply 4: Yes, I would have thought this is obvious. University courses need to include these issues and only trained teachers should teach in these areas. Teachers need to be trained in specific areas and teach these subjects and not be replaced by unqualified staff simply because there is noboby else to take that grade.

Reply 5: All teachers need intensive in-service training so that if a child in their class has learning difficulties they can identify it. Otherwise it takes several years before it is identified and suitably corrected with alternative therapies. This constantly happens in our school.

Reply 6: As a teacher, I feel my initial university course did nothing to prepare me for teaching. I learnt on the "job" by watching other teachers. Now I can see that the inability to cater for individual children’s needs is a result of a number of things. The first is the lack of knowledge that teachers have about the different developmental stages children go through and their capabilities during this stage. Quite often work is set too hard for the children and too high of an expectation is placed on them, so the children fail. The second thing is that university courses are outdated and often taught by people who have not been in a class for a number of years. The lecturers themselves lose sight of what children need and the appropriate developmental levels. Thirdly, teachers are pressured into conforming to programmes, which are already written for them and are the same across the grade. Individuality is not encouraged. How can this cater for the individual development of the child? Fourthly, in-service training only touches the surface. There are first year casual teachers who are employed as STLD Teachers who know very little about learning difficulties, while permanent teachers with years of experiences are not encouraged to be STLD teachers unless they go and complete another degree in Learning Difficulties. This course however, is, as I found it totally irrelevant, out dated and non-specific. It did not make me a better teacher of these children because it was nothing new, merely the regurgitation of the same old stuff and therefore a waste of time and money.

Reply 7: As a parent, I am astonished that Questions 36, 37 and 44 have even been asked! I was under the impression that this was already happening. No wonder we have children who end up in Year 6 and beyond almost totally illiterate! The first three years of school are fundamental in a child’s development. Teachers need to be trained in developmental stages of maturation and at the very least be able to recognise the early warning signs that all is not well. Particular emphasis should be placed on language and fine motor skills and referral needs to take place sooner rather than later.

Reply 8: Yes. Teachers need to be more aware of children’s needs and capabilities. Not only do they need training but they need smaller class sizes to account for many levels of learning and abilities. Training needs to be in the area of development, of Quality Teaching and Learning, of assessment, of acknowledging services that are of benefit to the students. They need to know and be trained in how to access the wide range of services we have, what support is available to teachers, parents and the children themselves. Not only do K-Y2 teachers need to be trained, but all primary teachers as teachers move around and go down to teach K-2.

Reply 1: Of course in-service courses are important but all teachers must have access to them. Not just a special few who give feedback to the school since we all take away from in-services different information relevant to us. Funds are necessary for this to occur.

Reply 2: All teachers need training. There can be specifically trained ‘special needs’ teachers to provide some assistance and co-ordination of classroom programs. However, all teachers need to know how to teach children with learning difficulties. They need intensive in-service training. Appropriate training based on the latest knowledge would help to target and assist children with special learning needs.

Reply 3: All teachers need intensive training so that if a child in their class has learning difficulties, they can identify it. Otherwise it usually takes several years for identification to occur- time which is so precious for these children.

Reply 4: All K-Y6 Teachers must be in serviced regularly regarding children with learning difficulties, as they have to be able to identify these children in their class and also be able to help these children. The department must provide more specialist care from trained professionals in the field of learning to assist teachers. Children with learning difficulties cannot continue to slip through the system. They either become troublemakers in class or sit quietly going un-noticed. Teachers must be in serviced in identifying subtle or less obvious signs of learning difficulties. Smaller grouping should be available for these children (no more than 20 in any primary class). Such assistance should be targeted at all students from K-12 but a concentration of resources in the infants department would be a great way of intervening early in the schooling years. As a high school teacher, I am faced with children in Year 9 and Year 10 that have difficulties with reading and comprehending. I am left to ask how the child is going to learn in any subject area if they have not obtained the basics of learning.

Reply 5: Another absurd question. Of course they do! Regular in-servicing for school based teachers in a way that is real and school specific and not theoretical platitudes. For instance, the "new" face of teaching is easily seen in the "Building the Future Project" currently underway in Sydney. This massive funding initiative came about because teachers were so angry and fed up with what the Department was not doing (these findings were never made public, because the feedback was a damming indictment of the Department). Regular speakers to schools need to include speech therapists, consultant psychologists, sound therapists, Bowen and craniosacral practitioners, neurofeedback clinicians, someone talking about the latest research in ADHD and away from the medical model so that teachers are informed about alternatives.

