EXPERT ON SPECIAL NEEDS RIVETS AUDIENCE AT ARMENIAN SYMPOSIUM

Source: World Vision Middle East/Eastern Europe office (MEERO)
Reuters, UK
June 6 2006

‘No matter what the severity of their disability’ every special
needs child has the right to develop to their maximum potential,
was the revolutionary message delivered by a Russian specialist to
a largely East European audience at the international symposium on
Child Protection organized by World Vision in Armenia last week.

The speech was inspiring for the 170 experts, educators, students,
directors of special needs schools and program staff presented in
cooperation with USAID and UNICEF, said Mary Ellen Chatwin, the MEER
child development and protection advisor.

‘For the officials and specialists at this conference, it was an
incredible message giving them the authority to be creative and
flexible, to think and act more humanely, coming from one of the best
references in the world,’ said Chatwin.

The address was by Nikolay N. Malofeev, a specialist in hearing and
speech disabilities. Malofeev is the Director of the Special Education
Research Institute,, Russian Academy of Education as well as Member
of the Council of Disabled Person’s Affairs under the supervision of
the President of the Russian Federation. He is a respected specialist
known in the US, said Chatwin.

Malofeev astonished everyone with a story of seeing Braille playing
cards in Switzerland, and asking why, said Chatwin. ‘We only help
kids who are blind to function, and never think of them as having
fun!’ he told the gathering.

‘The old Soviet approach was a variation on ‘arbeit macht frei’
(work brings freedom),’ said Chatwin, referring to a slogan above the
gates of the Auschwitz concentration camps during World War Two. ‘It
was all geared towards an individual’s possibility to contribute to
the society at large, especially economically.

‘The Soviet system didn’t want parents taking much time to deal with
children with disabilities. Lots of institutions kept children out
of the way and let the parents get back to work. The children were
taught ‘functional’ things like making baskets,’ she said. Malofeev
knew that system well, yet has moved ahead dramatically into modern
therapies. He told his audience to work for the child’s maximum level
of development and make children’s rights and the family the twin
cornerstones of all special needs programming.

Malofeev’s theories of total respect for children’s needs and rights
are new in Eastern Europe, and especially the former Soviet countries,
where the enduring Soviet era term of ‘defectology,’ is still used as
the name of the science of ‘special needs’, said Chatwin. He exhorted
his audience to modernize the educational approaches for children
with disabilities.

‘He was adamant about keeping children with their families and teaching
the parents techniques, training them as early as possible in ways
to create a good learning and development environment for a child
with special needs, Early detection and intervention of special need
is the key to Malofeev’s work”, said Chatwin. He is the editor of a
world-famous Russian journal, and pioneers special needs publications
on the Institute website.