Macquarie program gives children with disabilities a head-start
Seven year-old Will Curtis spent the first 16 months of his life in a Guatemalan orphanage, neglected and malnourished. Thanks to his dedicated parents and Macquarie University's STaR Program he has thrived since arriving in Australia.
Kathy Blanter and husband Jason Curtis adopted Will in 2000. Once in Australia Will was diagnosed with a mild global developmental delay.
"Will first walked at 27 months, was behind on all his gross and fine motor skills as well as language," explains Blanter. "He received physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy almost from day one. He started with the STaR Program when he was three years-old."
The STaR Program
The mission of the STaR Program is to provide evidence-based developmental/ educational programs for children with disabilities in inclusive early childhood services.
Will was in the pilot program and attended a child care centre incorporating STaR for nearly three years. At the centre he took part in the early reading and writing program, drawing, cutting and pasting and self-help activities.
"We always wondered whether Will would ever read, write and just do the 'normal' things other children picked up with little effort," says Blanter. "I remember arriving at the centre in Will's second year and his teacher said: 'Look what Will and Lili (his friend) can do'. She held up a sight word card and they both read MUM. It was such an emotional and wonderful moment. I still get teary when I think about it."
It was from this point, according to Blanter, that Will's reading skills built up and today that is his strongest skill at school: "I can trace his success and confidence now directly to those early steps he took with the help of the STaR Program.
"The wonderful thing about the STaR Program and its teachers is that they always took a holistic approach and while they were working on the academic side of things there was help, advice and practical support for things like feeding, toileting and social skills," explains Blanter. "For children with disabilities and developmental delays, these aspects are often as important as the academic work."
STaR success
Will has been given the opportunity for mainstream education thanks to the STaR program, and is now in first class at primary school. He learnt to read and write with the help of the STaR program and was able to start school with confidence and abilities similar to that of his peers.
"We think the STaR Program is fantastic and amazing and hate to think where Will and our family would be now without it," says Blanter. "It is really so unique and wonderful and children like Will thrive within such a program because it has the best of all worlds: the extra academic and self help support they need with the fun and social stimulus of a mainstream day care centre. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the STaR Program to any family with a child who has a disability or a developmental delay."
The STaR program grew from more than 10 years of research conducted by Macquarie University Special Education Centre's Early Years Program which demonstrated that inclusive early childhood education benefits children both with and without disabilities. The Centre remains a partner in the STaR program, which is now run at eight long day care centres across Sydney. For further information visit www.star.org.au