«So my son was excluded»- breaking latest news

Riccardo, who will soon be 14, no longer goes to school. His «teacher» is his mother, who three years ago chose the «parental education» to avoid further suffering. «Due to complications during childbirth, my son had infantile cerebral palsy with severe consequences on an intellectual and motor level – recalls Silvia Caruso -. Already in the first years of lifewhen it was a continuous pilgrimage between hospitals in other cities, we learned to know social stigma and discrimination. Someone even told me: “It would have been better if he had died”. Thanks to the many therapies, Riccardo survived and, where the context has been favorable and has taken advantage of didactic continuity, it has made enormous progress».

Necessary supports for the right to study

Start the Primary School but the little one cannot count on the necessary supports and services to exercise his right to study, like other students. «I found that for school principals it was almost a given that the special education teacher changed every year and arrived months after classes started Silvia says. I had asked that my son enter the classroom, like everyone else, at the sound of the first bell and leave at the end of school hours, but I was accused of wanting to “park” him at school. “Furthermore, Sometimes they called me while I was at work30 kilometers away, because the child had to go to the toilet and there was no hygiene assistant (present only a few hours a day). When I started taking advantage of work permits (pursuant to law 104) I was demoted, and then I lost my job».

Rehabilitation during school hours

It’s not over. «For school andIt was “normal” for my son to leave the classroom for rehabilitation, missing lessons Silvia continues. I had to insist that they change the hours of physiotherapy and psychomotricity. After trying them all, thanks also to the support of Anffas, I did appeal to the Tar (winning it) to have a greater number of hours of specialized assistance at school, but the child has never been able to benefit from it because the co-presence of a support teacher and communication assistant “disturbed” the work of the other pupils. «The bad practices – underlines Caruso – they have left indelible marks as much as the disability, if not more».

Abandonment of “everyone’s school”

In fourth grade, for the first time Riccardo has a
’support teacher with specific training, pedagogist and, in the past, communication assistant. “It was the year my son had i greater scholastic progress and was able to relate better with the other classmates Silvia says. The following year came ainexperienced support teacher; my son, who has always been serene, had a very painful experience: in class he was silenced and marginalized, she was always crying at home, even at night». So Silvia decides that the time has come drop out of “everyone’s school”. “Although there is one cutting-edge legislationat least on paper, after legally fighting to have the hours needed for teaching support, I had to
dedicate myself to the education of my son for remedy the damage done by the lack of inclusion in school – he points out -. Today Riccardo has regained his serenity, he does theater, plays basketball in a wheelchair; we are working on his return to school, in first grade. “My son is age of the law ratifying the UN Convention

on the rights of persons with disabilities: I would like it to be considered simply a person, to be respected».

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