Posted on 24/9/2018

Inclusive Education in Russia

The Fondation Dora will support the International Catholic Child Bureau http://www.bice.org to establish an inclusive educational program in Russia centred on granting effective access to quality education for children with mental handicaps. The local partner responsible for the program is the Centre for Curative Pedagogics http://www.ccp.org.ru/.

This pilot programme will have three focus areas:

• Development of support methods that work toward education adapted to the needs of children with intellectual disabilities
• Skills training for the professionals and parents involved in the education of children with intellectual disabilities
•  Pre-school preparatory work for children with intellectual disabilities as well as for their parents

The program uses the Makaton communication method adapted for Russian. Makaton is a Programme for Communication and Language Help comprised of a functional vocabulary combining speech, signs, and pictograms, and its use responds to the needs of children with disabilities and language difficulties. Significant work was done with Russian sign language specialists to adapt the hand gestures of this sign language to the Makaton pictograms, while also simplifying them for use with children.

Here is an example of the combination of a pictogram with a sign for “cat”: 

The focus area on school preparation enables the children to be emotionally involved and motivated to go to school. The parents receive both psychological and legal support and are assisted in the selection of a school for their child.

The professional team includes a psychologist, a specialised educator, a psycho-motor therapist, an art therapist, a speech language pathologist, a neuropsychologist, and a specialist in sensory integration.

At least 40 children will benefit from this pilot programme.