All teachers need regular in-service training and depending on the school, those teachers who will be teaching children with learning disabilities need additional information and training to help them. You can’t have an "all" or "some" approach- all teachers need to have a monumental update of their knowledge and attitude towards kids with learning difficulties.

Reply 1: This would certainly be helpful. No more than 20 would be acceptable as well as better trained, specialised teachers to work with those who need individual attention.

Reply 2: Yes and class sizes should not be more than 20 students. How can a teacher properly cater for 32 children who are in the correct class for their chronological age but not their developmental age? You end up with 10 children who are working at a Kindergarten level, 15 working at a Year one level and 5 working at a Year two level when in reality they are all in Year One. It is impossible to really cater for all the children and their needs when the class is so large and so diverse.

Reply 3: Given the research that is already available, this is a redundant question. All the research indicates that all children benefit from smaller class sizes. Maybe I’m cynical, but until we offer real money for people to be educators of our nation’s future and inject huge funds into education, these small classes will never happen and education departments will do their best to bury any discussion on it. Classes should have no more than 20 children.

Reply 1: The student outcomes need to be made clearer to allow for easier understanding by parents. The way they are currently written is unclear and misleading. Why can’t the outcomes be more developmentally appropriate and allow the parents to understand the outcomes? Why all the "waffle" and jargon? The outcomes should be less wordy so that parents and teachers can help the child. Parents will do anything to help their children if they understand the reason for it.

Reply 2: Recognition by this committee and acknowledgment by the Department of Education that a "one-size-fits-all" approach and "band-aid" programmes and measures cannot cater to the needs of children with learning difficulties since each child is an individual who presents with unique and diverse needs. Establishing multidisciplinary centres staffed with appropriately qualified professionals from diverse fields would allow for better outcomes for learning disabled children. When communication and empathy between parents, school and other health professionals improve, there will be no need to "skilfully elicit" information from parents.

Reply 3: Improving student outcomes will only occur if schools are willing to admit that they are not the sole custodians of knowledge in the area of learning disabilities or learning for that matter. Honesty and an open mindedness on the part of principals, counsellors and teachers is required if they are look "outside the square" of their current practices and be prepared to be guided by the latest research in order to meet individual learning needs..

Reply 1: Reading Recovery will not help children with learning problems until the underlying problems are fixed. My son showed little improvement with one and a half years of schooling until he started with "unconventional therapies" and now the results are amazing.

Reply 2: Fixing the problem before Reading Recovery becomes necessary will obviate the need to employ more Reading Recovery teachers.

Reply 3: Reading Recovery is great for students who have had initial assistance in their developmental delays such as the use of unconventional therapies. What is the point of increasing the availability of Reading Recovery if it isn’t that effective? Students come off Reading Recovery and are in the middle range of their class. In year 2 they ease along with their reading, but by the time they are in Year 4 they have slipped back, they are the strugglers, the very ones who did Reading Recovery and they continue to fall behind as the years go by.

Reply 4: Reading Recovery was a simplistic attempt at fixing the problems of the learning disabled- all it has managed to do is help those who are teacher disabled (ie. the ones who were not taught properly in the first place). Learning disabled children continue to struggle with reading and are the ones who do not come off the program when they are supposed to. It was in my opinion (and from talking to other parents) a huge waste of money and will continue to be so. Isn’t is time the Department cut its losses and moved onto something more appropriate an beneficial?

Reply 1: Of course. It is failing at least 30% of children. They end up feeling even more defeated because they could not make it through a remedial program and have to continue with it long after others have finished.

Reply 2: Yes it should have people trained in complementary therapy to deal with children before Reading Recovery is introduced otherwise it is a waste of time and money.

Reply 3: STLD assistance for reading recovery is an obvious move in the right direction. However, it does not meet the needs of nearly enough children in our schools. My daughter was not allowed in the STLD group at her school because she had made some improvement between Year 1 and Year 2 with her sounds. Yes, improvement was made however, it was made most definitely by me working with my daughter at home (as admitted by the STLD teacher at the school) NOT by anything that was done at the school in the classroom. This minimal improvement came with a lot of time from myself and my daughter and $700 for a special "Sound way" program that was purchased by myself. The school would have loved a copy but the school couldn’t afford it. The amount of work, which we put in, actually disadvantaged her because her small improvements made her ineligible for STLD assistance. Far more resources must be made available for STLD in schools. It is acceptable to assist children with learning difficulties who show behavioural problems, but what about the children who just sit quietly and have difficulty with their schoolwork. They are not disruptive, so their learning difficulties are left unchecked. This is discrimination at its best!

Reply 4: Reading Recovery could be modified to better able support children with specific reading difficulties, but they need more than this simplistic approach. There is no point in remedial work/teaching until the processing part of the brain can be trained to process the concepts required in order to learn successfully! And there are many "non-conventional" therapies that were submitted to this committee that do just that very effectively. Unfortunately, the committee simply dismissed them. What a shame!

Reply 1: Of course we need more support teachers in our schools. There are too many children with learning difficulties that are not getting the care they need. I know that there are many teachers out there with families of their own, who like to work part-time to work with these children. They are very dedicated who would be happy to be trained in learning support but the Department does not like to give them permanent part time work and suggest casual work instead. The Dept. should use all of their resources.

Reply 2: Why couldn’t university students ie. Trainee teachers be employed by the Education Dept to work as STLD Teachers as a type of traineeship or apprenticeship plan? They would only have to be responsible for a small group of children at anyone given time. This would be a good introduction to Education, provide a monetary incentive and also educate the future teachers in the process.

Reply 1: Assumptions made by teachers, doctors etc. that,

The child:

Reply 1: It is a given fact/known widely that children with learning difficulties are basically thrown into the deep end with little or no support. This must change. Schools should not have to lobby (fight) for funds every year. I know my child will need extensive language support, at least through primary, if not all his schooling. To think that every year, the school and us will have to fight for this, is overwhelming and completely demoralising. So yes, learning disability needs to be incorporated into funding criteria and offered in blocks of one, two, and three years depending upon the severity of the disability. It would be reassuring to know that these children will receive solid intervention for some time and not abandoned on the whim of a government. Furthermore, the operational definition of the term learning disability needs to be broad enough to encompass a range of disabilities which is more than the 2-5 % estimated by the government.

Reply 3: When I was searching for therapists to work with my child, I was told to by one organisation to simply apply for the disability pension even though no one could identify his disability. What a silly way to go! Is the government prepared to foot the bill endlessly for all children who end up on a disability pension? Wouldn’t it be better to put the money into early intervention programmes that work and help these children to become self sufficient adults instead of supporting programmes that clearly don’t work?. These children are not stupid- they simply learn in different ways- ways in which our education system have yet to become aware of. So incorporating a separate category for learning disabilities is necessary but the officers who are responsible for allocating funds also need to be trained. The infrastructure needs to be changed now.

Reply 4: Ongoing support not only needs to be for the students, but for the parents and teachers. The funding for students with learning disabilities is hard to get, but funding doesn’t have to increase and students will still be supported if we have:

Reply 1: After 7 years of conventional treatments from teachers, doctors and other medical specialists, my child still had learning difficulties. He could not read or spell and he had fine motor and gross motor difficulties. The problem was not solved and intelligence tests showed a child of average ability but he could not spell or read. ‘Unconventional’ treatments, as the Government would call them, have helped him significantly. The ‘medical profession’ has not introduced these unconventional methods; preferring to keep them from being accepted.

Reply 2: Yes my son is proof of the benefit on unconventional therapy. People have to be made aware of the complementary therapy available. The children are our future and they deserve every attempt at giving them a good quality of life and a better education.

Reply 3: As a parent of a child with learning difficulties, there is not a stone I will leave unturned, not a therapy I will discredit if it could help my child in any way. Where are the detractors of penicillin now? What happened to the detractors of organ transplants and IVF? It is the parent’s right to know every single service available to help their child be the best they can be. It is then their choice which path they take. We are well and truly ensconced in the realm of "less conventional therapies" and our child has had much greater development in the past six months than in the previous three and a half years of using solely "conventional methods". How can anyone question that? How can anyone detract from the fact that six months ago my child couldn’t even say "car" and can now say car and "lawnmower" amongst other words. The knowledge needs to be at least offered to parents- the existence of these therapies must be given. Then parents can investigate and research what they think is best for their child. After all, isn’t that what any parent wants?

It is a given with normal children that you help them be the best that they can be. Children with learning difficulties have that same right, so why deny them access to therapies that may help them achieve their best. I thought that was called discrimination.

Reply 4: Put very simply "non-conventional therapies" are the only ones that have been of any help. For God’s sake listen to what these people have to say. Above all else, look at the results and don’t just dismiss them. They have lots to offer.

Reply 5: In simple terms the Education System has failed my daughter and myself both as a parent and as a teacher. We have only seen results from non-conventional therapies, after initially wasting 4 years of my child’s life and learning with conventional services. Wake up, we need more access to non-conventional services!!

Reply 6: It is obvious that the committee has been swayed by the detractors if it can ask a question such as this! All I have to say is that if it weren’t for "unconventional" therapies, my son would still be medicated, and failing in all academic areas. Do any committee members have children with Learning Disabilities?

Reply 1: As a parent with 3 special needs children, I would appreciate knowing what is available now instead of finding out years down the track from other parents. Giving me a choice of therapies that I, as a parent, can choose. The worst thing as a parent, is finding out years later that early intervention is the key and could have been available for my children if only I had known.

Reply 2: There is such a long waiting list for public specialists such as speech therapists and hearing specialists. It is expensive for parents to send children to private specialists and health funds refuse to cover some therapies. Why couldn’t specialists be employed by the Education department or redirected from the other Health Departments into a cluster of schools instead of parents having to take their children outside of schools? Some children are not being picked up early enough and screened carefully enough for early intervention to occur. As a result, the child’s difficulties are picked up later on and the waiting list means that intervention is once again delayed. More conventional and "unconventional" specialists and easier access to them would be of a great advantage.

Reply 1: Speech pathologists are useful in helping with some learning difficulties but there should be other specialists with a wider understanding of different types of therapies employed by the Department of Education.

Reply 2: Yes. They should be easily accessed and provide support, and communication links to all parties involved. Not only conventional services but "non-conventional" services should be employed. Speech pathologists are not credited in educational subjects, therefore they find it difficult to respond to the child’s real needs.

Reply 1: Teachers and school counsellors must be trained and made aware of the different therapies available for children with learning difficulties. Awareness is a great asset to assisting these children. The complacency that currently exists is not healthy for our future generations. Many children who are classified as "learning disabled" are in fact "teaching disabled". Awareness and employing appropriately trained teachers are the first steps.

Reply 2: The counsellor’s role in the school system should be made clearer. Quite often, they are either not resourced adequately with knowledge or materials suitable for helping these children. Quite often, they complete tests, the results are filed and teachers are unaware of the outcome. The teacher knows there is a problem but cannot clearly diagnose the reason for it and the tests show average IQ. There are, in many cases, no follow-ups because the tests show the child is ok. However, the child is still not learning and is causing great grief to the teacher and parents. Counsellors are content to adhere to conventional therapies which simply aren’t enough for these children. They seem to be so closed minded and brainwashed by the medical model about "non-conventional therapies", that they actively discredit them and discourage parents from seeking help elsewhere.

Communication between parents, teachers, doctors and counsellors is essential, but unfortunately such communication is limited. I feel the overall opinion of the education system is that if the child is achieving good results, then he or she is ‘average’, so why do any more for the child? What about the child who could be achieving much better results if intervention was put in place and extra assistance was available?

Teachers need to have more knowledge of strategies to help children with learning difficulties and to have the courage to admit that what they are doing is not working.

The Education Department needs to have a more open mind towards so called ‘unconventional therapies’. As a parent of children with a learning difficulty, I am willing to explore any avenue to help them even if the Department actively sabotages my attempts to do so. The Education Department needs to wake up and open its eyes. Our children are the future.

Reply 3: Therapists need to go to the school or home, in the child’s environment to observe the child and provide support and practical strategies for parents and teachers. It would appear that the questions in this paper are designed to maintain the current system. This system needs a complete restructure and band aid programmes/remedies such as Reading Recovery or employing speech therapists is only the tip of the iceberg and will not cater to the individual needs of children with learning disabilities as no two children with these disabilities are alike. An interdisciplinary model needs to be adopted and unless major restructuring occurs this cannot happen.

Reply 4: Schools need to have more resources that "work". The current system clearly does not work and this Issues Paper only seems to suggest more of the same "old stuff" which has been tried and has failed for a large proportion of students with learning disabilities. The system is so closed minded and out of touch with new developments that it insists on doing the same old stuff but miraculously expects different results!

Reply 1: Are there any benefits or will this move turn out to be yet another disaster waiting to happen? Is this not another example of wasting public money especially when DOCS does not appear to be able to save the lives of children "at risk"? DOCS needs to "get its act together" first and be accountable for its mistakes without endangering any more children

Conclusion: The whole Issues Paper seems to be about just spending lots of money on existing therapies and making these services more available, believing that this strategy will solve the problem, - IT WILL NOT.

Many parents have in the past spent thousands of dollars on privately providing these conventional services over many years and they don’t work. The children are still illiterate and their self-esteem is destroyed because they believe they are ‘stupid’ and can’t learn. Alternative therapies that were presented were generally dismissed although large amounts of evidence that these therapies are successful was presented. The government needs to be prepared to engage these methods in the services provided or face litigation in the future from parents when their children can’t read after 12 or so years of public or private education.